Back When We (Literally) Weren’t on the Map
January 4, 2011 at 4:31 pm Tina Hay 5 comments
A reader in Florida, Diana Storch ’47, sent me this postcard that she’s apparently had for quite a while. The postmark on the reverse side is from 1938. She was amused—and so am I!—by the fact that State College wasn’t yet big enough, or maybe wasn’t yet important enough, to merit a mention on this map. (And yet places like Ridgway, St. Marys, and Butler were.) Times certainly have changed since then.
It’s also fun to notice the roads on the card. The beginnings of route 322 are there, in the northwest part of the state, but there’s no Pennsylvania Turnpike, and no I-80. You can click on the image to see all of this stuff bigger.
By the way, the postcard got mailed for a whopping one cent. It wasn’t until 1951 that postcard postage went up to two cents.
Tina Hay, editor
Entry filed under: Penn State alumni, State College. Tags: vintage postcards.
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1. Amy | January 4, 2011 at 4:53 pm
It’s also interesting to note how many cities and towns that now have PSU campuses (but probably didn’t then) *are* on the map!
Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Allentown, Reading, York, Harrisburg, Altoona, DuBois, Sharon, McKeesport, Uniontown, Williamsport… and maybe I missed a few.
2. Tina Hay | January 4, 2011 at 4:56 pm
Good point! On a more humorous note, another reader noticed that apparently there was no way to get to New York City back then….
3. Vince Verbeke | January 5, 2011 at 7:09 am
Amy:
Penn State DuBois started in 1935. We just celebrated our 75th Anniversay in 2010. So we were there then and
WE ARE there now and still going strong.
Vince Verbeke
Penn State DuBois Alumni Society Board Member
4. R Thomas Berner | January 5, 2011 at 8:38 am
I suspect that many of the towns that have campuses today had “campuses” then, only they were continuing education centers. But don’t trust my memory.
5. Amy | January 5, 2011 at 12:32 pm
The first undergraduate centers did open in the 30s–DuBois (as Vince noted), Altoona, and others–but many also opened in the 40s and 50s, after WWII.