| The Presidents and Chancellors of Antioch
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 Antioch University, a national multi-campus institution of higher
learning, began modestly, though not inauspiciously, in 1852 as Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Its founders, an
evangelical Protestant sect called simply the Christian Church, declared that their
institution should be co-educational and non-sectarian. They named the school after
the Syrian city of Antioch where, according to the Bible, the disciples of Jesus
were first known as "Christians." To learn more, read R.L. Straker's
A Brief Sketch of Antioch College: 1853-1921. |
 Antiochiana began in 1905 as a collection of
historical artifacts gathered by librarian Bessie L. Totten (1876-1963), Antioch College
class of 1900. The term "Antiochiana" first appeared in 1898, when The
Antiochian, Antioch's oldest continuously published periodical, first reported a
non-circulating section of the library where "not a book is to be found there, whose
author is not either an Antiochian or one who has been connected with the college, or
whose subject concerns the college history." Miss Totten, who began her long
Antioch career as Assistant Librarian in 1900, recalled how the librarian told her to take
special care of these books, and she began to expand the collection. Miss Totten
assumed the title of Curator of Antiochiana upon retiring in 1941, which she held until
her death in 1963. Remarkably, in its near century of existence Antiochiana has had
only four directors. In 1983, the University Trustees designated the Olive Kettering Library as the depository of all Antioch archives. |
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The centerpieces of Antiochiana's collections are the papers of Antioch College's two most dynamic past presidents, Horace Mann and Arthur Morgan, and the extensive Bahnsen negative collection. |