October is American Archives Month! It is a time for archivists to highlight what we do to link the present to the past. This means finding, acquiring, organizing, describing, learning about, and making accessible materials and documents that could, one day, be invaluable to a researcher. Central Michigan University has a long history and preserving that history is one of the missions of the Clarke. The information that we hold can paint us a better picture of how students interacted with Central in the past.
For example, one of the collections I processed, created finding aids for, cataloged, and encoded the finding aids for (which should be Google-searchable in a month) this week was the Les O. Carlin collection, a CMU counselor for whom the Carlin Alumni House is named. You can see the CENTRA catalog record for more information about him and the collection.
One of the coolest things, in my opinion, in this collection is the Central State Normal School/CMU SATC photograph album, 1984, in the Carlin collection. The SATC (Student Army Training Corps) was active at Central from September 1918 to about November 20, 1918, shortly after the Armistice was declared. The entire company consisted of four platoons of 250 men. Private Carl W. Dalrymple (Central class of 1919) noted on one photograph that 200 of the 250 had “flu” at the same time, using the gym as a hospital. Whether they actually had flu or pretended to as a medical exercise is unclear.
There were SATC programs at other universities and colleges in the United States. These Central men were lucky that their training was delayed because they were in college, and then they were never sent overseas due to the Armistice.
The album includes mostly copies of portraits and some original group photographs of students enrolled in the SATC at Central practicing with guns, attacking targets, and one with a bugle. Three of the group photographs are laminated and identified as the entire company (four platoons of 250 men) and one image is of the 4th platoon.
These photographs are identified by Private Carl W. Dalrymple of the 4th Platoon. The album also includes two 1984 color photographs of senior men who were once SATC members. It is the largest collection of SATC images in the Clarke.
Here are some images from the photograph album:
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| Target training and practice, 1918, and 1984 reunion |
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| Laminated group image of 4th platoon |
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| Unit in "mess hall" in the old gym |
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| Individual portraits: one is a bugler, the others have guard duty |
We have other Clarke collections with names of SATC men, or a few images of the Central SATC. They can be found via a CENTRA subject search for Central Michigan University Student Army Training Corps. For more information about the collection or anything archival, please contact Archivist Marian Matyn at marian.matyn@cmich.edu