Correspondence, Freshman Year, 1966-1967

The papers of Eric B. Nye, Oberlin Class of 1970, document his days as a student at Oberlin College (1966-70), including his summers spent at Cape Cod (1967) and on the Oberlin programs in France (1968) and Vienna (1969). His time at Oberlin College spanned an era of increasing unrest among college students across the country in reaction to the Vietnam War and civil protests at home, and Oberlin experienced its share of this unrest.

The collection consists of a notebook from a Music Theory course, preparatory school teacher evaluations, travel journals (and a substantial amount of related printed matter) from his trips abroad, and a large amount of non-textual material (including photographic negatives, a drawing, slides, and reel-to-reel recordings).

Also in the collection are the letters Eric Nye wrote home to his family from Oberlin and from his travels abroad. These letters document Nye’s adjustment to Oberlin as well as the events and happenings at the time. Although there is no evidence that Nye was not active in anti-war demonstrations of political activism, his letters refer to significant events, including a 1967 campus demonstration in response to the presence on Navy recruiters, and later, the reaction of Oberlin students to the shootings at Kent State University on May 4, 1970 in Kent, Ohio. Nye played trombone in the memorial concert of Mozart’s “Requiem,” given by Oberlin musicians at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. in May 1970. The collection includes letters describing the purpose of this concert, and also the shutdown of classes and suspension of the normal grading system at Oberlin in the spring of 1970, in reaction to the continued presence of American troops in Cambodia and in response to the events at Kent State.

A scrapbook contains transcriptions of the letters Eric Nye wrote to his mother and father during his freshman year, maps, photographs, newspaper clippings and concert programs.