Stepping Back in Time into Mizzou's Majors

Come visit our exhibit on the main floor of the MU Student Center outside of the Shack.

Ever wondered what students and professors used in the classroom before the technology that surrounds us today? The MU Student Center highlights the technology of the university's past through different departmental majors on campus.  The Unions would like to thank the Department of Theater, the Department of Art History and Archaeology, the School of Journalism, and the Department of Biological Sciences for loaning objects to this exhibit.  

In theater students learn the ins and outs both on stage and behind stage, such as these students working the soundboard.
 

Savitar 1961.

Check out vintage microphones from the mid-20th century and a spotlight from the 1980s.

Art historians and their students learned from images projected by a glass lantern slide projector, such as this from the early 20th century.  They also had photographic reproductions of artworks mounted on matboard to pass around the room.

The Department of Art History and Archaeology even owned a set of plaster casts, which were taken from molds of ancient statues.  Students could study statues like the Laocoon below, whose original statue is located in the Vatican in Rome.
 

Savitar 1968.

Engineers used slide rules, such as this one below dated to 1939 and patented by MU Professor M.P. Weinback in the College of Engineering.  
 

In the collection of MU Unions Public Arts (2015.071).

They even had a giant one for classroom wide learning!  
 

Savitar 1964.

Photojournalists used a Speed Graphic camera in the mid-20th century. Photojournalism, like art history, also used glass plate negatives.

Microscopes are an important piece of equipment for a biologist and Dr. James Birchler of the Department of Biological Sciences lent the Unions the microscope of renowned MU scientist and professor Ernie Sears. 

This ca. 1900 German anatomical plant model of a pitcher plant was part of a larger set of models of different plants that would have aided in classroom teaching.

 

Come visit the exhibit at the MU Student Center through the end of August!

Blog post authored by Lauren DiSalvo, Curator of Public Arts at the University of Missouri Student Unions.