News
Displays ‘open up windows into the lives of past Hamilton and Kirkland students’
By Meghan Woolley '13
December 1, 2011
Students in Publius Virgilius Rogers Professor of American History Maurice Isserman’s History of Hamilton College Class this semester have been using hands-on learning techniques to delve into our college’s past. As part of a final research project, four members of the class put together displays that explore different aspects of Hamilton College’s past, from students’ reactions to the Vietnam War to theater and scrapbooking. These displays, which are available for the entire campus to view on the third floor of the library and by the McEwen rock swing, open up windows into the lives of past Hamilton and Kirkland students and help us to relate to Hamilton’s past in a more immediate and personal way.
Betty House, the creative services production manager of communications and development, reworked the display on Kirkland College in McEwen to more fully embody the accomplishments and character of Kirkland College students. In preparation for creating the display, she spoke with three Kirkland alumnae and researched important events that influenced Kirkland. The objects she chose to display represent these events and the environment of Kirkland’s campus. For instance, she included a green hard hat, one of the ones given to the first incoming class at orientation.
When Kirkland was first starting, it didn’t have an established reputation or developed campus to attract students. Instead, it promoted the idea that students would be involved in shaping the college as it grew. The hard hat symbolized this involvement and the interactive nature of Kirkland College. House also highlighted the significance of the Vietnam War, which sparked a number of student protests, and an economic downturn which ultimately led Kirkland to merge with Hamilton. Through the artifacts and research she presents in her display, House hopes to offer a glimpse into the lives of Kirkland College students. She said, “I don’t think previous displays explained the story of Kirkland . . . I wanted the Kirkland women to look at this display and say, ‘We did something great.’”
Kayla Safran ’13 explored the collection of student scrapbooks in the Hamilton College archives and chose a selection from 1910-1925 to explore. She sees each scrapbook as a “window into the mind of a student” and looked at the items included in each scrapbook, the way they were organized and hand-written comments within them to gain an understanding of the young men who created the scrapbooks. She was particularly interested in seeing whether the scrapbooks reflected the anti-intellectualism that was growing at the time. She did find that the scrapbooks had a heavy focus on social life. There were many references to partying and drinking, leading Safran to comment, “A lot of them seemed to live from house party to house party.” Sports were also very prominent in the scrapbooks, many of which included records of scores throughout the year. A few of the scrapbooks even contained belittling jokes about education. Next to a template question asking for a favorite book, one student wrote “never read ’em.”
Despite this apparent lack of appreciation for academics, Safran believes Hamilton students may have been more intellectually-inclined than they appeared. She compares the scrapbooks to Facebook today, which students primarily use to document their social lives even if academics are important to them. Safran thinks that through these scrapbooks, Hamilton students were trying to “reflect what they thought they had to exude.” The scrapbooks were a way for the young men of Hamilton’s past to represent their experiences and show who they wanted to be.
Stephanie Shapiro ’13 researched another art form: Hamilton’s first theater group, The Charlatans. The Charlatans were founded in 1909 when Hamilton didn’t have a theater department. Shapiro cites the group as an example of Hamilton’s “if you can’t find it, make it yourself” mentality, which has lasted through to today. The group was open to everyone and was one of the only campus organizations at the time that admitted people regardless of Greek affiliation. This openness led them to be one of the first groups to admit women, starting in 1933. When Kirkland was founded in 1968, it was an easy transition to let the Kirkland students join as well.
The group was entertaining and popular and at its peak received at least a full-page spread in every issue of The Hamiltonian. However, once Hamilton established a theater department, The Charlatans became less necessary and gradually declined in importance, disappearing by 1980.
Stacy Marris ’13 looked into the anti-Vietnam movement on campus in the 1960’s. She spoke with Ken Cassanova, one of the student leaders of many protests on campus, and John Chandler, who was President of Hamilton College during the war. From the beginning, student protests were non-violent. Cassanova cites the beginning of the protest movement, which took place at the chapel, as symbolic. The participating students debated what clothing they should wear and ended up wearing suits. This decision showed that the students intended to remain respectful while protesting. Students later protested the recruiters who began coming to campus in 1967 by standing in the road to blockade it and later by gathering around the Bristol Center, where the recruiters would be located.
The Hamilton administration was fairly supportive of the protests. President Chandler offered to give a mid-semester break to give students time to demonstrate, but they turned it down. Marris remarked that in typical Hamilton fashion, the students managed to complete their coursework while participating actively in anti-war demonstrations. Both Cassanova and Marris see the period of anti-war movements on campus as evidence of Hamilton developing a more aware and active student body.
The second half of student display presentations will take place next Wednesday afternoon. Their cases are located around campus.