William E. Bigglestone Papers

William Edward Bigglestone served as the archivist of Oberlin College for twenty years (1966-86). He was born in Chicago, Illinois, on 20 July 1924 toH arry Clinton (1892-1964) and Ruth Geneva Rieke Bigglestone (1892-1977). He received his B.A. degree in History from the University of Arizona in 1950 and went on to complete his M.A. History at Stanford University in 1951. Prior to receiving his degree, Bigglestone served with the U.S. Army in the Pacific during World War II, 1943-45. Also during this time, he met and married Mary Markley Grady (1928-83) on 1 June 1949. They had two children Leah Carol (1954-1997) and Mark (b. 1957). Mary Grady Bigglestone died on 12 April 1983.

Before being appointed as Oberlin's first College Archivist on 6 May 1966, Bigglestone was corporate archivist for the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio. Prior to that he was an archivist with the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington D.C. where he learned from Theodore Schellenberg and other distinguished archivists.

In addition to setting up the College Archives, Bigglestone’s many accomplishments at Oberlin included creating the classification scheme, setting up in-house procedures, and policies, as well as establishing a modest microfilming program. Included among the program’s major microfilming projects were the Henry Churchill King Papers (ca. 1902-1927) and Records of the Office of the Treasurer (1822-1866). Bigglestone also created the “Preliminary Guide to The Oberlin College Archives” (1974). This loose leaf three ring binder primarily contains descriptive information for 87 personal papers collections in the Oberlin College Archives. There are 94 pages of descriptive text, followed by an approximately 50-page name and subject index. For additional information about program outcomes, readers should consult his annual reports, 1966-1986, and the unpublished honors paper by Lisa Hicks, “The Development of the Oberlin College Archives”, Kent State University, 1991.

Bigglestone’s long career in archival administration grew out of a strong interest in history. As a contributing local historian, Bigglestone focused on Oberlin by writing a number of important articles. The titles, chronologically listed, are as follows: "Straightening a Fold in the Record," Alumni Magazine 68 (May/June 1972), 11; "Oberlin College Selects some Presidents, 1889-1902," (Northwest Quarterly (Spring 1973) and Alumni Magazine 70 (Mar/April 1974), 2-9; 'The Life and Death of 'Junior Ex'," Alumni Magazine 70 (Nov./Dec. 1974), 7-10+; "Irrespective of Color," Alumni Magazine 77 (Spring 1981), 35-36; and with Marcia Goldberg, "A Wedding Gift of 1862," Alumni Magazine 73 (Jan/Feb 1977), 20-21. In addition, Bigglestone wrote or edited several privately published studies including: They Stopped in Oberlin: Black Residents and Visitors of the Nineteenth Century (1982), a collection of histories of black families; Oberlin: From War to Jubilee 1866-1883 (1983), the history of Oberlin after the Civil War; The Journal of Russell T. Hall 1863 (1985), the two notebook diary of the 19th century veteran and Oberlin student (A.B. 1865). Some of these titles illustrate Bigglestone’s interest in the ordinary person and the under-privileged.

Bigglestone was active in the wider profession. He was a member of the Society of American Archivists and held the position of Advertising Editor of the American Archivist from 1959-1971. He was named a SAA Fellow in 1968. Other memberships include the Midwest Archives Conference, Society of Ohio Archivists (founding member), the American Historical Association, and the American Civil Liberties Union, NE Ohio Chapter. He sat on the Oberlin City Records Commission and was a board member of the Oberlin Historical and Improvement Organization. Additionally, Bigglestone was an annual lecturer at Ruth Helmuth's workshop on College and University Archives Institute given at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, from 1969 to 1980.

Bigglestone retired as Archivist of Oberlin College in 1986. He now resides in Tucson, Arizona with his second wife Kay Althea Woodruff (Ruckman) (b. 1939, A.B., 1961 English); they were married in 1984. Bigglestone continues to research and write; two recent publications are Tucsonans Who Died in Military Service During World War II (1994), and Tucson’s Korean War Dead (1997).

Bigglestone received the “Community Historian of the Year Award” at the annual meeting of the Oberlin Historical and Improvement Organization and the Oberlin Heritage Center on April 6, 2005 (The Oberlin Inn, Oberlin, Ohio).

William E. Bigglestone died on February 20, 2016 in Tucson, Arizona, at the age of 91.

SOURCES CONSULTED

William E. Bigglestone, Tucson, Arizona; Staff file of William E. Bigglestone (RG 28/3); Papers of William E. Bigglestone (30/151).