My Ohio Hisorical Marker will be dedicated in April!

One of the internships I participated in last year was the completion of an application for an Ohio Historical Marker on behalf of Wilmington College. The marker acknowledges the construction and fascinating story of Marble Hall, one of the dormitories at Wilmington. The application was submitted in March, and was approved by the Ohio Historical Society about a month later, including a $750 grant to offset the cost of the marker (about $2,000). I found out last week that the marker will be officially dedicated in April.

In order to be eligible for an Ohio Historical Marker, marker subjects must meet a "minimum criteria of significance." I'm not going to list them all, you can find them on the OHS website. Basically, something important had to of happened there.

There are two major steps that need to be addressed when filling out an application, and accomplishing these was the bulk of my internship. The first and most time consuming is the Statement of Significance. This basically states why a historical marker is justified. You are limited to a single type written page, and it must be based off only primary resources. In my case it was very hard to narrow the story down to a single page. I had to use size ten font and adjust the margins in order to fit all the material. An annotated bibliography must also accompany the statement of significance.

The other step that needs to be addressed is the drafting of the actual marker text. As hard as it was to narrow the story down to a single page, the actual marker has a 130 word limit. You have to choose your words very wisely, and make sure that they are accurate and do the topic justice. It is a lot harder than you might think. Once the marker has been made, its too late to make any changes. For most people, what they see on the marker will be their only source of information about the topic.

This took me about two months to research to fully grasp the topic and come up with the statement of significance.I have all the materials should anyone find the need to use them.

In case you were wondering, here is the statement of significance:

The Quakers founded Wilmington College in Wilmington, Ohio in 1870. In 1947 the college chose Samuel D. Marble to be the twelfth president of the institution who also, at the age of 32, was then thought to be the youngest man to head any university in the nation. ¹ Marble faced a peculiar situation as he assumed leadership—campuses across the country were struggling to house veterans and handle the postwar boom in college enrollment. The Serviceman’s Readjustment Act of 1944 had made it possible for millions of veterans returning from World War II to pursue educational opportunities and Wilmington College also saw a large influx of veterans. According to a newspaper article believed to be from the Cincinnati Post, Wilmington had 585 students at the time of Marble’s inauguration, which was double the pre-war enrollment. ² Some students at Wilmington College were living in temporary facilities and shacks on campus and a new dormitory to house students was agreed to be desperately needed.³ After some time of initial planning, Marble called upon student and faculty leaders at the campus and began to lay out plans for a dormitory, to be built chiefly with volunteer labor and donated materials. With some discussion, the group agreed to attempt the endeavor, adopting the slogan, “We don’t want a cent!” ⁴

                President Marble called an assembly on April 13, 1948, and shared his idea with the student body, asking for their service, and ground was broken that very same day.⁵ From early in the morning until late at night, students worked side by side with teachers and members of the community.  Volunteers were excavating, laying blocks, or moving materials. Newspapers soon caught wind of the story and it even landed in the pages of the New York Times, where journalist Benjamin Fine discussed the project in November, 1948.  The College community could be seen working “from 7 o’clock in the morning until 10:30 at night…you can see them digging, pouring concrete, laying blocks, and doing other necessary though sometimes tedious jobs.”⁶ In the article, Fine noted that a group of co-eds had arrived from Oberlin College to assist with construction, and local factories were sending workers to help out during the night shift. The observations of Stanley High in a 1949 Reader’s Digest article also resonated with the events Benjamin Fine wrote about the previous year. Students had volunteered for hundreds of hours of work, supervised by other contractors and business owners who wanted to help with construction. The College not only benefited from the free labor, but numerous material donations from businesses began to pour in as well. Dayton Power & Light Company furnished free electricity to light the work area at night, Phillip Carey Manufacturing donated the entire roof, another gloves for all the workers, and U.S. Steel donated all the cement for the building. ⁷ News of the College’s effort even reached across the Atlantic Ocean, where a story was featured about it in The Guardian, a prominent British newspaper that commended the effort at Wilmington and pondered the unlikely chances of something similar occurring in Britain. ⁸ It was during this period in late 1948 that the dormitory gained the most publicity from the press and the story was featured in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Soon politicians also picked up on the symbolic events occurring at Wilmington College. Former U.S. President Herbert Hoover, himself a Quaker, delivered a speech to the College by telephone encouraging their efforts of self-help on November 11, 1948, titled “On the Uncommon Man.”⁹ A few days later on November 13, Governor Thomas Herbert was present at the cornerstone ceremony and helped lay mortar on to the stone which reads “Built by Students-1948.” Senator John W. Bricker also did a token amount of work on the building, where he spoke a few encouraging words before returning back to Washington.¹⁰  An article in College and University Business describes the first floor walls of the dormitory being completed by the end of 1948, with over 95% of students having participated in the project.¹¹ The building had been up to this point un-named, but a decision was soon made to name the building in honor of Samuel Marble, who had played such a critical role on the campus since his inauguration. The official dedication of the eighty-five resident Marble Hall was held on October 27, 1950, and on that day, ten prominent figures from all corners of American industry were chosen to speak in Wilmington. Benjamin Fairless, President of U.S. Steel, asked, “Is there to be found anywhere a more heartening example of enterprise, devotion, and self-reliance?”¹² Henry Ford II, president of Ford Motor Company predicted that the “spirit of self-giving and co-operation generated in this project will bear an influence far beyond the campus…”¹³ 

The total value of the dormitory at the time of dedication was about $200,000 with labor costs contributing to two-thirds of that price. A bronze plaque still stands in the main hall that lists over 180 students who worked a minimum of 25 hours and up to 400 hours, the value of their work being estimated at least $100,000.  The principal contributors out of 130 business and manufacturers that donated materials are also recognized, estimated in value of at least $60,000. Wilmington College only paid $18,000 on professional labor to meet state requirements for the entire dormitory.¹⁴ Samuel Marble is quoted in the Columbus Dispatch Magazine as saying “You know the world is full of people who want to change the world….starting of course, with the other fellow.”¹⁵ The bricks in Marble Hall that still stand strong today certainly defy that statement, and represent a very rich and significant history—a history of which all Ohioans can be proud.

And here is the drafted marker text:

As colleges across the country were struggling to house students from the surge in enrollment made possible by the G.I. Bill following World War II, Wilmington College was no exception.  The College saw its student enrollment double compared to pre-war levels.[1] On April 13, 1948, the President of Wilmington College, Samuel Marble, called a student rally and unveiled a plan to build a much-needed men’s dormitory entirely with volunteer labor and materials.[2] Ground was broken that very day, and in the months that followed there was a great outpouring of public support and donations, as faculty, students, and members of the community worked together to build the dormitory.[3] The building was dedicated in honor of President Marble’s leadership on October 27, 1950.[4]