Smashing success

Construction of the Accelerator Building’s $2.2 million synchrocyclotron was completed in 1951. A kind of cyclotron, this “atom smasher” uses a magnetic field to accelerate subatomic particles to high energies. Over 2,000 tons of steel were used for the particle accelerator’s magnet alone. (See “Atom Smashers.” Photography by Sarra, UChicago Photographic Archive, apf2-00110, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.)

Microgreens

Florence (Kilvary) Slifer, PhB 1918, inspects a tiny plant in a University greenhouse in 1917. The botany department had expanded its greenhouses three years before, adding two buildings next to Ellis Hall (which housed the University Bookstore from 1919 until the building was demolished in 1970). The greenhouses were home to a number of rare and tropical plants, including cycads, a tree that produced lemons 14 inches in circumference, and, reported the Maroon in 1916, a “forest” of 12-foot-tall tomato plants. (DN-0067779, Chicago Daily News collection, Chicago History Museum)

Matters of State

Chicagoans go about their business at the corner of State and Madison in 1959. Walgreens occupies the same site today, but many of the neon-signed shops and eateries have given way to retail chains. The Chicago Building on the far left is now a School of the Art Institute of Chicago residence hall. The historic McVickers Theater stands in the background, advertising Otto Preminger’s controversial film adaptation of Porgy and Bess (1959). In the early 21st century, an office building took its place. (Photography by Mildred LaDue Mead; UChicago Photographic Archive, apf2-09933, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library)

Focused study

Library staff gather in the new Far Eastern library. In 1961 two adjacent study rooms on the first floor of Harper Memorial Library were converted to house this library, which brought together two existing collections. The Far Eastern collection, with its then 135,000 volumes, had been housed in what is now the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures; the 5,000-volume South Asia reference collection had been located in the classics library. Today the East Asian collection, occupying most of the Regenstein Library’s fifth-floor stacks, includes extensive holdings in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean; numerous rare books in Tibetan, Mongolian, and Manchu; and much more. The Southern Asia Collections include a reference collection on the Reg’s fifth floor, as well as over 10,000 maps of South Asia on the third floor, among other resources. (UChicago Photographic Archive, apf2-06273, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library)

Uplifted

Students prepare for a parade to celebrate the 1973 rededication of Harper Memorial Library as the College’s center, after it was renovated to house the College’s administrative offices and communal spaces for students. Did you experience Harper’s transformation from library to College core? Share your memories at uchicago-magazine@uchicago.edu. (Photography by Frank Gruber, AB’74; UChicago Photographic Archive, apf4-04113, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library)

Library science

Eckhart Library, pictured in 1982, opened its doors in Gothic style in 1930 and was completely remodeled in 2013 to make space for more offices and to make the stacks more accessible. The library originally housed physics, astronomy, and mathematics collections. Today the library primarily houses mathematics monographs, as well as course reserves for math, statistics, and computer science classes. (UChicago Photographic Archive, apf2-02186, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library)

Fans of the flame

The Olympic Flame breezed through the quads in 1996, on its way to Atlanta for the summer games. Five-time track and field Olympian Willye White (at left) was one of 10,000 torchbearers to carry the Olympic Flame on its 15,000-mile trip around the country. John J. MacAloon, AM’74, PhD’80, a pioneer of Olympic studies, played no small role in bringing the torch to campus, and spoke at the ceremony about the University’s historic connections to the Games. Maroons were the first Chicagoans to compete in the Olympics—in track and field in the 1900 Paris Summer Games. Many more have followed in their footsteps. Ted Haydon, LAB’29, PhB’33, AM’54, coached the US track and field teams in the 1968 and 1972 Olympic Games. (Photography by Luke Swistun, AB’99; Copyright 2024, The Chicago Maroon. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.)

Security tapes

Lawrence Fisher, AM’55, PhD’56, then associate professor in the Graduate School of Business (now Chicago Booth) and founding associate director of the Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP), works with a lab technician in 1963 to count computer tapes from a study of investments in common stocks and rates of return on the New York Stock Exchange. (UChicago Photographic Archive, apf1-06108, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library)

Have photos from your UChicago days? The Magazine may be able to share them in Alumni News and in a future Snapshots. Send high-resolution scans and your memories of what the pictures are about to uchicago-magazine@uchicago.edu.