{"id":5131,"date":"2014-05-08T12:31:53","date_gmt":"2014-05-08T16:31:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/dev-mag\/?p=1611"},"modified":"2014-05-08T12:31:53","modified_gmt":"2014-05-08T16:31:53","slug":"the-newton-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/2014\/05\/08\/the-newton-building\/","title":{"rendered":"What&#8217;s in a Name?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1808\" src=\"http:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/WhatsinName-2.jpg\" alt=\"WhatsinName-2\" width=\"650\" height=\"324\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Hester Walton Newton loved history\u2014particularly the Civil War era and the Reconstruction period. The 41,800-square-foot Newton Building pays tribute to this true Southern woman and to one of the Grande Dames in the University\u2019s rich and colorful history. The professor of history and social sciences joined the faculty in 1928, under the leadership of Guy Wells, when the University was known as Georgia Normal School.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1809\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1809\" style=\"width: 244px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/WhatsinName-e1400784078306.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1809 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/WhatsinName-e1400784078306-315x387.jpg\" alt=\"Hester Newton was born June 2, 1883, and lived through two World Wars. As troops headed to battle in the first World War she wrote the lyrics to a professional piece of music encouraging Americans to enlist. The patriotic piece was titled \u201cOld Glory Our Shield.\u201d\" width=\"244\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1809\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hester Newton was born June 2, 1883,<br \/> and lived through two World Wars.<br \/> As troops headed to battle in the first<br \/> World War she wrote the lyrics to a<br \/> professional piece of music encouraging<br \/> Americans to enlist. The patriotic piece<br \/> was titled \u201cOld Glory Our Shield.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Historian and Professor Emeritus Delma Presley said Newton, a native of Oliver, Georgia, appreciated \u201cgenuine people who had something to say.\u201d In 1941, she remained loyal to President Marvin Pittman when he clashed with, and was fired by, Georgia\u2019s segregationist governor Eugene Talmadge. Newton was among the faculty members purged in the fallout surrounding the controversy that made national headlines as outlined in Presley\u2019s definitive history of Georgia Southern, The Southern Century.<\/p>\n<p>Newton rejoined the faculty when Pittman regained his position 18 months later. Besides teaching a variety of courses throughout her tenure, Newton was dorm director in Anderson Hall, Lewis Hall and the Health Cottage. According to Presley, the suggestion to name the academic building for the history professor came from former social science division chair Jack Averitt, Ph.D., who described her as an \u201cadmirable, independent woman.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When the Newton Building opened in 1972, most of the humanities and social sciences, including the Departments of Criminal Justice, Political Science, Sociology and Anthropology, were on the first floor. The second floor was reserved for the History Department, while the Department of English, Philosophy, Journalism and Remedial Studies was housed on the third. As enrollment at the college increased, several of the departments moved to newer and larger spaces on campus. Today, the Newton Building is exclusively devoted to the Departments of Literature and Philosophy, and Writing and Linguistics.\u00a0Newton retired after the 1952-53 school year and passed away in 1968, but her legacy, and name, live on. &#8211; <em>Sandra Bennett<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Newton Building<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5051,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[43],"class_list":["post-5131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-spring-2014"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}