Browse Exhibits (6 total)
City At Work: 1912 and 2012
Tim Olson, 2012: In the spring of 1912 two itinerant photographers arrived in Dubuque to shoot the pictures that would become the Klauer Collection. For three weeks they traveled throughout the city with a large-format camera and a magnesium powder flash lamp photographing workers in factories, offices, shops, saloons and even the operating room of St. Joseph Mercy Hospital. We don’t know the photographers’ names, though they each posed as customers when needed, leaving us several self-portraits. Their objective was probably to sell prints to the people and businesses they photographed, though whether or not their venture in Dubuque was profitable is another unknown. But when the photographers moved on to the next project in the next town, they left behind roughly 440 extraordinary photographs documenting a city at work.
Fortunately for us, instead of selling the plates for reuse, the photographers sold them to Peter Klauer, then President of the Klauer Manufacturing Company. The photographers had made several shots of the Klauer factory, and Peter Klauer bought at least fifteen of the prints. But he also must have sensed the value of the entire set of images shot in Dubuque and so he bought the plates and stored them in a Klauer Manufacturing warehouse. Peter Klauer died in 1919 and the plates remained in storage—occasionally thumbed through by the curious, but mostly forgotten—for 60 years. In the 1970s the plates were pulled out of storage and at least two sets of contact prints were made. In the 1980s, William Klauer, Peter’s grandson, donated a set of contact prints (numbering 443) to the Center for Dubuque History at Loras College, and later 330 of the 8.5 x 6.5 glass plates—all that then remained—were donated as well. This collection of prints and negatives is now known as the William J. Klauer, Sr., Collection.
Visit http://acityatwork.com for more details from Tim Olson.
The Rev. Robert R. Beck Collection
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.
Scholarship
Fr. Beck’s scholarly publications include Nonviolent Story: Narrative Conflict Resolution in the Gospel of Mark (Orbis, 1996; reprint Wipf & Stock, 2009), Banished Messiah: Violence and Nonviolence in the Matthew's Story of Jesus (W&S, 2010), Jesus and His Enemies (Orbis, 2017), and A Light to the Centurions (W&S, 2019). You can purchase his scholarly work by clicking on any of the titles above.
Homilies
Throughout his long career, Father Beck was active in ministry in parishes, on campuses, and as chaplain for the Dubuque Sisters of St. Francis. The Sisters have collected several volumes of his homilies and published them according to the Sunday liturgical cycles. In collaboration with Father Beck and the Franciscans, the Press is pleased to provide some of those homilies in electronic form here.
Music
As an extension of his ministry, Fr. Beck has written music for liturgical settings, including: "A Gathering of Psalms," "Folkpsalms," "Pilgrims Songs" and "Openings" that you can look at here.
He also has written a musical based on the Gospel of Mark that has been performed several times and, in 1978, was auditioned for Broadway producers. Undoubtedly his best-known piece, “The Father Prayer” (often called “Beck’s Our Father”), which is a musical arrangement of The Lord’s Prayer, has been sung at many Catholic Masses and Christian worship services.
Visual Art and Newspaper Columns
For years Father Beck published line drawings with his weekly column, “Sunday’s Word,” and ran in the Dubuque Archdiocesan newspaper, The Witness. You can visit the website for The Witness and read many of those columns here. The Loras Press is delighted to be able to reproduce some of the drawings that, because of their quality, stand independently as fine examples of Father Beck’s art. The drawings are excellent resources for parishes looking who might be seeking artworks that both represent and interpret Gospel themes. Veiw Father Beck's visual art here.
Poetry
Finally, Father Beck is an excellent poet, and Loras Press is proud to offer the first selection of his poetry, published in 2021 as the chapbook Ropes in Water (Loras Press, 2021). The Book will be availible for purchace online soon, and is currently for sale at Riverlights Bookstore in Dubuque, IA (563) 556-4391
Indentures from the 18th Century
The Special Collections at Loras College has a large collection of indentures. I read a number of these indentures from the 18th century. This page will help people do further research on these indentures.
Louise Halliburton: Pacifist, Activist & Artist
This exhibit is the culmination of a project launched in Summer 2022. The project centered on the personal archive of Louise E. Halliburton.
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. You can view the finding aid here. Listen to the Louise Halliburton Oral History here. A transcription is also available.
Materials in the Halliburton Collection/Exhibit and the language that describes them may be harmful or difficult to view. CDH's records span the history of Dubuque, and it is our mission to preserve and make available these historical records. As a result, some of the materials presented here may reflect outdated, biased, offensive, and possibly violent views and opinions.
Life at Loras: A Retrospective of 1950's Campus Life
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.
If you enjoy this exhibit, and want to see more, please visit the following collections:
Purgold Yearbooks: Selected Scans from 1950 - 1959
Lorian Newspapers: Selected Scans from 1950 - 1960
Loras College Photographic Negative Collection: Selected Scans
