1935-36 A&M Yearbooks

TWO PRE-WAR OKLAHOMA A&M COLLEGE YEARBOOKS - THE REDSKIN, 1935 AND 1936, STILLWATER, OKLAHOMA Two consecutive Depression-era yearbooks from Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College in Stillwater, the school that became Oklahoma State University in 1957. Both are the official annual of the student association, published under the title The Redskin, the name the school used for its yearbook for roughly eighty years. The 1936 volume is bound in black textured cloth with a bold silver Art Deco A&M monogram across the front and a silver-lettered spine reading 1936, Volume 27. The 1935 volume is bound in orange cloth with a black cloth panel across the spine side, the title blocked in orange and black and a large 1935 stamped at the lower right. Inside, both are thick photographic records of campus life, with formal senior and society portraits, fraternity and sorority sections, military, athletics, campus, beauty, humor, and feature departments, printed on heavy coated stock with tinted decorative title pages. Real Oklahoma history and strong material for a collector, an OSU alumnus, a genealogist working Payne County families, or anyone researching 1930s campus life. Both books show honest age and shelf wear, detailed below. Sold as a lot of two hardbound volumes. Description The Redskin, 1936, Volume 27 - black pebbled cloth hardcover with silver Art Deco lettering reading OKLAHOMA A & M COLLEGE across the front, spine lettered REDSKIN and 1936 VOLUME 27. Title page reads The Redskin 1936, Official Publication of the Student Association, Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College, Stillwater, Oklahoma, with James Skinner, Editor; Floyd Gudgel, Business Manager; Lelda Ben Reddick, Assistant to the Editor, and a copyright line dated 1936. The Redskin, 1935 - orange cloth hardcover with a black panel, front lettered The Redskin and 1935, spine and border lettering reading OKLAHOMA A & M COLLEGE - STILLWATER, OKLAHOMA. Interior title page is a blue and black photographic spread headed The Redskin 1935 with a portrait captioned THE NATION'S man of the Year, and a printed department index listing Administration, People of the Year, Animal Husbandry, Engineering, Home Economics, Science and Literature, Education, Commerce, Features, Military, Athletics, Campus, Beauty, Sororities, Fraternities, and Humor. Interior pages photographed include a Fall Society portrait spread and a Fall Beauties full-page portrait captioned Katherine Lee Zahn, Redskin Queen, a Basketball section opening on Coach Henry P. Iba with text on the Missouri Valley race and an Olympic district tournament in Kansas City, a Military Commandant feature page, and pairs of signed formal portraits including Marie Steidinger and Mary Jane Chadderdon. Each volume measures approximately 12 inches tall by roughly 9 to 9-1/2 inches wide per the tape-measure photographs. In the height photographs the tape is laid on top of the closed book and in the width photographs the hook plate is resting on the carpet beside the book rather than hooked on its edge, so both figures are close estimates. Bidders should verify all dimensions from the photographs. Both are thick, heavy, sewn-and-cased hardbound volumes with plain black endpapers. Attribution note Oklahoma A&M College was founded in Stillwater in 1890 and was renamed Oklahoma State University in 1957, a change reflected in later runs of this same yearbook series, according to library cataloging records reproduced at the Internet Archive. The annual was published under the title The Redskin for roughly eighty years, a name the university has since retired and publicly addressed as reflecting the racial stereotyping of its era, as documented by the Stillwater History Museum. Henry P. "Hank" Iba took over as head basketball coach at Oklahoma A&M in 1934 and coached there until 1970, building the program into a national power and later coaching United States Olympic teams, per Wikipedia and the Oklahoma Historical Society's Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, which places these two volumes at the very beginning of his tenure. That makes the basketball sections in these particular years of genuine interest to Cowboys sports collectors. The portrait captioned as the nation's man of the year in the 1935 volume appears to be Franklin D. Roosevelt, stated as an observation from the photograph rather than a verified caption reading. Identification and dating are offered as the consignor's photo-based opinion and are not guaranteed. Bid on the items as pictured. Condition Used, ninety-year-old books in good structural condition for their age, sold as-is. The 1935 orange cloth volume shows the heavier wear, with the black spine cloth rubbed, scuffed, and flaking along the joint, chipping and fraying at the head and tail of the spine and at the corners, soiling and small dark spots across the orange cloth, and light bumping to the board edges. The 1936 black volume shows scuffing and light rubbi