This Photo/Memory Album Presents a Intimate View of Student Life during the early 1900s.

By Dr. Stan S. Katz    –    February 14^th, 2021

Most of the blog posts that you’ll find on this website are linked to historical relations between the U.S. and Japan. However, on occasion another interesting historical topic is discovered that sparks the imagination and inspires the sharing of its story with others.

This Cornell University project began a dozen years ago in 2008, while exploring the Del Mar Antique Fair in southern California, when this maroon-colored, very old photo album/scrapbook with the white letter “C” printed on its cover caught my eye. The seller didn’t know much of the history linked to it, other than that it was connected to Cornell University, and that at least thirty individuals that morning had immersed themselves while examining its fascinating contents.

Having once been an antiquarian bookstore owner, this description grabbed my attention. After just a few minutes of scanning the amazing variety of items in the album, I knew that many other folks would enjoy this time capsule to university life from the distant past – So I purchased the album, thinking that one day I’d figure out how best to share this engaging material.

The album had been owned by a Cornell student, Melvin Lorrel Nichols (1894-1981), who majored in Chemistry, which coincidentally, was also my major at Brooklyn College (Class of 1973). However, Melvin graduated from Cornell almost a half century earlier, attending as an undergrad from 1914-1918. And it is specifically those four years that his album depicts. Melvin would later become a significant member of the Cornell Chemistry Dept. teaching staff for almost four decades.

Top section of a university yearbook page from “The Cornellian and Class Book 1918”. It presents several members of the graduating class, including Melvin Nichols third from the left. Melvin’s nicknames were “Pete” and “Nick”.

Below are some ephemera from the period: a 1914 musical event and some colorful 1916 postcards.

From his earliest days, Melvin saved diverse mementos of his time spent at Cornell. Above is the first page of the large album (10.25 x 13 inches, and 3 inches thick). Please note a future presentation of this material for a eBook or documentary film would scan and highlight each of these historical items to a higher image resolution than what is available for this blog post presentation.

Below is an enlarged section from the above album page:

Both sides of the thirty-four pages of this album are filled with rare historical materials – Melvin was amazingly meticulous, his album displays interesting ephemera from all four of his student years, with many photos of him with his friends/fellow students. There is also a wide array of letters, student event pamphlets, colorful period postcards, newspaper clippings of intermural sport events, along with the original tickets to some of those games, and news clippings for other Cornell related topics. The illustration to the left displays his receipt for transporting his trunk up the hill during his first day at the school.

There is also the Cornell Freshman Handbook that he describes as the “Frosh Bible”, which contains 168 pages filled with the relevant topics that incoming students needed know about their school’s academic activities, fraternity and sorority related info, and a directory to city services to meet their needs, giving insights to life in the City of Ithaca during that period. The album also presents photos of fanciful university pageants, celebrations, and public events.

And with those years being impacted by World War One, some of Melvin’s photos are linked to the ROTC. As a senior, Melvin was temporarily drafted into the military. Despite the tragic backdrop of war, this album instead gives a sense of a pleasant & meaningful university experience being had, with Melvin most appreciative to have been able to attend Cornell with the financial support of student grants from the university.

Below is an enlarged photo from the prior illustration:

This album goes beyond exclusively revealing university life at Cornell, it also intimately presents what student life was probably like at hundreds of other fine universities during the early nineteen hundreds, prior to our current high tech computerized age, filled with its smart cell phones, Facebook, and social networking which has in many ways changed how we relate to one another. Early presidents of Cornell strove to create a sense of community among the students and faculty; they wanted their surroundings to have natural and poetic beauty, while also honoring the impressive stately architectural designs from the past – It was their intention that this would inspire students to feel better about themselves and the world they lived.

One of the goals of this blog post/illustrated article is to introduce this unique view of the past to others, perhaps leading to potential future joint historical/educational/entertainment projects. Whether it be as an illustrated eBook, an online museum exhibit, the source for a documentary on Cornell’s history, or perhaps, even an animated film that brings these photos and documents to life. Those who might interest in these creative pursuits such as historians, Cornell’s Alumni Association, those in media, such as film, and others, are invited to discuss the possibilities through the below email contacts. These email addresses are linked to an historical biography and novel titled: The Art of Peace & The Emperor and the Spy written by the author of this article. Those books also began with the acquisition of a rare collection historical documents.

[email protected]

[email protected]

-Besides the Album’s wonderful 250 items to draw from, there’s an additional one hundred antique items linked to Cornell history that have been collected, which could contribute to a colorful reminiscent sense of that period. These include Cornell’s illustrated yearbook, “The Cornellian and Class Book 1918”.

Additional biographical details about Melvin Lorrel Nichols, the creator of the 1914-1918 Cornell Album:

Born: November 30, 1894 in city of Dayton, Ohio.

Died: March 29^th, 1981 in California.

Melvin Lorrel “Pete” Nichols was a chemistry professor and author.

Early life:

Nichols was the son of Joseph Wiseman Nichols, a cabinetmaker, and Sarah Rebecca Heidelbaugh. He was the youngest of six children. [Source: Geneology.com]

Personal life:

Melvin married Mary N. Bancroft in 1926. They had one daughter, Sarah, “Sally”.

Career:

Nichols was awarded his PhD from Cornell University in 1922. His thesis was “Dinitrosoresorcinol as a reagent for the quantitative determination of cobalt in the presence of nickel and other metals of the third group”.

He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Chemistry in 1929. (See Note 1)

Nichols was on the faculty at Cornell University from 1923-1962, rising to become Emeritus Professor of Chemistry.

“Pete” Nichols’ wrote two textbooks on analytical chemistry:        Gas Analysis, co-authored with L.M. Dennis, and a Laboratory Manual of Analytical Chemistry.

In 1950, Pete Nichols agreed to become Executive Director of Cornell’s Chemistry Department, a new position which involved supervision of the support facilities and the non-academic staff of what had become a large and complex establishment. He held this position until his retirement in 1962.

A letter of Tribute to Melvin Lorrel Nichols was written by fellow members of the Cornell faculty. (Note 2)

OVERVIEW OF THIS MEMORY ALBUM

1-It is engaging and entertaining, with a backdrop of nostalgia.

2-This relic is in many ways a commemorative to a young man and future imminent professor.

3-It is a testimonial, offering a unique window to student life at a fine university over a century ago, to the friendships and the various on and off campus activities of that time.

4-It depicts the academic and social values that were thought necessary to be passed on to future generations, representing a Window to the past.

5-It must be emphasized that this Cornell album assembled and protected hundreds of historical items called ephemera that would have otherwise been lost forever. The below definition of ephemera comes from The Ephemera Society of America:

“Precious primary source information . . . that is what the ephemera world considers its bits and bobs of vintage (and current), usually paper items. Much of it was likely expected, back in its day, to be briefly useful then discarded. Today such items which have survived the vagaries of time often reveal things we might not otherwise ever learn. A story last year in the New York Times reported the stunning information that NASA—unthinkably—had somehow managed to lose the original tapes of Mankind’s first landing on the moon! Surely this monumentally important video document was expected to be carefully coddled and treasured forever. And yet even something as priceless as that somehow proved ephemeral. As it happens, derivative copies do exist, so that particular record has not totally disappeared. But it could have. If information as important as that could be so easily lost for eternity, imagine how much lesser—yet culturally relevant—historical information has indeed been lost with the passage of time. Each collected piece of surviving paper Americana serves up information, and some of it available nowhere else on earth. One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.

“In a nutshell, to collectors “ephemera” are vintage printed or written items which originally served some specific purpose and were not expected to be retained or preserved, but which are now cherished. A few decades ago much of it was called “Paper Americana”, though ephemera is not necessarily American. Or even paper: these days the field has been expanded to include such things as tobacco tins, photographs, radio premiums, textile swatches, vinyl record albums, items made of celluloid or wood. Also included are various items which were indeed likely to have been saved, such as wedding invitations, marriage certificates, passports, birth certificates, wills, deeds, divorce papers, stock certificates, promissory notes, and many other vintage documents…

“Maurice Rickards, author of the definitive Encyclopedia of Ephemera and a founder of The Ephemera Society in England, dubbed such items “the minor transient documents of everyday life.” That organization says that—produced to meet the needs of the day—“such items reflect the moods and mores of past times in a way that more formal records cannot.” Besides being enjoyable to find and collect, vintage ephemera is valuable primary source information which offers unique windows into cultures past.”

(Note 3) presents more information about The Ephemera Society of America.

This Album might contribute to Classroom Curriculum:

Classroom Discussion Questions:

A-What does a well-rounded university education mean? As an individual and as a society, what makes us who we are culturally and academically, what are those values?

B-This album might serve as a springboard for classroom discussions about how the world has changed and in what ways have things remained the same?

C-Are there lessons that can be learned from that period a century ago, that might well serve us in our modern world?

D-As a related research project, there could be interviews of current university students, alumni, and faculty to hear their response to the album, giving an intergenerational insights to the interpretation of its contents.

E- In our time of rapidly advancing technology, filled with uncertainties regarding the future, this album invites students to compare life then and now, to recognize our roots, the values of our ancestors, and the foundation of who we are. Does this album perhaps serve as a compass/roadmap to cherished values of our society from long ago?

F-The album could augment the presentation of related historical material, such as the events of World War One. How did that conflict impact student life and the ways students saw themselves? Has the role of intra-mural sports in university life changed? The possibilities continues as the project unveils new insights into the album’s contents.

G-Are there universal values? Where are we going as a society and as a world? What might we be losing or gaining in the process of moving forward? The album is a sociological study into human nature, then and now.

NOTES

Note 1 – In 1929, Professor Melvin Lorrel Nichols was honored by receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship. That award is intended for individuals who have already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability.

Fellowships are awarded through two annual competitions: one open to citizens and permanent residents of the United States and Canada, and the other open to citizens and permanent residents of Latin America and the Caribbean. Candidates must apply to the Guggenheim Foundation in order to be considered in either of these competitions.

The Foundation receives approximately 3,000 applications each year. Although no one who applies is guaranteed success in the competition, there is no prescreening: all applications are reviewed. Approximately 175 Fellowships are awarded each year.

During the rigorous selection process, applicants will first be pooled with others working in the same field, and examined by experts in that field: the work of artists will be reviewed by artists, that of scientists by scientists, that of historians by historians, and so on. The Foundation has a network of several hundred advisers, who either meet at the Foundation offices to look at applicants’ work, or receive application materials to read offsite. These advisers, all of whom are themselves former Guggenheim Fellows, then submit reports critiquing and ranking the applications in their respective fields. Their recommendations are then forwarded to and weighed by a Committee of Selection, which then determines the number of awards to be made in each area. Occasionally, no application in a given area is considered strong enough to merit a Fellowship.

The Committee of Selection then forwards its recommendations to the Board of Trustees for final approval. The successful candidates in the United States and Canada competition are announced in early April; those in the Latin America and Caribbean competition, in early June. The Guggenheim Fellowship organization guarantees that their advisers and Committee of Selection members, as well as those who submit letters of reference, absolute confidentiality. Therefore, under no circumstances will the reasons for the rejection of an application be provided.

Source for Note 1: The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation website: https://www.gf.org/about/fellowship/

That organization’s website presents the below photo and technical details linked to Professor Nichols being honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship:

MELVIN L. NICHOLS

Fellow: Awarded 1929

Field of Study: Chemistry

Competition: U.S. & Canada

Born: 11-30-1894

Died: 03-29-1981

As published in the Foundation’s Report for 1929–30:

Nichols, Melvin Lorrel:  Appointed to make a study of the adsorption of anions by barium sulphate and a study of the conductivity of alkylated ammonia salts in non-aqueous solvents, in certain German and Austrian laboratories; tenure, twelve months from July 15, 1929.

Born November 30, 1894, at Dayton, Ohio.

Education: Cornell University, B. Chem., 1918, Ph. D., 1922.

Instructor in Analytical Chemistry, 1918–22, Assistant Professor, 1922—, Cornell University.

Publications: “Gas Analysis,” 1929. Articles and reviews in Journal of the American Chemical Society, Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, Journal of Physical Chemistry.

Note 2 – Cornell University Faculty Memorial Statement

Source: http://ecommons.library.cornell.edu/handle/1813/17813

Melvin L. Nichols

November 30, 1894 — March 29, 1981

Melvin L. “Pete” Nichols, emeritus professor of chemistry, who died March 29, 1981, at the age of eighty-six, enjoyed a career that almost perfectly characterizes a true-blue Cornellian. He was, in fact, a member of that very small group of our faculty that had been personally acquainted with every Cornell president. As Melvin Nichols, he left his home town of Dayton, Ohio, in 1914 to enter Cornell as a freshman. He remained in Ithaca, known to his many friends as Pete, until 1978, when, in failing health, he moved to California to be close to his only daughter, Sally. After receiving his Bachelor of Chemistry degree in 1918, he was appointed an instructor in chemistry at Cornell and simultaneously embarked on a graduate study program under Professor Orndorf, majoring in organic chemistry. He was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1922 and was promptly appointed assistant professor in chemistry. He remained on the chemistry faculty until his retirement in 1962.

Nichols’s field of teaching and research was analytical chemistry, and for many years he was unofficial head of the analytical teaching group of the Chemistry Department. He wrote two textbooks on analytical chemistry, Gas Analysis, coauthored with L. M. Dennis, and Laboratory Manual of Analytical Chemistry. In 1950, Nichols agreed to become executive director of Cornell’s Chemistry Department, a new position which involved supervision of the support facilities and the nonacademic staff of what had become a large and complex establishment. He held this position until his retirement in 1962.

The forty-eight years of Pete Nichols’s life as a student and teacher at Cornell were years of great change for Cornell chemistry. The science itself became more physical and more theoretical. Applied fields such as agricultural chemistry, sanitary chemistry, and chemical microscopy, which had once been central at Cornell, were spun off or phased out. Industrial chemistry was transformed into chemical engineering and moved into the College of Engineering for its separate and independent development. There was a disastrous fire in 1916 which destroyed Morse Hall, the chemistry building; fortunately, a splendid new Baker Laboratory building opened in 1922. That chemistry at Cornell survived these changes and indeed grew stronger and more effective over the years was due in large measure to the successful adjustments and continuing contributions of Pete Nichols and other faculty members of his generation. Cornell is in their debt.

In 1926 Nichols married Mary Bancroft, the attractive and lively-minded daughter of one of Cornell’s eminent chemistry professors, Wilder D. Bancroft. When newcomers to Cornell first learned of this marriage, they were prone to mutter something about “marrying the boss’s daughter,” and were chagrined to learn that the true situation had been almost the exact opposite. Nichols was a coworker and protégé of the other strong-willed Cornell chemist of the time, L. M. Dennis, and Dennis and Bancroft had a long-established and well developed dislike of each other. Hence, to Dennis, a Nichols involvement with a Bancroft was akin to joining up with the enemy. It is a tribute to his tact and his persistence that Pete Nichols rode out the storm and kept his Cornell position.

Mary Nichols died suddenly in 1967, and Pete Nichols lived on alone in Ithaca, actively involved with his wide circle of friends. He will be missed by his Ithaca friends and colleagues as well as by the hundreds of Cornell students that he taught.

Albert W. Laubengayer,

William T. Miller,

Franklin A. Long

Cornell

Note 3 – History of the Ephemera Society of America from their website:

A small band of collectors interested in promoting the collecting, study, and preservation of ephemera established the Ephemera Society of America (ESA) in 1980, to serve as a link between and among collectors, archivists, researchers and dealers, and to encourage interest in all aspects of vintage paper. Five years earlier, in 1975, Maurice Rickards and his associates in England had established The Ephemera Society of the United Kingdom., and similar organizations have arisen in Canada, Austria, and Australia.

Shortly after ESA was formed, it was granted non-profit tax-exempt status as an educational organization. The society embarked upon a publishing program to educate its members and the general public about the world of ephemera. Issue #1 of our Ephemera News newsletter came out in the summer of 1981, and this regular newsletter continues its unbroken publication run to the present time. Printed as ink-on-paper until mid-2011, it is now entitled eNews and sent electronically each month to every member. ENews delivers news, details on conferences and other activities, a calendar of upcoming shows and events, auction notes, new book notices, links to stories of interest, announcements and other content of interest to ephemerists.

ESA publishes The Ephemera Journal, a highly regarded print publication devoted solely to illustrated scholarly articles on many different topics. Journal authors have included faculty and staff from a long list of distinguished institutions including the American Antiquarian Society, Winterthur, the Huntington Library, the Library Company of Philadelphia, Colonial Williamsburg, the Clements Library, Brown University and many other distinguished organizations. Many fine articles have come from independent scholars and collectors. https://www.ephemerasociety.org/

About the Author:

Stan S. Katz wrote the historical novel The Emperor and the Spy about an adventurous, high ranking U.S. intelligence agent Colonel Sidney Mashbir. He also authored the illustrated biography The Art of Peace about Prince Tokugawa Iesato, heir to the last Shogun of Japan. But when that dynasty ended, Prince Tokugawa instead became an international statesman who promoted good relations between U.S. and Japan.

Stan’s journey into historical writing began while he was the owner of two antiquarian bookstores. It was through these bookstores that he acquired the secret personal papers Colonel Mashbir. During the 1920s and ‘30s prior to WWII, Mashbir allied with many influential, peace loving Japanese leaders in an attempt maintain goodwill between their nations. Two of Mashbir’s closest Japanese allies were Prince Tokugawa Iesato and Baron Shibusawa Eiichi. Regrettably, WWII could not be prevented.

During his long military career, Mashbir served closely with General John Joseph Pershing during WWI, and Admiral Joseph King and General Douglas MacArthur during WWII. As one of MacArthur’s closest intelligence advisors, Mashbir took a pivotal role in shortening WWII in the Pacific. And during the post-war Occupation of Japan, he guided the U.S. and Japan to once again become allies. Colonel Mashbir’s primary source collection of historical documents unveiled significant unknown U.S. Japan relations during the first half of the twentieth century.

The website TheEmperorAndTheSpy.com presents many blog posts containing important rare and never before available photos and written documents linked to U.S. Japan history…One of these blog posts highlights a 1909 visit by Baron Shibusawa to Ithaca, New York, where the president of Cornell University, along with many Cornell professors, the mayor of the Ithaca, and other prominent individuals assembled to greet their honored guest from Japan. Baron Shibusawa Eiichi is remembered as a great humanitarian who promoted friendship between the East and the West, and is known as the Father of Modern Japanese Capitalism.

Based on Katz’s curiosity for international relations, for many years he’s been a member of and on the board of directors for the San Diego World Affairs Council, which is a local chapter the World Affairs Councils of America. Through this fine non-profit, non-partisan international affairs educational forum, he’s attended many fascinating presentations and met ambassadors, consul generals, and other political, economic, academic, and military representatives from around the globe. You’re invited to visit their websites to learn more about these organizations.