Week Seven: "Saved by the Bell"

Hello, reader! This week, I received new materials from Ms. Boykin to be digitized soon. These artifacts consist of two yearbooks from Hungerford High School that supposedly belonged to Joseph R. Gladden, Michael Gladden Jr.’s nephew and son of William Gladden Sr. Joseph, admittedly, is a bit of an enigma in terms of finding information about him within the Gladden Collection. The Gladden scrapbooks only contain a single photograph of him that I was unable to peel from the page it was stuck on. From Ms. Boykin, I learned that, much like William Jr., he was a veteran of the United States Navy who, upon returning to civilian life, owned his own business as a carpet-layer. According to Ms. Boykin, Joseph struggled with alcoholism and even had a romantic tryst with her own grandmother at one time. Being able to view Joseph’s yearbooks has truly given me special insight into his formative years based on what little exists about his time at Hungerford.

Photographs of Joseph Gladden at 16, 1953.

The yearbooks Ms. Boykin has date to 1951 and 1953, respectively. In the 1953 yearbook, I was able to find evidence of 16-year-old Joseph’s participation in the Boys’ Basketball team, serving as Co-Captain alongside Captain Louis Garvin. I initially did not even notice Joseph’s photographs on this page after a preliminary flip through of the yearbook! As seen in the image, there are only two photographs that depict Joseph in this yearbook. He is notably absent from class photos in the 1953 yearbook, even after searching through each grade’s spotlight pages. Though Joseph’s yearbook was notably absent of signatures from classmates, I noticed that certain pages were annotated by him. He pointed out students who were his “pals” and sweethearts with small captions written in faint pencil.

The 1951 yearbook is arguably more mysterious. As far as I can tell, no mention of Joseph exists anywhere within this book. However, one of Michael Gladden Jr. does. Rather curiously, Michael Gladden Jr.’s distinct signature is found on the inside of the front cover of the 1951 yearbook. I can confidently say that neither Michael Gladden Jr. nor Marie Stapler Gladden worked at Hungerford, though they were both affiliated with organizations that held events at the school property. However, none of those organizations were mentioned in this particular yearbook, and Mr. Gladden’s name was absent. Admittedly, reader, I do not have a definitive reason as to why Mr. Gladden would have signed his name in Joseph’s High School yearbook; Ms. Boykin did not have an answer to this conundrum either. Perhaps soon I will unravel this mystery!

Additionally, over on the Gladden Digital Exhibit, Sarah Norris was able to successfully add sections for basic “About” and “Acknowledgements” pages that are now displayed on the main hierarchy collection page. Currently, I am writing the text content for both. For the “About” page, I plan on writing short descriptions of the origin of the Gladden Collection and short bios for myself and Ms. Boykin. After I send these to Sarah, Digital Commons will update the pages with the new text for us. More to come next week, reader! See you then!