Christmas in the Archives

Stop by the Archives and check out our festive new look!  Swedish Christmas magazines along with a few intriguing Swedish bibles are on display.  

The Christmas lights and decorations will bring holiday cheer to your research, so come in and unwrap new knowledge!

Tools to Help You Focus

Do you feel that Facebook is nibbling away at your attention span? Do you find yourself checking status updates when you should be studying for the chemistry exam? There's an app for that - or at least a browser extension that will help you focus.

For Firefox users, the Leechblock add-on will let you set up a list of sites that you want to block during certain times during the day or that you want to limit to a limited amount of time - such as "I'll spend no more than five minutes on Facebook every hour."

For Safari users, try the WasteNoTime extension, recommended by a student in the Simple Living First Term Seminar.

And by the way, if you want tips on how to simplify your life and why you should, that class has published a lot of excellent advice and researched background papers.

Pearl Harbor and Gustavus

Dr. Peterson's Exposition

The United States of America remembers the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that occurred on 7 December 1941, seventy years ago.  You might be wondering how Gustavus responded in the event's immediate aftermath.  Editors of the Gustavian Weekly printed their first post-attack newspaper two days after the bombing.  While the infamous action failed to make the paper's headline, a story about the women participating in St. Lucia served that purpose, it did get a blurb below the fold.  Conrad Peterson, longtime Gustavus history professor, wrote about our need to prepare for war and turn away from pacifism or "soon become another queer little sect along side the Quakers and the Mennonites."  Peterson's comments were from the heart.  He supported the war effort passionately and spent much of his time during this period giving supportive speeches.  

To read additional issues of the Gustavian Weekly from the World War II era, please visit the archives digital collections page.  As might be expected, Gustavus was a very different place in the early 1940s.  In fact and as can be seen in the attached image, only four buildings from that period remain on the campus today.

Gustavus Adolphus College, Summer 1942