Sylvia Bradley publishes history of Salisbury University

SALISBURY, MD ---Sylvia Bradley, retired professor and Salisbury University historian, has written Salisbury: from Normal School to University, the first comprehensive history SU has published.

Bradley, who joined the University in 1966, began writing an account of what was then Salisbury State College in 1974. Planned for publication in time for SSC's 50th anniversary in 1975, the book was completed but never published due to lack of funding.

For the next 25 years, Bradley continued to keep files on the campus, its students, faculty and staff as it evolved from State College to State University to the present Salisbury University.

Nearly 500 pages, the narrative includes interviews from many who were instrumental in the very conception and realization of a State "normal" school to train teachers in 1925. Often insightful, often revealing, photographs take readers back to a time when Salisbury was known for apple orchards, Maypole dances and formal dress in the dining hall.

Bradley's research took her through the campus archives, much of which was boxed in the library basement or culled from the Education Department, once the only "major" students came to study.

She also spent hundreds of hours talking with faculty and staff who had been at Salisbury during the early days. Those interviews, Bradley says, were some of the most rewarding as she was able to piece together some crucial turning points when administrators fought to keep the fledgling school open.

"It has been interesting to see a real continuity. We have fought the same battles with some commission or another since the doors opened," Bradley said. "Even the students, I found, really do change very little."

Bradley, who retired from the History Department in 2001, is currently writing two new books. She hopes to publish her research on the Loyalist Party on Delmarva during the Revolutionary War as well as a collection of source material on Nanticoke-area history.

Nearly three decades in the making, Salisbury: from Normal School to University is available at the Edward H. Nabb Center for Delmarva History and Culture on SU's East Campus and at the University Bookstore for $35.

For more information call the Office of Public Relations at 410-543-6030.