Mount Holyoke Archives and Special Collections

April showers lead to May flowers and some stunning spring photography!

A cum laude graduate of Mount Holyoke College, student Evelyn Yellow Robe is pictured here in the “traditional clothing” associated with her Dakota Sioux heritage. The daughter of a Sioux chief, Evelyn remained deeply committed to her culture throughout her time at college and into her adulthood, where she worked to promote appropriate Native American representation in film through service on the board of the National Film Committee sponsored by the Association on American Indian Affairs. She also served as a professor of speech pathology at both Mount Holyoke College in the Spring of 1942/43 and Vassar College beginning in 1944. 

In 1979 some of the Five College Jewish Community sought to honor the beginning of Hanukkah/Chanukah through a special edition of their paper, Chai Times. This newspaper included an article titled ‘Chanukah: the untold story’ as well as the advertisement seen above, which offered Menorah delivery for all members of the Jewish community. As noted within the advertisement, this was the only way to purchase a Menorah in the Pioneer Valley at that time.

The Five College Jewish Newspaper operated under several different names between 1975 and 1988, inducing Nu?, Chai Times, and Shofar and printed “a breath of stories on such issues as international politics, Five College affairs, religion, Israel, the arts, the relationship between Jews and other peoples, between Judaism and other religions.”

Happy Hanukkah!

Just because Halloween’s over doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the pictures and bargain bin candy. Hope you like these shots, courtesy of the class of 1957.

Members of the Class of 1957 in a Halloween performance ::  Mount Holyoke Archives and Special Collections Digital Images :: circa 1953-57

Hope everyone enjoyed the LEAP Symposium today!

From 1973 to her graduation in 1976, Mount Holyoke Beth Epstein ran the comic section of the Choragos newspaper. Her strip, which features the adventures of Whizzer Buschbumper and her pals as they attempted to navigate the ridiculous twists and turns of college life, was so enormously popular that Epstein independently published her work in a 1976 collection The Best of Buschbumper. The book was sold primarily at the local Odyssey Bookstore. 

In this April 17 strip, Whizzer’s pal Patsy laments that her constant talk of independent research has driven all her friends away, a common mood among seniors, especially!

Returning from Fall Break, every Mount Holyoke students’ mind seems possessed by one question only: When is Mountain Day? The countdown continues.

Wishing everyone a stylish and fun fall break!

With funds collected from selling apples, doughnuts, and later ice cream in the dorms, the Outing Club was able to purchase their own Chevy station-wagon in the spring of 1937. The much loved car was appropriately named ‘Mountain Time.’ 

The purchase of Mount Holyoke College’s first “sound moving-picture machine” was made in 1932 and was announced to be “approximately of the same conditions as the silent machine in Hooker.” Since then, the Film Society on campus has sponsored thousands of showings both foreign and domestic. The programs above highlight just some of the numerous programs the club has produced.

Did you know Mount Holyoke College was once home to five sororities? These so called ‘Greek Letter Secret Societies’ included Sigma Theta Chi (formed in 1887),  Xi Phi Delta (1986), Psi Omega (1897), Gamma Kappa (1898), and Chi Delta Theta (1902), each of whom had a private room, held banquets, conducted initiation rituals, wrote and sang songs, and kept news bulletins. Sororities were banned starting in 1910 due to complaints of social division, but their absence promoted the creation of new student traditions such as Elfing!

In addition to weekly flying lessons, members of Mount Holyoke College’s Flying Club took ground courses in radio, navigation, and “a little meteorology.” Students also participated in intercollegiate air meets as well as breakfast flights to neighboring airports during the two years the club was operational. Talk about rising above and beyond expectations!

Two Members of the Flying Club Posing with Airplane ::  Mount Holyoke Archives and Special Collections Digital Images :: circa 1946-47

Members of Local College Flying Clubs ::  Mount Holyoke Archives and Special Collections Digital Images :: circa 1946-47

At Mount Holyoke College, the act of protesting is often as natural as breathing. From historical activism promoting curriculum change, women’s reproductive rights, and South African divestment to the ongoing work of LGBT+ students on campus, change has always been viewed as an expectation rather than an exception among these passionate students.

Even the smallest of issues may spark a massive response, such as is seen in the work of Joan Wilson (Class of 1969), Julie Donaldson (Class of 1969), and Bernadette Weston (Class of 1970) who, along with 1,200 fellow students, created a petition against “the misrepresentation of life on our campus.” The petition, which was formed in protest to the ‘Comparative Guide to American Colleges’’ categorization of Mount Holyoke student life as prudish (even going so far as to suggest that “short skirts are prohibited” on campus), measured twenty feet long at its completion.

To learn more about the history of Mount Holyoke College activism and protest, be sure to check out the opening of our student curated exhibition ‘Demonstration, Exposition, Exhibition: A View of Mount Holyoke Activism.’ The tour will begin in Archives and Special Collections today (Thursday 9/13) at 4:30.

As the week progresses, the campus prepares for the arrival of international students, first years, transfer students, and returning classes. A lot of hard work was completed this summer, especially in the dorm buildings that used to have dining halls, like Wilder Hall, pictured above. This floor plan is from 1974 when buildings and grounds crew members refreshed the old dorm building.

This photo shows the first floor of Wilder Hall, and one can see that there was a dining hall that has now been converted into two suites. Maybe the 2018 floor plan will make it to the archives collection too!

Photo: Student sketching flowers outdoors, 1960s.

Mount Holyoke has a wide array of wonderful departments. The Mount Holyoke Department of Art and the Art History Department are just two of many departments that allow students to explore, grow, and learn. The Department of Art encourages artistic exploration as well as providing technical skills and interdisciplinary opportunities. Simultaneously the Department of Art gives students the opportunity to work closely with experts, analyze original works, engage with contemporary issues, and explore the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum (one of the oldest teaching museums in the country.) The Art History Department allows students to appreciate, learn, and study works of art and architecture in their historical and cultural settings. Such programs allow students to create and understand the complexities within art.

To learn the history of different departments on campus, visit the Mount Holyoke Archives and Special Collections in the basement of Dwight Hall, or at https://compass.fivecolleges.edu/institution/mount-holyoke-college.

Photo: Farmerettes canning and slicing potatoes in the Pearsons basement after a day at work, 1918.

In 1917, Mount Holyoke created a league of its own students to plant, harvest, and can food for the allied troops. They called themselves the farmerettes. Although many men believed that the students could not achieve the task of farming because they were women, the farmerettes proved to be very successful and productive on the field. After several hours of outdoor working, the students would can vegetables and slice potatoes.

Judging by the clothing and hairstyles of the students and the lamps on the carrells of the Williston Library Reading Room, this photo was taken in the 1940s. This remains one of my most favorite photos of the library from the Mount Holyoke Collections! As the academic semester creeps up, seeing photos like this reminds me of the world of academia I am coming back to. To find more photos like this, head over to compass.fivecolleges.edu