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Blog post by Andrew T. Linderman, Reference Assistant, West Virginia & Regional History Center (WVRHC).

Kids say the darndest things and do some pretty goofy stuff. And today’s consumer-based society lends itself particularly well to the childhood fad of collecting useless kitsch. Personally, I — and much of the youth of the early 2000s — collected Tamagotchi, Pokémon, Furbee, Beanie Babies, Mighty Beanz, Hit Clips, and a handful of other plastic toys that now likely find themselves off-gassing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) a quarter of the way down your local landfill.

But what did this childhood pastime look like before, at a time in America when the youth of the country weren’t bombarded with advertisements for sports gambling apps or using ChatGPT to write their essays while playing with their fidget spinners? In the paraphrased words of John Hammond, “My dear reader, welcome…to pre-Great Depression America!”

Earl Core’s “The Monongalia Story” is a treasure trove of information relating to the history of Monongalia County, West Virginia. It is a source that I’ve personally used countless times in my academic career and now operates as one of my go-to sources for questions surrounding historical events in-and-around Morgantown, West Virginia.

Recently, while assisting a West Virginia & Regional History Center (WVRHC) visitor, I came across a brief entry in the fifth volume of Core’s “The Monongalia Story” that simply reads, “Donkey baseball featured the eleventh Battelle District Fair, at Wadestown (Dominion-News, Sept. 28, 1934).”¹

Donkey baseball, as it turns out, was a pretty popular sport during the 1920s and throughout the 1930s. Popular enough to have Hollywood movie studio MGM produce the 1935 “An Oddity Donkey Baseball” directed by John Waters (no, not that John Waters).

The rules were simple. Everyone was on a donkey, excluding the catcher, pitcher, and the batter. If the batter got a hit, he then mounted his donkey before rounding the bases. Players in the field had to dismount their donkeys to field the ball but needed to remount their donkey before throwing the ball to a baseman.

That’s donkey baseball. Now, I’m already on board, but if you need more convincing there is this — the donkeys didn’t especially appreciate the sport and often simply refused to move. Other times, while batters were striking out at the plate, donkeys were striking out at players. Donkeys kicking players, bucking riders, and biting bystanders seems to be just part of the game, with one game in Georgia ending in more players injured than runs scored.²

Unfortunately, the sport of donkey baseball seems to have faded with the advent of the Great Depression. With most Americans struggling to find work, the luxury of mounted baseball just wasn’t worth the price of admission. Which brings us to our next fad. What if I could offer you all the excitement of donkey baseball minus the $0.25 entrance fee? I bring you…pole sitting. This may be familiar to some readers because there is that one episode of M*A*S*H, but for the uninitiated, the concept is even easier to grasp than donkey baseball.

• Step 1: Find a pole, preferably one that has some sort of perch on the top.
• Step 2: Climb the pole and sit on top of it for a period of time.
• Step 3. ?
• Step 4. Profit

I know I said, “minus the $0.25 entrance fee,” but it didn’t start off as a cash grab. The stoic and refined art of pole sitting can be traced to the Byzantine Empire and the stylite or “pillar-saint.” The most famous of which being Simeon Stylites the Elder who climbed a pillar in Syria in 423 and decided he liked it enough to stay for the next 36 years until his death.³

However, the most famous pole sitter of the 20th century was stuntman and former sailor Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly. Alleged to have survived five shipwrecks, two airplane crashes, three automobile accidents, and one train wreck, Kelly claims to have made his pole sitting debut at the age of seven. However, his fame truly came in 1924 after sitting atop a pole for 13 hours and 13 minutes, either from a dare from a friend or as a publicity stunt.⁴ Kelly had no idea what he had started.

Kelly’s record was quickly broken, so in 1926, he sits atop a flagpole in St. Louis for 7 days and one hour. In June 1927, in Newark, New Jersey, he attempts to best himself at 8 days. He stays for 12 and someone breaks that record. In 1929, in Baltimore, Maryland, he stayed for 23 days. Again, Kelly’s record is broken. In 1930, atop a flagpole 225 feet high on the top of Atlantic City’s Steel Pier, he stayed 49 days and one hour.

Kelly was said to have nourished himself mainly on a diet of coffee and cigarettes. If you’re wondering how he slept, he allegedly trained himself to sleep upright and would insert his thumbs into holes atop the pole so that if he began to drift off the pole, the pain caused by his thumbs being nearly broken would awaken him.

At his peak, Kelly toured cities across America, charging admission to see him sit on a pole and earning income through endorsements and book deals. This level of popularity then translated to children across America, climbing poles and charging locals a viewing fee — as a sort of early lemonade stand business model. However, instead of a child serving you a glass of lemonade, you would’ve paid to watch a child possibly fall from a 30-foot-tall pole.

I thought donkey baseball was wild, but pole sitting was crazy. People lost teeth from being smashed against poles in thunderstorms. Multiple people competed against one another to see who could sit on their respective pole the longest. Parents acted as sports managers, arguing over their children sitting on poles and whether assisting the child or having the child wear a safety harness constituted cheating. Google “pole sitting” and switch to images — it’s wild.

Unfortunately, with the Wall Street crash of 1929, pole sitting went the same way as donkey baseball and fell from the limelight. Some die-hards have tried to bring the magic of pole sitting back, but it has yet to regain the popularity it once had. Alright, I’ll admit, I stretched for this one. Goldfish swallowing technically seems to have its origin post-Great Depression in 1939, but comedy rule of three and all. The place was Harvard University and the date, April 1939. It started with a dare to swallow a live goldfish. A few weeks later it was upped to three goldfish and some days after that, it was 24. By the end of the month, it was 101. Seemingly confined to college campuses across the nation, the fad of swallowing live goldfish or “Goldfish Gulping,” as the Los Angeles Times so colorfully called it, took off as quickly as it ended.⁵

College administrators suspended one student for “unbecoming” conduct. Doctors warned of the medical risks associated with eating live fish. The Massachusetts Legislature sponsored a bill that promised to “protect and preserve the fish from cruel and wanton consumption.” My personal favorite was a letter published by the New York Times questioning the health benefits of consuming fish and ease of entrance for some universities.

By May of 1939, the fad of swallowing pet fish had faded. With Europe on the brink of war, it just didn’t seem like a college kid could really relax and toss back a few gold ones anymore. Some kids in Chicago tried eating vinyl records in place of goldfish, but that never really stuck.

Childhood fads come and go. Like donkey baseball, pole sitting, and goldfish gulping, the fads of today will also ebb and flow. So, the next time you see a group of teenagers obsessing over a new gadget or viral meme, remember how much fun those fads and phases can be.

1. Earl L. Core, The Monongalia Story, Vol. 5
2. https://corsoatlanta.com/blog/donkey-baseball/
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stylite
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_%22Shipwreck%22_Kelly
5. https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stories/1939-year-goldfish-gulping

Blog post by Olivia Howard, Reference Assistant, West Virginia & Regional History Center (WVRHC).

The late 1960’s and early 1970’s saw the rise of the women’s liberation movement. As women fought for equal rights, opportunities and recognition, scholars began to challenge the male-dominated narratives in academia. This led to the emergence of Women’s Studies as a formal academic field.

The first women’s studies program in the United States was established in 1970 at San Diego State College. The discipline grew rapidly, and programs were established across the country. By 1977, there were 276 women’s studies programs nationwide.

In 1980, a Women’s Studies program was established at West Virginia University in the College of Arts and Sciences with Judith Stitzel, professor of English, serving as the program’s first coordinator. By 1984, the Center for Women’s Studies was established with Stitzel being named the Center’s first director.

A course syllabus for the Spring 1980 Introduction to Women’s Studies class lists topics such as images of women in fairy tales, images of women in the Bible, sexism and language and images of women in popular culture.

A syllabus for Introduction to Women’s Studies for the Spring 1980 semester.

Some classes offered that semester were Introduction to Women’s Studies, Human Sexuality, Women in the Labor Force, History of American Women and Women Writers in England and America.

A brochure for the Women’s Studies Program for the Fall 1981.

The first class of women’s studies certificate recipients graduated in 1986. Since that time, the number of students enrolled in women’s studies courses throughout WVU has grown to over 2,000.

Stitzel was a major influence in the development of WVU’s Women Studies program. She began teaching English at WVU in 1967 and retired in 1998. She served as director of the Center for Women’s Studies from 1980 to 1992.

Judith Stitzel.

Materials regarding Judith Stitzel and the development of Women’s Studies as part of the curriculum at WVU can be found at the West Virginia & Regional History Center (A&M 5039) as part of the West Virginia Feminist Activist and Women’s History Collection

Harriet Eliza Lyon, the first woman graduate of West Virginia University (WVU), was a focal point of the two-year long Women’s Centenary, “Excellence Through Equity” from 1989-1991.

A product of interdepartmental effort, the Women’s Centenary was spearheaded by WVU’s Center for Women’s Studies, which began planning for the long celebration in 1987. The early years of planning involved copious amounts of historical research, coordinated by Dr. Lillian Waugh, which led to the discovery (or, re-discovery) of Harriet E. Lyon’s graduation.

Born on January 31, 1863, in Albion, New York, Lyon predates the state of West Virginia by five months, when western Virginians separated from Virginia on June 20, 1863, during the Civil War.

In 1867, two years after the end of the civil war, Lyon’s father, Franklin S. Lyon, moved his family to Morgantown, West Virginia to begin a professorship with the newly opened Agricultural College of West Virginia. The elder Lyon, perhaps inspired by his aunt Mary Lyon, who founded the prestigious women’s college Mt. Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, in 1837, was a staunch supporter of women in higher education. While he attempted to enroll his daughters in WVU (as it would come to be known in 1868) throughout the 1870s, the efforts only succeeded in two of his daughters (Harriet and Florence) taking non-credit courses from professors supportive of women in higher education.

Harriet Lyons’s first stint in Morgantown ended in 1885, when her father accepted employment as the president of Broaddus College in Clarksburg, West Virginia, where she would assist in teaching German. She attended the newly opened Vassar College in 1888 but did not graduate.

Upon WVU’s acceptance of female students, Lyon transferred from Vassar College and began attending WVU in September 1889 as one of the first female students. Although she faced discrimination and abuse for her enrollment at WVU, Lyon, the only woman in her class of fourteen students, graduated as valedictorian in 1891 with an Artium Baccalaureatus (A.B.) degree.

Harriet E. Lyon would go on to marry Franklin Jewett in Fredonia, New York, and raise four children. During her life in New York, Lyon was a prominent figure in the music scene for her work as a composer. She died on May 7, 1949, in Winter Park, Florida.

Following intense research, the Women’s Centenary planners sought to honor Lyon’s achievements. The celebrations began on September 20, 1989, the one-hundred-year anniversary of the entry of the first ten women (including Lyon) into WVU and ended on June 10, 1991, the one-hundred-year anniversary of Lyon’s graduation.

One event in particular stands out from the others in the two-year long celebration. On September 20, 1989, a celebration dinner in the Erickson Alumni Center featured a theatre performance, “Centenary Salutations” with a puppet fashioned in the likeness of Harriet E. Lyon.

The idea to include a puppet show in the celebration dinner first appeared in an April 26, 1989, meeting of the Women’s Centenary Steering Committee, when Judith Stitzel, former professor of Women’s Studies, discussed the need for entertainment at the banquet. Joan Siegrist, then an associate professor in the WVU Division of Theatre, was brought into the discussion as a potential collaborator for entertainment. It was decided that Siegrist, with assistance from the Women’s Centenary team, would create a puppet show to be performed by the WVU Puppet Mobile following the banquet.

Utilizing the opportunity as a learning experience for students in Siegrist’s Theatre 284 class, prominent Puppet Artist Bart Roccoberton was brought on as a technical consultant. Roccoberton gave a lecture demonstration and assisted with the puppet’s construction, which was completed only days before the scheduled performance.

The puppet, 2 ½ tall and inspired by Harriet Lyon’s 1891 graduation photo, had hard control of one arm. This hand led to the performance’s name, Centenary Salutations, with the hand as a “greeting.” Further research into the fashion of the era was completed to ensure a close resemblance to Lyon’s graduation dress.

The performance, lasting roughly 15 minutes, included Harriet the puppet talking and singing to the audience, accompanied by music, poetry, and corresponding visuals. In the audience of this one-time performance were the granddaughters of Harriet Lyon, Rachel Jewett Ledbetter and Jean Hillman Jessup, who called the moment “an extraordinarily exciting thing for all women”. At the celebration banquet, Ledbetter and Jessup presented the Women’s Centenary coordinators with a silver tea set that once belonged to Harriet E. Lyon.

Materials regarding Harriet E. Lyon, the Women’s Centenary, and the Women’s Studies Center, can be found in the West Virginia University, Women’s Study Center, Records and West Virginia University, Women’s Studies Center, Women’s Centenary, Records at the West Virginia and Regional History Center.

This project is made possible with support from the National Historic Publications and Records Commission.

Blog post by Lori Hostuttler, Director, West Virginia & Regional History Center (WVRHC). 

This post is a re-issue of Lori Hostuttler’s 2015 blog. 

Today we celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who championed equality and justice and espoused non-violence, unconditional love for our enemies, tolerance and service. His words are just as poignant today as they were in the 1960s. And his dream is still something we strive to achieve. He is certainly someone that inspires me to be an optimist, to cherish love and to forgive – to be a better person. Thinking about my blog entry for today, I wondered if Dr. King had any West Virginia connection. I found that he spoke in Charleston 65 years ago this week. 

On Sunday, Jan. 24, 1960, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a sermon and message at the First Baptist Church in Charleston. A small announcement in the Charleston Gazette appeared in the Come to Church column of the Saturday paper. 

The editors of the Gazette also included an editorial noting that King would see the same race issues in Charleston as he had in the South, but there were also “men of good will.” 

Gazette reporter Don Marsh interviewed Dr. King at his hotel in Charleston the evening before his address. King talked specifically about integration as a step beyond desegregation. He said, “ultimately, we seek integration which is true inter-group, inter-personal living where you sit on the bus, you sit together not because the law says it but because it is natural, it is what is right.” 

Don Marsh also attended the sermon and summarized it the following day. King spoke to a packed house and was welcomed by Charleston Mayor John Shanklin. Marsh described his voice as “low, powerful, controlled.” 

King urged forgiveness and reconciliation as a new order emerged in the United States. He also appealed for action, asking the audience to do what they could to “advance the case of mutual self-respect and understanding in any way they could.” Saying also, “we must work unceasingly for first class citizenship, but we mustn’t use second class means to get it.” 

In preparing to write today, I read Coretta Scott King’s piece on the meaning of the Martin Luther King holiday. It is also a call to action, a call to serve, just as Dr. King asked of those in his Charleston audience in 1960. Beyond a day of remembrance, Mrs. King calls for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day to be a day of service. 

As I look back at these news articles and quotes from King, I can see some progress in the last half century. At the same time, I also realize how much more work needs done on matters of race, poverty, peace and justice all these years later. As we each celebrate and remember Dr. King today, I hope we are moved to work harder for those in need and to love others unconditionally, just as he did.