Tag Archives: history

50th Anniversary Student Art Gallery

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New art exhibition alert! In honor of the Undergraduate Library’s 50th Anniversary, the UGL Art Gallery has two new displays to celebrate. Come check them out and celebrate with us!

For the first display, you’ll find the submissions to the Undergraduate Graphic Design Competition. Each of these unique designs captures the spirit and mission of the UGL. You won’t want to miss this impressive display of student artwork!

 

In the second display, you’ll explore the UGL Through the Decades. Learn about the history of the Undergraduate Library while browsing photographs of the UGL over the years. You’ll see the UGL transform from a space on the first floor of the Main Library into the thriving library we know today. The gallery takes viewers through the “Early Beginnings of the UGL,” to “1969: Undergraduate Library Established,” and concludes with the “UGL Today.” Come learn more about this unique building and how it came to be.

We hope to see you there! And be sure to follow us on social media to learn more about events celebrating the UGL’s 50th.

Thank you to the students who submitted to our graphic design competition, and to the University Archives for providing historical images of the Undergraduate Library.

Written by: Izzy

Edited by: Ryan & Lauren

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The UGL is Fifty!

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The UGL is the big “5-0!” This fall, the UGL is celebrating its 50th anniversary and will host a series of events throughout the semester for all students to enjoy. In addition, we will showcase student work on merchandise for the UGL@50 celebration — thank you to Taylor Chism, whose design was selected as the first place winner of the UGL’s 50th Anniversary Design Competition, as well as the other competition winners, for their design contributions! To see all three winners’ artwork from this competition, please see our past blog post. 

Historic view of the UGL in 1970.

The UGL in 1970

The first Undergraduate Library was established on the first floor of the Main Library in 1949, as part of a one million dollar post-war expansion. This campus drive to expand services to undergraduates eventually led to the current Undergraduate Library building opened to campus in 1969 to better support a growing undergraduate population. Today, the UGL helps support more than 33,000 undergraduate students, in addition to the graduate students, staff, and faculty who utilize our resources and services. 

Please join us as we celebrate throughout the semester! Our full schedule of events is below: 

Photo Booth

Monday, September 9 from 3-7pm

50 Donuts an Hour

Monday, September 23 from 12-10pm

50th Anniversary Button Making Event

Monday, October 7 from 3-7pm

Birthday Cake!

Monday, October 21 from 2-4pm

Photo Booth

Monday, November 4 from 3-7pm

DIY Whiteboard Artwork (week-long event)

Begins: Monday November 11 

Ends: Friday November 15

 

Want to know more? Explore the UGL website to learn more about the history of the UGL — we hope to see you this semester!

 

Written and Edited by Lauren

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The Undergraduate Library Announces the UGL 50th Anniversary Design Competition!

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The Undergraduate Library 50th anniversary flyer for the Graphic Design Competition. Create the official UGL @50 design! 1st place receives 100 dollars. 2nd place receives 50 dollars. 3rd place receives 25 dollars. Submission deadline is April 10, 2019. Text is on a yellowish orange block on a white background.

The UGL@50 Design Contest!

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Undergraduate Library at the University of Illinois! As we prepare to turn as golden as the corn in the Morrow Plots, we’re eagerly planning for an awesome celebration in Fall of 2019.  No UGL celebration would be complete without incorporating student creative voices, though, so we’re launching a special competition for aspiring graphic designers.  The UGL is inviting submissions for a commemorative graphic design which represents the look and theme for the UGL@50 celebration, and encapsulates the many roles the library serves in students’ lives.

Prizes will be awarded to the designers of the top three designs. The first-place design will become an enduring part of the UGL’s digital identity and it will be printed on multiple forms of commemorative items including t-shirts, mugs, and other swag! In addition, the first-place logo designer will receive $100, free UGL swag with their design printed on it, and a special invitation to the 50th anniversary celebration taking place in Fall 2019. The second and third-place designs will receive $50 and $25 prizes.

All submissions should reflect a relevant representation of the University of Illinois undergraduate student body, and should embody what the UGL experience means to you and your classmates. The design should celebrate elements from the past, present, and/or future of the UGL, should there be a future UGL. Designers should ask themselves how the UGL has affected their student experience and provide a design representative of their personal association with the library. Most of all, we want you to celebrate the longstanding of our underground gem!

Here are the contest guidelines:

  • The deadline for all submissions is April 10, 2019. Winners will be notified by April 20th.
  • Only current undergraduate students are eligible to compete.
  • Any design shape is permitted, but should scale easily for a variety of formats – including print, digital, and physical items like t-shirt and coffee cups.
  • Designers wishing to incorporate the official University of Illinois colors or ‘Block I’ into their design should refer to the University of Illinois brand guidelines.
  • Only one submission permitted per artist.
  • All entries must be submitted as PDF, PNG, TIFF, or JPEG images with high resolution. Designers are highly encouraged to save the original format.
  • Submitting your artwork will provide the UGL with the right to use your work in promotional materials. You will receive credit and ownership as the content creator. For full contest and ownership details, see the content submission form.
  • Read the full list of contest rules.

Need help getting started? Check out the following resources for some information and inspiration!

Please contact undergrad@library.illinois.edu with any questions.

Written by Annabel

Edited by Zander

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Pride On: LGBTQ+ Campus Resources

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This June marks the 48th anniversary of the Stonewall Inn riots, a series of demonstrations in response to a police raid at a Manhattan gay club. The riots are considered a pivotal turning point in the LGBTQ+ civil rights movement. Ever since the Stonewall Inn Riots, Pride Month has been a means for people to celebrate non-normative gender and sexual identities. Although, Pride Month is officially celebrated during the month of September in Champaign-Urbana, we can still commemorate locally by taking a moment to look back and retrace LGBTQ+ history at our campus.

In 1971, the Gay Liberation Front at U of I was formed. In 1976 the Gay Switchboard as well as the Gay Illini Resource Center opened. The following year, Champaign approved the Human Rights Ordinance, a historic win for the community. In 1986, the Chancellor conducted a campus-wide taskforce on Sexual Orientation, producing a report on campus climate. In 1987, the Board of Trustees passed a resolution to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexuality. You can check out the full timeline on the LGBT Resource Center webpage.

You can also look through issues of our school’s newspaper, the Daily Illini for primary source information. Entire issues have been digitized up to the year of 1975 and are available to browse online. Select articles have been highlighted below to portray the historic realities of the campus atmosphere during the early 1970s, soon after the Stonewall Inn riots.

Please note that when reviewing these or other primary sources, they are historical documents that may potentially contain content and/or language that today is considered offensive. The opinions and views expressed within these articles are solely those of the respective authors and/or their interview subjects.

Silhouette outline of two men holding hands

Published in the Daily Illini, October 1971

Daily illini article: Gay liberation trying to break down barriers

Published in the Daily Illini, October 1971

Daily illini article: gay rights act necessary

Published in the Daily Illini, November 1972

Daily Illini article: gay illini discuss concerns on weekly basis

Published in the Daily Illini, October 1975

Daily Illini article: gay illini discuss concerns on weekly basis

Published in the Daily Illini, October 1975

If you are interested in digging deeper into LGBTQ+ history in Champaign-Urbana, be sure to explore the LGBTQ+ Articles Archive.

The library also has a lot of resources to both meet your research needs and to feed your general interest. For more information, be sure to check out the UGL’s Gender and Sexual Identity subject guide.

The Social Sciences, Health, and Education Library (SSHEL) has a collection of resources in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender studies. This guide includes detailed suggestions for databases, journals, websites for statistics and data, and other general information, including research tips.

Looking for more resources? The Office of Inclusion and Intercultural Relations’ LGBT Resource Center and the University YMCA’s Uniting Pride Center  are great community centers for LGBTQ+ resources.

Happy Pride!

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History is Happening: A Reader’s Advisory for the Hamilton Fan

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Everyone has caught Founding Fathers fever with the overwhelming popularity of the musical Hamilton. Not only is it currently playing to sold out crowds on Broadway, and coming to Chicago this September, but it’s winning accolades left and right from the Pulitzer Prize for Drama to the Tony Award for Best Musical. The UGL can help you explore even more about the time and people from the smash musical. What’s our name? Undergraduate Library!

 

Hamilton Advisory

There’s a million books you haven’t read…just you wait!

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

What better place to start than the book that inspired the musical? Chernow, who also penned books about the Morgan family and John D Rockefeller, uses his skills as a historian to shed light on yet another figure central to American finance. Alexander Hamilton seeks not only to recast a monumentally misunderstood figure in American history, but to explore his relationship to the American Revolutionary War and the mythic figures who emerged from it. Come for the musical inspiration, stay for the amazing history lesson.

 

John Adams by David McCullough

John Adams by David McCullough

John Adams by David McCullough

Much like Chernow’s book about Hamilton, David McCullough’s book about John Adams also inspired an adaptation–this time as an HBO miniseries. McCullough has written about many influential American historical figures. This 2002 biography of the second president won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. McCullough not only examines the public and political life of Adams, but the personal and private as well. Read the book and then check out the miniseries starring Paul Giamatti, both available at the UGL!

 

Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation by Cokie Roberts

Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation by Cokie Roberts

Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation by Cokie Roberts

Much has been said about the men who wrote the Federalist Papers, battled the British, or founded our nation, but the women in their lives have barely been mentioned. Just as Lin-Manuel Miranda shoves the Schuyler sisters out of relative public obscurity, journalist Cokie Roberts includes women in the sequel, and brings to light the influences that these mothers, sisters, and daughters had on the founding of our nation. Roberts includes Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, Deborah Read Franklin, Eliza Pinckney, Catherine Littlefield Green, Esther DeBerdt Reed, and Martha Washington, many of whom are never included in a school textbook, but have used their courage, pluck, sadness, joy, energy, grace, and sensitivity to manage their businesses, raise their children, provide their husbands with political advice, and WORK!

 

Burr by Gore Vidal

Burr by Gore Vidal- (Image from Amazon.com)

Burr by Gore Vidal

If you like heroes a little on the controversial side, try Burr by Gore Vidal! Vidal’s historical novel shows the Burr-Hamilton feud in a new light with Burr as our anti-hero of the story who reflects on his experience thirty years after Hamilton was killed. Burr will give you a new lens through which to view your favorite Hamilton characters.

 

The Whiskey Rebels by David Liss

The Whiskey Rebels by David Liss

The Whiskey Rebels by David Liss

Alexander Hamilton is only one of many stars of this historical fiction novel by David Liss. The Whiskey Rebels follows former Revolutionary spy as he serves Alexander Hamilton in the midst of the Jefferson-Hamilton rivalry over the national bank and a woman who distills whiskey in order to move west. As Hamilton’s circle closes in on whiskey and its profits, these two main characters each prepare for a patriotic fight.

Brookland by Emily Barton

Brookland by Emily Barton

Brookland by Emily Barton

This historical fiction novel set in New York during the revolution, steps away from the war and into the sights and smells of 18th century Brooklyn. After inheriting a gin distillery from her father, Prue makes a big promise to the residents of Brooklyn: she’s going to build a bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Barton’s highly praised second novel places you in “the room where it happens” but in a completely different context.

We hope we were writing like we had plenty of time…but if we missed anything, let us know! Check out our Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram pages.

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