A Day in the Life of a UK Student: Oct. 8, 1910
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 8, 2014) — In celebration of the University of Kentucky sesquicentennial in 2015, UK Special Collections Research Center is releasing the diary entries of former student Virginia Clay McClure one entry at a time. The diary chronicles the day-to-day activities of McClure's junior and senior years at the State University of Kentucky (now UK) from 1910-1912. McClure's seventh diary entry, dated Oct. 8, 1910, chronicles McClure's visit to a local college and a football game win against University of North Carolina.
Oct. 8th. Went with Miss Whaley to Experiment Station and then to Transylvania. Like State much better.
Jessie Milton persuaded me to go with her to the North Carolina game. Therese, the optimist, perfectly happy and confident of victory. North Carolina men regular giants, and our team looked like children. No score in the first two quarters, but Shanklin made two touchdowns and kicked goal once, making the score 11 to 0 in our favor in the last two quarters. Everybody played a grand game, especially Dick Webb and Bryan Shanklin, who is the most remarkable player I ever saw. Somebody said N.C. would have to kill “Deaf” if they wanted to win. “Head em’ off.”
After supper all girls gathered in the parlor and yelled everything from, “Well, well, well” to “Rickety-rackety-russ.”! Then had a parade from first to second, to third floor, then down, and out in the yard, singing, “Well it looks like to me ‘tis a shirt-tail parade.” Got on the steps and gave all the yells, and a few boys down in the yard answered us. In a little while the “Night Shirt Parade” came – 500 boys, more or less, in night-shirts and caps, yelling, singing, beating the drum. Everybody wild with joy.
“Louisville Club” gave a reception at Patt. Hall for the two teams, but the visitors had gone. Boys came on with their night-shirts on, and all had a flash-light picture in the dining-room. Prof. White says he can’t go to the match games, because he gets so excited he doesn’t get over it for a week or two.
Inserted in by the entry there is a small card with a comic and the title "Louisville Club." It reads “Don’t foul, don’t shirk, But hit the line hard” – C.R.
That is what our fellows do, and the other team finds it out sooner or later, to their infinite discomfort and regret. “We run this place, we do,” and other places, too.
A similar card is found by McClure's entry here with the same title but a different comic. It reads, “Their course in Latin grammar, They consider 'hard as sin,', But one subject quite delights them, 'Tis the gender feminine.”
More on Virginia Clay McClure
Virginia Clay McClure, a native of Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, graduated in 1912 with an AB degree and received her master’s degree in 1928 from UK. After receiving her AB, she taught for a year at Middlesboro, Kentucky, another year at Paducah, Kentucky, and seven years in Cynthiana, Kentucky. After this, she returned to Lexington, where she taught for nine and a half years in the Fayette County schools. At this point, she took two and a half years off of work to complete her doctorate.
The first woman to receive a Ph.D. from UK, McClure said that her department chairman did not “want a woman to get a doctor’s degree.” In spite of those words, McClure received her doctoral degree in American history in 1934.
Her dissertation was “The Settlement of the Kentucky Appalachian Region,” about which “nothing had been done before.” McClure did significant original research for the dissertation and made several trips to Eastern Kentucky with Katherine Pettit, who had taught in settlement schools, including Pine Mountain School, which she helped to establish.
McClure planned to teach at the college level but after finishing her dissertation in the midst of the depression, colleges were laying off faculty rather than hiring them. She then joined the Fayette County School system, then Lexington City Schools, and taught United States history and government at Henry Clay High School from 1934-1959. A position that she found quite rewarding.
The UK alumna and educator was very active in the community. McClure was a member of Central Christian Church and Kappa Delta Pi Honorary, Kentucky and National Retired Teachers associations, Salvation Army Auxiliary, Cardinal Hill Hospital Auxiliary and numerous historical societies. She was also a charter member of the Lexington Rose Society, twice serving as president, and was a member of the American Rose Society.
McClure passed away in 1980 at 91 years of age.
The Virginia Clay McClure papers are housed at the Special Collections Research Center and include a diary/scrapbook, a photograph album and other assorted photographs related to McClure's time as an undergraduate at State University, Lexington, Kentucky from 1910-1912. The scrapbook includes clippings, small artifacts, programs and invitations, but the bulk of the material is McClure's many personal writings. The photograph album and loose photographs also document this time period and include photographs of her UK classmates (many of whom are identified and also mentioned in her scrapbook); class trips and events (such as Arbor Day); and women playing basketball among other casual snapshots.
This story on UK's history is presented by UK Special Collections Research Center. UK Special Collections is home to UK Libraries' collection of rare books, Kentuckiana, the Archives, the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, the King Library Press, the Wendell H. Ford Public Policy Research Center, the Bert T. Combs Appalachian collection and the digital library, ExploreUK. The mission of the center is to locate and preserve materials documenting the social, cultural, economic and political history of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
Diary transcriptions completed by senior Taylor Adams, Special Collections Learning Lab intern and history major from Ashland, Kentucky.
MEDIA CONTACT: Whitney Hale, 859-257-8716; whitney.hale@uky.edu