Jan. 21 marks the anniversary of a Monmouth College event that at least two of the participants said was a shining moment in the school’s history.
On an unusually cold Wednesday with the temperature never rising above zero, the campus community came together to physically move the collection of books from Carnegie Library (today’s Poling Hall) to the new Hewes Library, some 400 yards to the north.
Second trimester classes were canceled for the day to allow for what a Monmouth College history written by Jeff Rankin called “a remarkable collaborative effort.” Approximately 800 faculty, staff and students shuttled the 130,000-volume collection (weighing an estimated 100 tons) to the new space, one armload of books at a time, forming “a human conveyor belt.” Approximately 10,000 round trips were made over nine hours.
Professor Jeremy McNamara, who was in his seventh year on the English faculty during the 1969-70 academic year, recalled his role for the day.
“We called classes off, and everybody went to work on the move,” he said. “I happened to be the faculty adviser for Blue Key (honor society) at the time, and our responsibility was to set up in the library and guide the people who were bringing in the books. We were the ones who directed them and told them where to go.”
Rankin called the event “surprisingly orderly” and credited head librarian Harris Hauge, who had devised a color-coding system. Books were marked with slips of pink, green, red, white, blue, aqua and orange paper, corresponding to the area where they would be shelved in the new space.
Move-in day and Commencement are both annual highlights of the college calendar and serve as bookends for the academic year, but neither brings the majority of all four classes of students together, along with faculty, staff and administrators. To this day, McNamara recalls being impressed by Monmouth’s unified front to move the collection, despite the adverse winter weather.
“I would say it was Monmouth College’s finest day, in a lot of respects,” he said.
Emeritus history professor William Urban was also present that day as a fourth-year faculty member. He wrote a similar reaction, calling it “one of the great days of Monmouth history, perhaps the greatest day ever.”
Maybe it’s Maybelline
Last fall, former history professor Stacy Cordery gave a talk in town about her new biography of Elizabeth Arden. Around the same time in the 1910s that Arden launched her cosmetics company in New York City, another giant in the industry, Maybelline, was founded in Chicago. Pharmacist Thomas Lyle Williams noticed his sister Mabel applying a mixture of Vaseline and ash to her eyelashes to give them a darker, fuller look.
Maybelline – a combination of Mabel and Vaseline – was born and, a decade later, Mabel married Chester Hewes. The couple had three children, including a son, Thomas, who died suddenly in 1963 at the age of 32, leaving behind twin children Tom and Teresa Hewes.
The twins came to Monmouth as freshmen in 1969 and, a short time afterward, Chester and Mabel Hewes made the $1 million naming gift for the library in memory of their late son. The Hewes had sold Maybelline that year for $132 million.
Tom left Monmouth after two years, but Teresa graduated in 1973. Less than a year ago, she died at the age of 72. Tom had three children graduate from Monmouth: Thomas (2001), Katie (2004) and Krista (2017).
Hewes Library today
A $4 million renovation project in 2001 injected new life – and, importantly, air conditioning and plenty of natural light – into Hewes Library, and it has continued to be a hub of campus activity, not only providing a comfortable and inviting place to study, but also offering a few services that weren’t present in 1970.
One is Einstein Bros. Bagels, which is a destination for coffee-lovers and others alike, and the library has also become a one-stop shop for student support. Its Center for Academic & Career Excellence – known as The ACE – includes the Wackerle Center for Career, Leadership & Fellowships, as well as offices for the registrar, accessibility services, student success and academic support.
“We’ve also added the James Christie Shields Collection of Art & Antiquities, the Len G. Everett Gallery and a black box theatre,” said Sarah Henderson, the library’s director. “One constant that has remained is our commitment to helping students.”
Books and the staff’s friendly faces are what keeps McNamara, who retired in 1995 but still lives in Monmouth, coming back to Hewes Library.
“For everything, the staff there is very, very helpful and they always have been for me,” he said. “Books have been my life, so the library is my kind of place.”
Hewes Library is literally full of stories in the form of all its volumes and other resources. A physical move of the collection today would require at least double the 1970 effort, despite the fact that many of the library’s resources are now digital.
“It would take more than a day today,” said Henderson. “Hats off to everybody who was involved in that move. We owe them a great deal.”
But Hewes Library also tells plenty of figurative stories – of the generosity of donors such as the Hewes family, of the countless developments over the years that have kept it serving Monmouth students well and, not least of all, of the remarkable day in 1970 when the campus community joined together on a chilly January day to fill its shelves.
***Courtesy of Barry McNamara, Monmouth College***
