Even before American University received its charter from Congress in 1893, The American University Courier, the predecessor to today's student newspaper, The Eagle, debuted in 1892, chronicling the lives of the school's first students.
"Bishop [John Fletcher] Hurst started a fund-raising campaign and used the paper to promote the university," said Ignacio Moreno, the assistant archivist in Bender Library. "Bishop Hurst was concerned about two Catholic universities in the nation's capital and felt there should be a national but specifically Methodist or Protestant university."
Hurst retained a letter from George Washington who stated his wishes for a national university, according to Moreno.
Albert Olson, registrar and assistant secretary of AU at the time, edited the paper and in its pages solicited donations for the nascent university using the "Lincoln Medal" and "Epworth League Certificate."
The certificate, attainable with a donation of a dollar or more, was described as "beautiful" by the paper, but neither the certificate nor the medal were successful fund-raisers. Moreno estimates that the school's archives have around 100 of these medals, which are "made out of very light metal."
By 1925, AU switched from a graduate-only university to an undergraduate-graduate university, and the first issue of The Eagle debuted on Nov. 20 in the same year. The paper fashioned itself as the undergraduate voice of the university and stated its major goal to be "a highly successful year with 200 percent circulation."
At the time, the university consisted of McKinley Hall, the College of History and a women's residence hall, which was later turned into the Mary Graydon Center.
The first editor, T. Leonard Mikules, had a staff of four reporters. The paper contained no photographs on its four pages, but contained a few poems, quotes and even a sonnet.
The Eagle's Eye, a front-page column, inaugurated the paper with the French quote "La distance n'y fait rien; il n'y a que le premier pas qui coute." Roughly translated, it means "The distance there is nothing; it is the first step that counts."
The sports section delicately chronicled the loss of a football game to George Washington University, writing, "During the first half of the game, our team was unable to accomplish anything for they were not yet familiar with their opponents' tactics, whose six touchdowns looked like a runaway."
AU lost to GW, 55-0.
On June 1, 1926, the paper ran a photo of all five undergraduates, four of whom were women. In that same issue, the cornerstone of the Battelle Memorial was laid. It was to be the university's library.
For one year, 1943, the paper changed its name to "The American Courier" and styled itself as a "'new' all-University" paper that covered student and faculty life. For at least one issue in that year, the paper was also called "The American University Bulletin."
Throughout World War II, it encouraged students to buy bonds, write letters and give blood to the Red Cross. An advertisement plugging the paper implored readers to "Back the Attack NOW It is the Time To Buy Bonds."
A letter from a freshman in 1943, Adele Reese, written to The Eagle described what sets AU apart from other schools. The major difference is "the genuine friendliness and lack of pomposity on the part of the upperclassmen," she wrote.
One of the difficulties of maintaining the archives is the difference in paper quality between the 1920s and the 1950s. "The '50s paper was of cheaper quality that yellowed and is now seriously brittle," Moreno said.
In one yellowed issue from October 1960, then-Sen. John F. Kennedy stopped by campus for three minutes to speak to a crowd of 3,500. The visit was his first of two to the campus.
"Not many people know he came twice," Moreno said. The other visit in 1963 is memorialized near the athletics field with a monument featuring words from his speech.
"Nine presidents on campus are documented by the paper," Moreno said. For example, Dwight Eisenhower was at the 1957 groundbreaking of the School of International Service building, and George H.W. Bush jogged around campus during the Reagan era.
Throughout the paper's history, the story of the nation, and AU's place in it, are chronicled. Everything from student division over various wars to the evolving place of religion to cigarette ads are featured in its pages.
A 1960 Winston ad promoted its "filter-blend" cigarette, proclaiming, "It's what's up front that counts." In that same year, a chaplain advised students on how to live a spiritual life.
The archives staff chose to digitize the 1960s and 1970s issues of the paper so they can be preserved for future generations.
"We can view that period as a turning point in American history, and we expect it to be important in documenting AU and the city's history," Moreno said. "The WRLC (Washington Research Libraries Consortium) is also participating in chronicling the papers."
The archives staff will not be able to restore all issues of The Eagle, despite the fact that "there are scientific techniques" used for preserving old documents, according to Moreno.
By the 1990s, the paper started using a format that is recognizable today and contained a staff many times larger than the dozen that started the paper 80 years ago. Also, in 1925 the paper used single-block typewriter text, compared with the superscript text in use by the '90s.
In the Feb. 25, 1991, issue, students are described as "split" over the Gulf War, with one student saying, "Saddam is a man who needs to be brought down," while the editorial page featured three anti-war editorial cartoons and two anti-war opinion pieces. One student praises the collapsing Soviet Union and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev's peace plan.
For Moreno, a 1970 graduate of the College of Arts and Sciences, the best-documented event covered by The Eagle was the famous Ward Circle demonstration in response to President Richard Nixon's bombing of Cambodia.
"The police's CDU (Civil Disturbance Unit) used tear gas ... which drifted into Hurst Hall and made a professor's lab rats suffocate," he said. "The professor protested and he was arrested."
Almost all issues of The Eagle from 1925 to 1996 are on microfilm, and in the future, the archives staff hopes to have every issue available to students in Bender Library.
