The Way We Were

LIGHTNING PROGRESS: The Ryan High Voltage Laboratory opened in 1926 with a 2-million-volt flashover. Researchers helped figure out how to transmit power over long distances. Stanford Archives THERE'S THE STORY OF JANE STANFORD overseeing construction, using the tip of her parasol to measure the depth of the intricate stone carving in the Quad. And there's the time the University's third president, Ray Lyman Wilbur, bluntly lectured students about the dangers of owning an automobile. "It often leads," he warned, "to life off the campus, to extravagance and much foolishness. . . ." And not to be forgotten: the "D.A.R.s," a nickname given to the older, industrious students who filled the campus after World War II. It stood for Damned Average Raisers. In a new book, Stanford: Portrait of a University, author Susan Wels, '78 (former managing editor of STANFORD), weaves such snippets together to produce a chronicle of the University from its earliest days through the growth of the 1920s and '30s, the postwar science boom, the turbulence of the Vietnam Era and the eruption of Silicon Valley. Published by the Stanford Alumni Association, the 165-page volume was two years in the making and involved tracking down more than 200 photos and dozens of artifacts. "It was like rooting around in grandma's attic," says Holly Brady, '69, the association's director of publishing ventures and the book's executive editor. It's an attic brimming with treasures. CHISELED FEATURES: During construction of Memorial Arch, a stonemason carves a frieze depicting "the march of civilization." The arch collapsed in the 1906 quake. LEARNING BY DOING: Stanford's turn-of-the-century curriculum emphasized practical coursework -- including dissection -- for both men and women. Stanford Archives FISH STORY: Stanford's first president, David Starr Jordan, was a respected ichthyologist. By the early 1950s, the fish specimen collection he started had become world famous. DISARMING: Student activists occupy the Old Union in 1970 to protest military training on campus, which ceased in 1973. Stanford Archives; News Service PERFECT FORMULA: Since the University's founding, 23 professors have won Nobel Prizes. Laureate Linus Pauling taught chemistry from 1969 to 1973.         Leo Holub