A Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Dubuque, Iowa, and Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies and Theology at Loras College in Dubuque, Robert R. Beck, D.Min., did graduate work at Aquinas Institute of Theology (M.A., Theol.), Notre Dame, The Catholic University of America (D. Min.), and the Ecole Biblique et Archaeologie in Jerusalem, Israel. His contributions to Loras College include teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in both Testaments, extensive participation as a member and chair of college committees, and collaborative work with faculty, administrators, and students to create the Father Ray Herman Center for Peace and Justice.
Louise Halliburton, born and raised in Dubuque, Iowa, was a pacifist, an activist, and an artist. She is best known for her seven-year silent vigil held in Washington Park to protest the Vietnam War. The collection holds an assortment of materials such as letters, personal artifacts, newspaper clippings, photographs, and works of art.
The fully processed Halliburton Collection is now accessible to researchers, Dubuque residents, and Loras College students through the Center for Dubuque History.
This exhibit presents a cursory glance, through photographs, newspapers, and yearbooks, of life at Loras College in the 1950s. As a nostalgic trip through the people and activities of Loras sixty-five years ago, the exhibit aims to evoke the excitement and energy of Loras campus life from 1950 to 1959. This vibrancy endures in Loras today.
In the fall of 1968, Loras’ black students embraced racial unity when they began living together on the fourth floor of Keane Hall. They held a clear cultural pride when they fought a discriminatory athletic hair policy that same fall. They were assertive in their newly self-defined identities as they demanded a black culture house and Black Studies Program throughout the following years. Like many black students across the country, Lorasmen refused to accept the harsh consequences they were delt for their actions. This period of “conflict, crackdown, negotiation and reform” is exactly what changed the course of American higher education forever (Biondi, 1).
Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, the black students at Loras College embodied a truly revolutionary phrase—Black Power.
An expansive 528 volume set of scrapbooks, the National Political Cartoon Collection records American life and foreign policy through newspaper editorial cartoons from the 1930s to the 1979. Clipped daily from multiple newspapers published in the tri-state area and nearby large cities, the unknown scrapbooker created a unique window through which to learn about American attitudes regarding a wide range of events, ideas, and people. Cartoons from the 1970s explore divisions in America over issues still familiar today including race, gender, protest, and involvement in foreign affairs.