1953
SAF Major Yeager set an airplane speed record of 1,600 mph in the Bell X-1A rocket-powered
plane. Jonas Salk perfected the polio vaccine. Convicted spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were
executed. The Boston Braves baseball club was transferred to Milwaukee. Clare Boothe Luce
became US Ambassador to Italy. Sen. Wayne Morse ended the longest US Senate speech in
history: 22 hours and 26 minutes on the Offshore Oil Bill. Winston Churchill became Knight of
the Garter in England by the recently crowned Queen Elizabeth II. Joseph Stalin succumbed to
a stroke at age 73. Edmund Hillary became the first to ascend Mt. Everest, the world's highest
mountain. In
The Silent World
, Jacques Cousteau described his underwater adventures using
the newly invented aqualung. Drs. James Watson and Francis Crick described the DNA
structure as a double helix. Dizzy Dean and Al Simmons were named to Baseball's Hall of
Fame. Wearing special glasses, audiences thrilled to such 3-D movies as
Bwana Devil
and
House of Wax
.
From Here to Eternity
and Frank Sinatra won Oscars. Sir Winston
Churchill won the Nobel Prize for Literature and George C. Marshall won for
Peace.
Brooks Absent
Lewis House
First Dormitory
Grades
COSO
Integrator
Ramblings
New Faculty
New Basketball Record
“Pedatec”
“Whoop” Snively Left
Alpha Phi Omega
Lynn Merrill Left
Omega Epsilon
First Soccer Game
Angie Ely
Who’s Who
Eliminated
Snell Hall Purchased
Brooks Absent
. Minutes of the Trustees' meeting revealed that the 60
th
Commencement on
May 31 was the first annual meeting and Commencement missed in 43 years by Dr. John P.
Brooks, former president of the College.
Lewis House
. Construction of this new and badly needed student union had begun in 1952 with
completion expected by March 1953, but a steel strike delayed its finish by six weeks. This
two-story building, approximately 80 x 100 feet, was to be the center of student activities.
This building had been made possible by the generous gifts of the late Harry Slocum
Lewis of Beaver Falls, N.Y. His father, James P. Lewis, had originated what later came to be
known as Beaverboard, and was later put on the market by Harry Lewis and William
McGlashan of Buffalo. In his personal life, he was a boating enthusiast; his last cruiser, the
Porpoise, was conscripted by the US government to patrol the English Channel during World
War II.
Named in honor of Harry S. Lewis, this new building was dedicated officially on
October 10, 1953, at which time his son, James P. Lewis, a Trustee of Clarkson, presented the
key for the building to President Van Note. In his dedication speech on October 10, 1953, Harry
Lewis stressed the need for building a student union on the downtown campus.
