The Minaret has been around almost as long as The University of Tampa. Volume 1, Issue 1 was published on Sept. 14, 1933 and looked stylistically similar to the front page of The New York Times.
Most of the articles on the front page advertised events such as the first student assembly and the second anniversary of Student Government as well as a feature on a really old tree that lied in Plant Park. On page 2 of the first issue was the university schedule, which could fit every class offered on one page of the paper.
On page 5, the names and degrees of all the professors teaching could fit in two columns. Along with some short news stories about the university, the paper also included a gossip column called “Social Shorts” in which a writer commented on the social lives of individual students at the university.
“I hear from a certain reliable source that Hasus Castro has sprung the question on Leah and she accepted. Watch this column for announcements of the date. Leah Lucas, you know, played in the Hillsborough orchestra last year.”
“Saw Woody Garcia taking an exam in the library the other day… Woody had better study more this year and leave the rest of us alone.”
Articles running adjacent to the gossip column describe a social gathering of girls playing bridge and a list of students who transferred from UT after the summer break. The sports pages show excitement at the new football team UT had that year. There were descriptions of all the football players, a feature on the new coach and a disclaimer that the sports writers are going to cover the sports games as fairly as possible:
“Football, king of campus sports, has popped up for its annual show with the great old American public. And what a relief the pigskin game has been to every sports scribe who has been writing about the fly on his typewriter for the past month.”
Some really interesting advertisements adorn the pages of the first Minaret too. The Plant Park Soda Fountain welcomes UT and offers their services to students. McCaskill’s Clothing Co. advertises new fall suits with two pairs of pants on sale for 19.50 and 50 cent ties. Fernandez & Vega, a women’s clothing store, advertises high-waisted skirts from $3.95. The Tampa Coca-cola Bottling Co. has a large ad on the back of the paper that reads “Why wear a hit, thirsty face even at home… refresh yourself. Bounce back to normal” with a picture of a woman in a kitchen happily drinking a bottle of coke.
Looking at old issues of The Minaret has given us a lot of cool insight at UT’s past. If you want to take a look at them yourself they can be found on the library’s online database.