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War, Bobby Socks and the Bomb
Albany College of Pharmacy in the 1950s
After
a somewhat rocky start, the 1950s brought prosperity for ACP, with enrollment
numbers still high and a large number of veterans from both World War II and
the Korean war attending classes. By 1956, with the prospect of a new five-year
degree in pharmacy on the horizon, the College broke ground on a new wing,
creating more space and marking the school's Diamond Jubilee.
When the United States entered the Korean war on June 27, 1950, Dean Francis O'Brien '20 told the Class of '51 that "in 1947 when you entered, the world was in an immediate post-war period and appeared to be on the verge of a long era of peace and prosperity."
That era of peace turned out to be very short-lived and students once again put aside their books to enlist. However, after the Korean war ended in July 1953, veterans flocked back to the College under the G.I. Bill and
ACP regained its equilibrium. Once again
the students were older, rather than newly A sampling of ACP social life, circa 1953.
minted high school graduates, and many of
them were married as well.
The medical technology program was in full swing, and especially busy after a Blood Bank opened at Bender Laboratory and made its services available to the Albany chapter of the American Red Cross for collection of blood for the armed services. With 100 pints of blood collected each week as well as pathology tests for various area hospitals, there was plenty of work for the med tech students who spent their junior year at Bender lab.
Med
techs initially paid the same $375 tuition as the rest of the students, though
that dropped to $275 for the year at Bender. Tuition was waived for the fourth
year of practical experience at one of the local hospitals.
The American Society of Clinical Pathology, which certified medical technicians, projected that by 1960, 50,000 certified med techs would be needed in the United States . Although men were admitted to ACP's program, it was populated primarily by young women, though more and more of them switched to the B.S. in pharmacy as the decade wore on.
As a 1954 article in Mortar and Pestle said, "for the single girl, pharmacy offers a career where she is able to work 40-50 hours a week at a comfortable wage."
Bender lab and med tech students, 1951.
The upsurge in enrollment meant the need for new facilities, as well as more and revitalized sports and activities at the College. The Alumni Association worked to equip a new library and raised $5,000 toward that end. A new librarian, Dr. Sourya Hainebach, was hired in 1950 and impressed the students with her glamorous past as a fighter with the French Underground during World War II.
Sports really began to take off at ACP during the '50s. Most significantly, the decade ushered in a new coach and a new era for the basketball team.
With
the arrival of Albert M. White in the fall of 1952, the Panthers went on to
13 consecutive winning seasons on the court. So popular was the sport under
"Wizard" White that the school added a junior varsity team, intramural basketball
and a cheerleading squad, and strengthened the Athletic Commission under his
leadership, all in the name of building better teams for the future.
In the 1953-54 season, the team had a 13-2
record with captain Harry Mikhitarian '54 ACP men's basketball team, 1955.
scoring at a pace of 22.1 points per game. By
the sixth consecutive winning season under coach White, in 1956-57, the buses were filled to the brim for away games and the gym could barely contain the overflow crowds, who roared their approval during spirited pep rallies. Captain Gordon Dailey '57, with 267 points, and his teammates were feted by the College's trustees with a banquet at the University Club that spring.
The
following year, the first Alumni Basketball Dinner was organized by the Alumni
Association to honor ACP's outstanding team. The "Future Pharmacists" were
lauded, not only by Dean O'Brien and their professors, but also by sportswriters
for the Knickerbocker News and Times Union . It had been
the greatest year ever for top scorer Frank Viviani '58 and the Panthers,
who won 13 games in a row before dropping the last heartbreaking encounter
to the University of Connecticut. The
ACP cheerleaders, 1955. Panther "Cubs," the junior varsity team, were
part of the newly formed Capital District Conference. With their own JV cheerleading squad, the team rode to and from games in style in a 1935 Ford under coach Win Dobbins.
Other
sports at the College flourished as well. Two returning vets rebuilt the bowling
team in the early '50s and hit the lanes at the Playdium Bowling Center on
Ontario Street weekly. Intramural programs included an impressive six basketball
teams, ping pong, golf, tennis and softball. Those interested in varsity sports
other than basketball or bowling could join the varsity football, baseball,
swimming and hockey teams at Union College .
The three fraternities and the Lambda Kappa Sigma sorority all had healthy rosters in the '50s, sometimes referred to as the "Golden Age" of Greek life, and actively were involved in the social life of the school. In 1954, an Interfraternity Council was formed with representatives from each group
and the IFC Dance and other activities became 'Wizard' White, circa 1957.
an integral part of College life.
In
addition, Rho Pi Phi sponsored the Campus Queen Dance, Kappa Psi the Sweetheart
Formal and Phi Delta Chi a Winter Wonderland Dance, while Lambda Kappa Sigma
held a Halloween Hop, "coke parties" and a Mother-Daughter Banquet.
The Girls' Club started off the decade with upwards of 50 members and held a tea for all the "girls" as well as faculty and student wives. Though they optimistically bought a set of cups for future events, the club disbanded in 1950. They threw their annual picnic that year under the banner of the Lambda Kappa Sigma sorority, who continued the tradition through the decade and absorbed many of the club's members.
Other intellectual, religious and social pursuits were popular during the decade as well. The Newman Club,
Kappa Psi Sweetheart Formal, 1953. emphasizing Catholic culture and fellowship, formed in
the 1950-51 academic year and was followed shortly thereafter by the Student Christian Association. Both groups had very large memberships and held events such as St. Patrick's Day dances and square dances.
Music and dancing played a big part in the life of ACP through the '50s. The Glee Club was revived in the1953-54 academic year after a lapse of 24 years, with Alvin Strack as pianist. The co-ed group, with 20 members, performed in its first program at the holiday festivities in 1953.
Professor Walter Singer '48, the Glee Club advisor, was referred to in the yearbook as the "professor of bop," a reference to the wildly popular bebop music that exploded on the scene at the end of World War II. Impromptu jitterbug contests were held during dances, and when Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" debuted in 1955, students enthusiastically embraced rock 'n roll as well.
Other school activities included the Camera Club, which faithfully documented daily life at the College, and Mortar and Pestle , which celebrated its Silver Anniversary in 1952 with a new magazine-type format.
The Student Council not only dealt with the budgets for all of these clubs but also with weighty issues such as the "smoking problem in the lower corridor" and the "rhubarb in the cafeteria."
The Student Branch of the American Pharmaceutical Association (APhA) at ACP claimed 100 new members by 1952. Rudolph Blythe, a 1931 graduate, made a presentation to the club in 1952 at the Petit Paris, a popular Albany restaurant, to discuss his latest research at Smith, Kline & French. Dr. Blythe spoke about his pioneering work with time-release capsules, which hit the market as "Spansule capsules" in 1952.
With a direct wire hook up to the Founder's Day Centennial Program in Washington , D.C. , and an LP (long-playing) recording of the convention in Philadelphia , APhA members were able to listen in on such timely topics as "National Defense and the Health Professions" and "Medical Effects of the Atomic Bomb."
Though the '50s are often thought of as a quiet and prosperous decade during which many American families moved to the suburbs, national defense was on everyone's minds. The Alembic Pharmakon weighed in on issues such as "The Role of Pharmacy in Civil Defense" and the "ever impending phantasm of a possible enemy attack," including a hydrogen bomb or chemical warfare. Mortar and Pestle published an article on "Fall-out Fever" and the like. The College even had its own Red Cross unit beginning in the spring of 1950, with volunteers assigned to the Motor Corps Service and learning first aid.
Sometimes students could see the humor in the otherwise dire situation. The yearbook included a tongue-in-cheek spoof on "What to Do in Case of an Air Raid," supposedly issued by Professor Walter "Duck and Cover" Singer.
Other grim realties marred the decade as well.
Polio had killed more than 1,300 Americans, primarily children, and crippled more than 18,000 of them in 1954 alone. That year the ACP basketball team sponsored a Polio Benefit game with proceeds donated to National Foundation of Infantile Paralysis. By the time the Salk vaccine was developed in 1955 and the federal government implemented a plan to have the vaccine produced by six pharmaceutical companies , Mortar and Pestle was weighing in on the topic and the need for more pharmacists to go into research.
The trend in general during the '50s was away from solely retail pharmacy and toward a greater percentage of pharmacists entering hospital, research, government, manufacturing and pharmaceutical sales. The "outlook for pharmacists was very good" according to Mortar and Pestle , and the push for a five-year program at the College continued.
Pharmaceutical companies competed fiercely to attract graduates to jobs in the industry and ACP students were wined and dined royally on their trips to visit Winthrop Sterling, Lederle Laboratories, Abbott, Eli Lilly and Parke-Davis.
On a spring trip to the Midwest to visit Lilly and Parke-Davis, the students departed from Albany 's Union Station on the Advance Empire Express in their own car. Upon arrival in Detroit, they were put up at the palatial Book-Cadillac Hotel courtesy of Parke-Davis, which feted them with a "charcoaled sirloin steak" dinner at which the "ladies received orchids and the gentlemen mortar and pestle lapel pins."
Students had fun closer to home as well and took full advantage of the dining, drinking and dancing establishments in ACP's neighborhood.
At Mike's Log Cabin, on North Swan, they feasted on spaghetti, while Calsolaro's on Washington Avenue was favored for pizza, both dishes popularized by World War II veterans who had served in Italy .
Frats held their dinners at Lombardo's and Jack's downtown while more informal student evenings took place at Papa's Restaurant, Sol's University Sandwich Shop and The Fountain on New Scotland.
The dart leagues at both Riley's and Larry's Bar, on the corner of New Scotland and Madison, saw a lot of action during the decade as well. Alan Rand '56 remembered playing for beer tokens at Larry's and winning so many games that, as a non-imbiber, he was able to turn over 500 tokens to his fellow classmates on graduation day!
Outdoor activities included hayrides, toboggan parties at Albany Municipal Golf course and an onslaught of picnics in the spring, beginning with "McGaugh's Thaw" and commencing with hot dog roasts at Thacher Park and softball games at Six Mile Waterworks.
Though the College still had no dormitories, there was a lot of "at home" activity at fraternity houses and apartments scattered throughout the ACP neighborhood.
"Rope Hall," the Rho Pi Phi chapter house, was home to many of the brothers, while other students lived off-campus in a variety of accommodations, some arranged by the school, for a cost of about $22 a week. One 1952 graduate remembered her landlady's first words as "no men, no liquor, no smoking" but students seemed to have fun in spite of the advice!
By the late '50s, with more and more students owning cars and having access to the newly completed New York State Thruway, the student population at ACP began to change from a mostly local base as undergraduates streamed in from farther flung areas of the state. The College parking lots filled with the cars such as the "famous yellow and black convertible" of Mel Friedland '58, and students sought out cheap apartments in the neighborhood including "Clubhouse 35" on New Scotland Avenue , the "84 Grove headquarters" and the " Pinochle Palace " on Glendale .
Back on campus, in both the "boys' and girls' Lounges," students spent the time between classes playing hearts and pinochle, all the while smoking copious amounts of cigarettes.
By 1955, with the largest freshmen class in many years enrolled and the announcement that the B.S in pharmacy at ACP would go to a five-year program in 1960, the College knew it had to do something to ease the crush. Though Dean O'Brien expressed some worry about the "quarter of a million dollars" needed for a new addition, the school plowed bravely ahead with its plans.
Ground was broken on June 6, 1956, for a Diamond Jubilee Wing, just in time to mark the 75 th anniversary of the College and prepare for an expected increase in enrollment to 120 students in each freshmen class. The two-story wing would tie the old building to the future, with new classrooms, student and faculty dining halls, labs for physics and pharmacology/anatomy and a lab prep room.
The new wing was dedicated October 13, 1957, to Arthur Wardle, long-time president of the board of trustees. One of the most popular features was a "modern cafeteria with tables and ash trays" and food provided by "Kirkpatrick Caterers."
Oswald and Margaret Kirkpatrick had arrived at the College in 1951, Ossie as superintendent of campus facilities and "Mrs. K." as manager of the cafeteria, which at the time was a small room off the gym with a limited menu and seating facilities. With their Scottish accents, humor and small kindnesses, the Kirkpatricks were well-loved by both faculty and students, who often stopped by their on-campus apartment for a bit of conversation and a piece of shortbread.
When the Wardle Wing was added, Mrs. K. ruled over the new cafeteria, which had a capacity of 120, providing home-cooked food to thousands of students until she retired as cafeteria manager in 1971. She stayed on at the school, helping Ossie with the building and grounds thereafter, and they resided at ACP until Ossie's death in 1993 and Margaret's in 1996.
Another valuable feature of the new addition was the anatomy lab, which eliminated "the brisk march, in the chill of the morn, to the 'cat morgue' behind the old building." Students joked that previously when they "received [their] neatly wrapped package of Felis domestica, they looked like waiters, going to and from the garage" but with a new walk-in, temperature-regulated refrigerator complete with exhaust system, both the walk and the "odor" were eliminated.
The new wing would not only allow for increased enrollment, but would provide the facilities for an increased emphasis on the sciences at ACP, which mirrored what was going on in schools throughout the nation in response a couple of momentous events that occurred in 1957.
History changed on October 4 of that year when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I, the world's first artificial satellite. The launch ushered in new political, military, technological and scientific developments and marked the start of the space age and the American-Soviet space race.
At ACP, the 1958 yearbook had a space-age theme and talked about responsibilities of the pharmacist in the age of "Sputniks and Explorers." Even the basketball team was pictured against a starry night sky and drawings of rockets and "spacemen" abounded throughout. Both faculty and students ardently debated how "modern day advances into outer space [would] affect pharmacy in the future."
Popular pharmacy professor Burdette Dewell predicted that a customer might have a prescription "not for Dramamine for a trip to Europe but for Drug x-2000 to permit his body to adjust itself to the new conditions of travel in outer space."
George O'Connell '58 felt "pharmacists would be expected to advise physicians caring for space travelers. . Drugs will have to be sought to overcome the boredom and mental fatigue encountered by the spacemen, thus pushing pharmacy ahead with these new discoveries."
It was the age of the atom and of radioactive drugs.
"In the era of uncertainty in world affairs, it is more important than ever that the pharmacist take an active part in the local civic defense program," said the Alembic Pharmakon .
1957 also introduced another factor that influenced the future of pharmacy. The New York Times published an article that year describing an influenza epidemic in Hong Kong that sickened 250,000 people in a very short period. The 1958 yearbook referred to the time from November 1957 to January 1958 as the "Asian Flu dog days." They marked not just an illness, but also the first time that the rapid global spread of a modern influenza virus was available for laboratory investigation.
By 1959, Dean O'Brien was talking about other factors that were contributing to a "changed era" in the profession.
The number of pharmacies was decreasing in proportion to the number of pharmacists and the population as a whole. There was a trend toward larger pharmacies and the "one-man pharmacy" had almost disappeared from urban centers. Pharmacies were devoted more to the "professional aspect" rather than merchandising of items such as cosmetics and sundries. Lastly, there was a strong demand by hospitals and laboratories for people with scientific pharmaceutical training.
In response to these trends, by 1958 ACP students had formed a student affiliate of the American Chemical Society to introduce students to the "professional side" of pharmacy and the technical skills necessary for a career in pharmaceutical chemistry.
With a major push toward the sciences and away from retail pharmacies, gone were the days when ACP students learned soda fountain maintenance and how to wrap a package. It was a new era and, with a new five-year program set to debut in 1960, ACP would be ready for it.