After a Purdue University and Wabash College football game with a 44-0 score in 1891 a sports writer for the Daily Argus headlined wrote in a headline, "Wabash Snowed Completely Under by the Burly Boiler Makers from Purdue."
By the next football season, the name had stuck. Ever since, Purdue's teams have been known as the Boilermakers, and the school's mascot is now the Boilermaker Special, a vehicle outfitted to look like the 19th century steam engines that Boilermakers built throughout the country.
We’ll hear music about trains, and learn some little known facts and myths about Purdue on today’s What’s New.
Composers from Aaron Copland to Jennifer Higdon, Steve Reich to Heitor Villa-Lobos and Johann Strauss II have penned works with locomotives in mind.
Our special guest this week is David Hovde, research and instruction librarian in the Virginia Kelly Karnes Archives and Special Collections Research Center. He is an associate professor of library science and has been at Purdue University since 1989. He shares some Purdue traditions and student stories!
What’s New is a production of WBAA Classical, a listener supported broadcast service of Purdue University.
