Contents
1907, Dec. 14 The Nativity. The prologue was spoken by Inez Milholland, '09. 1
1908, May-June A suffragist group stopped in Poughkeepsie. 1
1908, June 13 Inez Milholland, '09, held suffrage meeting in a small cemetery. 1
1908, July The International Woman Suffrage Alliance met at Amsterdam. 2
1909, Apr. 9 The 400th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin was celebrated. 2
1911, Nov. 17 - An equal suffrage meeting was held with Inez Milholland. 2
1913, Mar. 3 - A woman suffrage parade in Washington was organized by Inez Milholland '09. 2
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INEZ AT VASSAR, 1905-1909
(And Visitor as Alumna in 1911 and 1913)
These are selected and annotated from the Vassar website, www.history.vassar.edu
Contents
1905, Jan. The annual ice carnival was held.
"Fancy dress is the order for the evening and the lake is to be strung with Japanese lanterns." Poughkeepsie Daily Eagle, Dec. 14, 1905.
1905, June 12 The Frederick Ferris Thompson Memorial Library was dedicated
Allen & Collens, architects. Perpendicular Gothic in style, exterior of Germantown granite with trimmings and interior of Indiana limestone. Called "brightest jewel in Vassar's crown." It was the gift of Mary Clark Thompson, widow of Trustee Frederick Ferris Thompson. The building had a seating capacity of 360 readers and a book capacity of 150,000 volumes. Library contained more than 50,000 volumes and several thousand pamphlets; more than 200 periodicals received.
1905, Sept. The Trustees limited enrollment to 1000.
The annual fee for tuition and residence was increased from $400 to $500. The previous spring when Dr. Taylor had announced the tuition increase in chapel the following hymn was sung: O Lord, I know that all my life is portioned out for me The changes that are sure to come I do not fear to see.
1905, Oct. 9 The James Monroe Taylor Chair of Philosophy was established
In appreciation of Dr. Taylor's 28 years of service as President of Vassar. It was first held by Henry Heath Bawden, Professor of Philosophy, 1901-1907. Donations were received from trustees, alumnae and other friends of Vassar College.
1906 The addition to the Alumnae Gymnasium was completed.
1906, June The Board of Trustees accepted the Carnegie Foundation pension plan for faculty.
1907 Milo P. Jewett House, dormitory, was completed, Pilcher & Tachau, architects.
It was built with college funds and named in honor of the first president of Vassar. Lewis F. Pilcher was Professor of Art, 1900-1911.
1907, May 12 Gilbert Murray, Fellow of New College, Oxford, lectured on "Greece and Progress".
He also lectured at the college in 1912 on "The Chorus".
A 14th century English play, it was presented as Second Hall.
1908 Samuel Parsons, landscape architect, was appointed by the trustees to make a plan.
Plan was for beautifying the entire campus. The Alumnae Association gave half of the cost of the plan.
1908 The Goodfellowship Club House was completed, Pilcher & Tachau, architects.
It was built with funds given by the Students' Association. The Goodfellowship Club for maids and students had been organized in 1902/03. The Steadfast Club, in 1890/91, was the first club of maids, students and faculty. The Club House provided the employees with a place for gatherings and classes as well as for recreation and rest.
Led by Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch [Vassar '78]. it travelled by trolley up the Hudson Valley holding open air meetings in late May and early June. The most notable of these was held at Poughkeepsie near Vassar College." International Year Book, 1908. Mrs. Blatch was the daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
This was after President Taylor had forbidden a meeting on campus. The cemetery was across the road from the campus. "The meeting consisted of about forty undergraduates, ten alumnae, two male visitors, and Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch ['78 ], Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Miss Helen Hoy, corporation counsel for the Equality League of Self-Supporting Women, and Miss Rose Schneiderman of the Cap-Makers' Union. Mrs. Blatch, in order to allay the fears of any member of the faculty who might chance that way, bore aloft a yellow banner on which was inscribed in large black letters, 'Come, let us reason together.'" Woman's Journal, June 13, 1908.
Caroline Furness, '91, Professor of Astronomy, attended. On her return she helped gather signatures for a petition to Congress in favor of woman suffrage.
1908, Dec. Abby Leach, '85, Professor of Greek, received a gold cup from the Emperor of Japan.
It was in recognition of her services to Japanese education, the first such presentation made to an American woman.
1909 The Sanders Laboratory of Chemistry was completed, Ewing & Chappelle, architects.
It was the gift of Dr. Henry M. Sanders, a trustee, in memory of his wife, Eleanor Butler Sanders. Dr. Sanders later presented to the Art Gallery an important group of etchings.
Special program and an exhibition in the Library. 1909, Apr. 21 Joaquin Nabuco, Ambassador from Brazil, lectured on "Camoens - The Lyric".
1909, June 9 Baroness Uriu, a special student 1878-1881, with her husband, gave Vassar a silver bowl.
Emperor Mutsuhito and Empress Haruko of Japan had presented this bowl to them in appreciation of their furtherance of Japanese-American relations at home and abroad. The gift to the college was a token of gratitude made with the permission of the Emperor and Empress.
1909, Sept.-Oct. The College took part in the Hudson-Fulton celebration.
Illustrated lectures were given by Professor Lucy M. Salmon and Professor Laura J. Wylie.
Governor and Mrs. Charles Evans Hughes were guests of President and Mrs. Taylor. A half holiday was given on October 4th when the state celebration centered in Poughkeepsie.
1910, Jan. 25 Booker T. Washington, Principal of Tuskegee Institute, lectured on the Institute.
It was in the Collingwood Opera House, Poughkeepsie. Professor Laura J. Wylie of Vassar attended as president of the local Equal Suffrage League and Inez Milholland, '09, who had carried a banner in the first suffrage procession in 1910, made a stirring appeal. A large number of Vassar students attended.
1911, Nov. 27 Lady Augusta Gregory, director of the Abbey Theatre, spoke at Vassar on "Making a Theatre". 1911/12 Electric lighting was installed in the Main Building, replacing gas lights.
1912 McCaleb House, faculty dwelling, at 71 Raymond Avenue, was completed, Allen & Collens, architects. It was given by alumnae and others as a recognition of the services to the college of Ella McCaleb, '78, Dean-elect, and for twenty-eight years Secretary of the college. She held the post of Dean from 1913 to 1923. 1912 The brook at back of Avery was dammed to form a lake for skating, called Sunset Lake. 1912, Feb. 24 Professor Marian P. Whitney and Associate Professor Lilian L. Stroebe of the Department of German walked across the frozen Hudson River to visit the uncle of a Vassar student who, they had heard, collected Goethe material. Through their efforts Yale University acquired the famous Speck collection, the best of its kind in the United States.
1912, Apr. 22 President Taylor, in response to a student petition, granted permission for a mass meeting on woman suffrage.
1912, May 19 Outside electric lights on the Vassar campus were turned on for the first time. 1912, June The alumnae raised an additional $40,000 for endowment. 1912, June 11 The first Lantern Festival was held at Vassar Lake, for even classes. On Class Day night the seniors handed down their songs to the sophomores.
The New York Times of the following day under headline "1000 Women March, Beset by Crowds", noted "Miss Milholland was an imposing figure in a white broadcloth Cossack suit and long white-kid boots. From her shoulders hung a pale-blue cloak, adorned with a golden maltese cross. She was mounted on Gray Dawn, a white horse..."
1913, Dec. 6 "For the past three years President Taylor has asked members of the faculty to outline in lectures for the College at large the recent history of their particular subject, and to define its field. The first of such lectures for the year was given this evening by Prof. Emerson D. Fite on Political Science." New York Post. 1914, Feb. President Taylor retired. Presidential duties on the business side were assumed by the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees. Administrative offices carried on routine duties. Matters of discipline were assigned to a committee consisting of Professor Herbert E. Mills, Chairman of the Faculty, the Dean, and the Head Warden. In February of 1913 Dr. Taylor had written the Board of Trustees asking to be retired at the end of the first semester of the next year. "In his administration of twenty-seven and a half years the college expanded from a small institution inadequately equipped to a college for 1,000 students, all housed on the campus. The material expansion in that time included, besides the erection of six dormitories, the building of a recitation hall, laboratories for biology and chemistry, a library, a chapel, an infirmary, a gymnasium and a students building. The library grew from about l2,000 to 80,000 volumes. Five hundred thousand dollars were added to the general endowment, and the inner growth of the college was far more significant since it involved the abolition of a preparatory department and of the admission of poorly prepared special students in music and art; one epochal revision of the curriculum; the establishment of twelve new chairs in the faculty, including those of history, biology, economics, psychology, Biblical literature and political science. With these factual changes, moreover, there was maintained in the college a high ideal of what a liberal education should signify and an inspiring standard of college life and college work." Footnote by E.H. Haight in The Life and Letters of James Monroe Taylor. 1914, Feb. 6
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