For Your Mental Improvement

The first literary mag in the West marks a major milestone. Born as The Owl and rechristened The Santa Clara Review, it’s now (probably) in its 100th volume. Plus, some 19th-century archives have just been digitized for you to explore online.

Highlights from the narrative history “Who is The Owl?” by Linda Larson ’78 with a new addendum by Stephen Layton ’13. The journal was founded well over a century ago, but given 50-plus years of hiatus, most experts agree that 2013 is when volume 100 went to press. And onto iPad.

December 1869. A literary monthly “Devoted to Mental Improvement,” and “Edited by the Boys of Santa Clara College, S.J.” is hatched. The name: The Owl. Why? “We said to ourselves: ‘We’re owls, conning our books of lore in the night …’ Thus it is, and not through a superabundence of wisdom, that we have assumed the name of Minerva’s sober bird.” Among the “original matter” of early editions: scientific and historic essays, dramas, poetry, and humor. “Idle Notes,” the editorial column, tackles women’s suffrage and other topics.

1875. A series “Is the Monkey Father to Man?” declares Darwin’s theory of evolution absurd: “A certain class of naturalists, of this enlightened and highly civilized nineteenth century, flatly refuses to believe that man was created directly by Almighty God, pretending on the contrary, that he is the offspring of anthropomorphous monkeys; in other words, that our ancestors were not Adam and Eve, but a he and she chimpanzee, gorilla, or orang-outang.”

October 1875. A black oval-framed lithograph on the cover bodes ill: The Owl announces it will cease publication. What happened? Historian Gerald McKevitt, S.J., points to student riots in September 1875, after which 20 students are expelled—including the author of the article announcing the end, H. M. Hughes. But the editors pass down a legacy: “After payments of all our debts we have between three and four hundred dollars of surplus gold left, wherewith to erect our tombstone; which is to take the form of An Owl Prize, Annually For Ever.”

1903–1920. The Redwood sprouts as the campus literary magazine, then in 1923 morphs into the yearbook.

Spring 1983. Storm clouds brew: Christine (Long) Brunkhosrt ’83 pens “The Student-Athlete Hoax,” an article describing NCAA rule infractions at collegiate athletic programs. Use of the word “crooked” to describe a University of San Francisco alumnus involved with infractions that led to suspension of USF’s basketball program brings an $80 million lawsuit for libel. With an apology issued, the suit is dropped.

1988. A new title is introduced: Santa Clara Review. Editors’ rationale: “The Owl as a name has outlived its effectiveness, and we wished to adopt a name which would both attract better submissions and identify the magazine more closely with the University and the community.” Contributions are solicited from around the country. But a Jesuit who teaches religious studies at SCU laments, “The new name seems a foolish attempt at prestige … Will the Santa Clara Review end up another of the numerous unread dumps for fourth-rate authors who can’t get published elsewhere or for academics with their dull articles on the dreary road to rank and tenure? The Owl has flown. Alas.”

2013. Volume 100. What will you find? Art, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from near and far. Editors deny the Review’s predicted slide into a dump for fourth-rate authors, but this judgment is ultimately reserved, as always, for the reader. Note that the iPad edition is recommended for folks ages 12 and up.

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Explore a digital archive of the 19th-century issues of The Owl.