Alumni Spotlight: Clement Pierce Wilson

Since Coe graduated her first class, Kohawks have been doing pretty impressive things. Today's find is a brochure from the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden. A graduate from Coe, Clement Pierce Wilson, class of 1912, ran in these games. 

Front cover of the 1912 Olympic Games program

He ran in the 4 X 100 meter relay race, the 100 meter race and the 200 meter race. Coe did offer the Clem Wilson Award for track for 50 years after his performance at the Olympics.

Excerpt from the 1913 yearbook

He broke the Iowa state record for the 440 yard race in 49 seconds and then tied the world record in the 100 yard dash (91.44 meters) by running it in only 9.35 seconds! Today that title is held by Asafa Powell, a Jamaican who can run it in 9.07 seconds.

Clem's senior photo

Clem was the captain for the track team his senior year and was also a member of Delta Phi Epsilon. Come and see the whole brochure and other amazing Coe related artifacts down in the archives!

On this day in history...

150 years ago today, Abraham Lincoln was fatally shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending a play at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C.

Only five days before, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his army in Virginia, ending the American Civil War.

Photo courtesy of the George T Henry Archives, Adams Collection 1734-1879

However, Lincoln didn't die immediately, he passed away the next morning at a lodging house across the street from the theater. Above is a picture of an article from the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, a newspaper from New York that ran from about 1840-1890.

When the article was written, Lincoln was still alive but not expected to live much longer. The article also describes the attack on Secretary of State William H. Seward on the same night. Seward's fate was much better than Lincoln's and he continued to live for a few more years.

If you're interested in reading the whole article, come down to the George T Henry Archives! This article is part of the Adams Collection, which includes many other newspapers detailing aspects of the Civil war and slavery. The Adams Collection also has many other other documents and artifacts from the mid 1700's to the late 1800's. Click the link under the photo to find out more!

Picture This

In today's digital age, it's a lot harder to lose pictures than it was when cameras weren't attached to our cell phones and required actual film. Many photographs have been lost to time because owners lost the film or the actual cameras.

Enter The Rescued Film Project. This is an online archive of images that were captured on film from the 1930's through the 1990's. Every photo was taken with an intent to eventually be seen, and the Levi Bettweiser, founder and film technician for the Project, can help these photos come to life.

Bettwieser at work. Photo courtesy of hayo.com

Recently, the project develped 31 rolls of film from WWII, and the photographs are incredible. Check out this awesome short film about the process and the results, and be sure to check out http://www.rescuedfilm.com/ to see more photos. National Geographic interviewed Bettwieser about the origins of the project, read that here.