The Virginia State College Gazette [New Series, Extra Number (May 1930)].

Ettrick, Virginia: [Virginia State College], 1930. 6¼” x 9 1/8”. Stapled embossed thin card wrappers. Pp. [42]. Very good plus: wrappers a touch edgeworn and spotted; pages lightly dust-soiled with a few faint scattered creases and spots, mostly outside images; penciled address to title page and name to one page's edge.

This is a rare special edition of an HBCU publication, the Virginia State College Gazette (VSCG). It is filled to the brim with spectacular photographic images documenting campus life and student activities.

The Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute, the nation's first fully state-supported four-year institution of higher learning for African Americans, was chartered in 1882 by a bill sponsored by Black Assemblyman and attorney Alfred W. Harris. A hostile lawsuit delayed the school's opening for 19 months, but its first academic year saw an all-Black faculty and a noted first president – abolitionist, attorney and activist John Mercer Langston. The school became Virginia State College for Negroes in 1930 and Virginia State University in 1979.

This book, a special “Pictorial Number,” contains 64 photographic images. There are views of campus buildings, including the “Storehouse (Constructed by Students in Brickmasonry and Carpentry Courses)” as well as internal shots of the gym (showing a “Howard State Basketball Game”), the cafeteria, classrooms and labs, dormitories and a “Section of an Industrial Arts Exhibit.” Female students are shown exercising in physical education class and horsing around “Just for the Fun of it,” as well as posed with the YWCA Cabinet and the “Debating Sorority.” Other great group shots reveal Greek life, arts and science clubs, sports teams and the annual “Conference of the New Farmers of Virginia.” The rear page lists “Six Facts” about the college, boasting “one of the best units of Women's Dormitories to be found in Negro Colleges” and “student organizations and activities that insure all-around development.”

Physical issues of the VSCG are rare, and this special edition appears only at the University of Virginia. OCLC shows seven institutions with holdings of other issues, nearly all of which postdate this one. Very good +. Item #8267

Price: $950.00