Uncle Scrooge in College

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Just read this story, one of the few to speak of Scrooge as having gone to university; it's from 1969 and Scrooge's pictures album of his university days is dated to 1890. College-era Scrooge looks like this:



Funny how he looks more like a younger Rockerduck. We're told that he was president of the Treasurers' Club, the Financiary Clique and the Coin-Collectors' Team… and was so focused on all these activities that he completely forgot to ever sit his exams (let alone graduate) before he was off on his next monetary venture. 

(Splices interestingly with the Barksian Webfoot Tech anecdote, doesn't it?)

[Matilda]

Interesting! I think the Rockerduck similarity is just due to giving Scrooge an 1890's young man's haircut. And black hair, which has presumably long since turned white. Anyway, I much appreciate the fact that Strobl didn't give Young Scrooge sideburns. Drives me crazy when Child Scrooge is shown with sideburns!

Is the college ever named? Naturally, we don't have the original English script....

[Baar Baar Jinx]

Jun 7, 2019 14:17:28 GMT Matilda said:

I think the Rockerduck similarity is just due to giving Scrooge an 1890's young man's haircut. And black hair, which has presumably long since turned white. Anyway, I much appreciate the fact that Strobl didn't give Young Scrooge sideburns. Drives me crazy when Child Scrooge is shown with sideburns!

Until you pointed it out, I thought that haircut was bushy, Groucho Marx-style eyebrows!

And I agree with you about Young-Scrooge-with-Sideburns ... I guess it comes from artists not really knowing what Old-Scrooge's sideburns are supposed to be. I mean,he doesn't exactly have a beard like, say, Glomgold, or a long-receded hairline like Ludwig, so it's a bit confusing (especially when his sideburns are white, as is now generally accepted as standard, rather than gray as they are in some animated features).

[Scrooge MacDuck]

The college is not named, though. The story does however mention a University of Duckburg which eventually awards Scrooge an economics doctorate honoris causa.

[pollux]

I don't think Scrooge had any formal education beyond grade school.

[RobbK1]

Jun 9, 2019 18:45:18 GMT pollux said:

I don't think Scrooge had any formal education beyond grade school.

Barks had him playing football at Webfoot Tech in the 1890s.  Maybe he was also teaching an economics class there at that time.  I'd like to think that the university depicted in the photo above is also Webfoot Tech.  The question is: where is/was Webfoot Tech located?  There was a town named Webfoot, in Oregon (The Gilded Man ).  No one mentioned any webfoot, or webfoot Technical University in Calisota.  I assume that university was in Oregon, and scrooge attended that school in the early 1890s, after being a cowpuncher, and prospecting for copper and silver in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and Nevada during the 1880s, and before joining the Klondike Gold Rush in the late 1890s.  Maybe he took economics courses, to learn about how commercial and stock markets operate, or to make connections with professors who had inside tracks into the leading "players" who were the insiders in the US stock markets, so he could get in on the ground floor?

[TheMidgetMoose]

I'm pretty sure that Barks had Scrooge playing football at Webfoot Tech in the 1880's not the 90's, as seen here.

Splicing the two together, it would seem that Scrooge attended college in the late 80's and leading into 1890. On the Rosa timeline, I'd assume that this "college era" took place after his time in South Africa and possibly concurrently with his prospecting in the United States. I have listed dates for Rosa's stories that would possibly allow him to start school at Wefoot Tech in 1889 after returning to the States from South Africa, but I don't remember exactly how I arrived at those dates. I'm not when exactly The Vigilante of Pizen Bluff is supposed to take place. The story has Wild Bill saying, "The great Phineas T. Barnum asked me to put on a special show to celebrate the choice of Phoenix as the new capital of the territory". A Google search indicates that Phoenix became the capital of the Ariozona Territory in 1889, but the story also features the Dalton Gang as the villains, and, as far as I can tell, they weren't particularly active until 1891. Maybe I'm wrong though, since I'm far from being a Dalton Gang expert.

Anyhow, my point is that I would reckon that Scrooge enrolled in Webfoot Tech in 1889 and was either out by the time of The Vigilante of Pizen Bluff or was still enrolled during the events of said story.

[Dr Ivo G Bombastus]

Perhaps he attended a couple semesters at Webfoot Tech from 1885 to 1887. He was only in Dismal Downs for a short adventure in Lo$ chapter 5, and the time between that chapter and his arrival on the Transvaal are unaccounted for. We can safely say he wasn't looking for gold in other places around Africa in the years before that chapter because he reacts with unfamiliarity to all of the African wildlife and indicates he just purchased new prospecting equipment.

I would suggest that Lo$ chapter 5 took place early in the year, and $crooge made it back to America in time for the 1885 college football season. It would have been most appropriate if Webfoot Tech went up against Princeton and $crooge had an adventure with Tillie Lamar just before the Princeton vs Yale game where Lamar made his famous 90-yard run. $crooge then stuck around for the next football season in 1886 (thus it was "in the 80s" and not just one year), before leaving for Johannesburg in early 1887.

Jun 11, 2019 17:50:56 GMT TheMidgetMoose said:

I'm not when exactly The Vigilante of Pizen Bluff is supposed to take place.

Rosa's commentary places the Pizen Bluff chapter in 1890.

According to Lo$ chapter seven he spent four years prospecting in Arizona before heading to Kalgoorlie in 1896. As the Kalgoorlie gold rush began in 1893, it's probable that $crooge began making his way there in 1894. Possibly, while he was still in America he made a brief return to his old college to complete his education before hitting the gold fields again.

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Jun 11, 2019 19:30:53 GMT Dr Ivo G Bombastus said:

Perhaps he attended a couple semesters at Webfoot Tech from 1885 to 1887. He was only in Dismal Downs for a short adventure in Lo$ chapter 5, and the time between that chapter and his arrival on the Transvaal are unaccounted for. We can safely say he wasn't looking for gold in other places around Africa in the years before that chapter because he reacts with unfamiliarity to all of the African wildlife and indicates he just purchased new prospecting equipment.

I would suggest that Lo$ chapter 5 took place early in the year, and $crooge made it back to America in time for the 1885 college football season. It would have been most appropriate if Webfoot Tech went up against Princeton and $crooge had an adventure with Tillie Lamar just before the Princeton vs Yale game where Lamar made his famous 90-yard run. $crooge then stuck around for the next football season in 1886 (thus it was "in the 80s" and not just one year), before leaving for Johannesburg in early 1887.

That's all very nice but fails to account for Scrooge's album in The Graduate to be labeled 1890…

[TheMidgetMoose]

I think we need to remember that Scrooge's coconut trading stint also would have occurred sometime around here, as Scrooge mentions it as having already happened in The Vigilante of Pizen Bluff. I also feel it's worthy to point out that The Terror of the Transvaal has Scrooge going to South Africa in the wake of the Witwatersrand Gold Rush, which began in 1886.

Edit: How many years did Scrooge attend college, exactly? Is there any info about it in the story that started this thread? Knowing how many years of a gap we need to find in Scrooge's life to fill in his college days would help.

[Dr Ivo G Bombastus]

Jun 11, 2019 21:44:06 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

Jun 11, 2019 19:30:53 GMT Dr Ivo G Bombastus said:

Perhaps he attended a couple semesters at Webfoot Tech from 1885 to 1887. He was only in Dismal Downs for a short adventure in Lo$ chapter 5, and the time between that chapter and his arrival on the Transvaal are unaccounted for. We can safely say he wasn't looking for gold in other places around Africa in the years before that chapter because he reacts with unfamiliarity to all of the African wildlife and indicates he just purchased new prospecting equipment.

I would suggest that Lo$ chapter 5 took place early in the year, and $crooge made it back to America in time for the 1885 college football season. It would have been most appropriate if Webfoot Tech went up against Princeton and $crooge had an adventure with Tillie Lamar just before the Princeton vs Yale game where Lamar made his famous 90-yard run. $crooge then stuck around for the next football season in 1886 (thus it was "in the 80s" and not just one year), before leaving for Johannesburg in early 1887.

That's all very nice but fails to account for Scrooge's album in The Graduate to be labeled 1890…

You didn't read the rest of my post.


"Rosa's commentary places the Pizen Bluff chapter in 1890.

According to Lo$ chapter seven he spent four years prospecting in Arizona before heading to Kalgoorlie in 1896. As the Kalgoorlie gold rush began in 1893, it's probable that $crooge began making his way there in 1894. Possibly, while he was still in America he made a brief return to his old college to complete his education before hitting the gold fields again."

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Oh, sorry.

[fredj]

Kari Korhonen's latest McDuck diaries story appears to be inspired by September Scrimmage. The story is set around 1882 and Scrooge has bought a faulty mining machine. The machine has been designed by a professor att "Lökinge" Technical College (I don't know if this was the translation used for Webfoot) so Scrooge travels there to get it fixed. However the professor (an uncle of Ratchet Gearloose) is too distracted by training the college football team to fix the problem. Scrooge, who grew up with rugby, turns out to be great at football and is talked into entering the college to help out with the team and finally get his mining machine fixed.

[sim]

Jun 13, 2023 17:16:24 GMT fredj said:

Kari Korhonen's latest McDuck diaries story appears to be inspired by September Scrimmage. The story is set around 1882 and Scrooge has bought a faulty mining machine. The machine has been designed by a professor att "Lökinge" Technical College (I don't know if this was the translation used for Webfoot) so Scrooge travels there to get it fixed. However the professor (an uncle of Ratchet Gearloose) is too distracted by training the college football team to fix the problem. Scrooge, who grew up with rugby, turns out to be great at football and is talked into entering the college to help out with the team and finally get his mining machine fixed.

This is interesting! I had read that Korhonen was doing a story about this period, but still did I know anything about it... On a sidenote, would you possibly have more pictures of Ratchet's uncle? Or his name? (You could also shoot me a PM if we don't want to go OT)

[fredj]

Jun 13, 2023 18:59:52 GMT sim said:

This is interesting! I had read that Korhonen was doing a story about this period, but still did I know anything about it... On a sidenote, would you possibly have more pictures of Ratchet's uncle? Or his name? (You could also shoot me a PM if we don't want to go OT)

In the Swedish translation his name is Skrammelskruv (skrammel = rattling; skruv = screw) and he says that Ratchet is his sister's son.