This 1912 postcard is among more than 1,000 Mount Holyoke-related postcards in the collection of Donna Albino '83. This one shows Mary Lyon Hall, upper falls, the library, art gallery, and music hall. The sender, Alice Augusta Rogers '14, wrote about timeless student concerns: an upcoming quiz, work on a research paper, and plans to visit friends.
The collection now numbers more than 1,000 cards--the oldest was written by 1871 alumna Cornelia Clapp, for whom Clapp Laboratory is named--and all are visible to anyone with Internet access. Her site, at http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~dalbino/, recently won a CLICK Award from the Western Mass. Web Guide Online and was selected as an Internet Collectibles Awards Site of the Year.
The site features a variety of postcard styles, including some that are hand-colored, tinted green or smoky blue, and one series in which views of the campus are visible through a "frame" made of a peeling piece of birch bark. Some cards immortalize long-gone MHC traditions, such as junior top-spinning and senior rope day. (From the early 1900s through the mid-1930s, seniors tried to skip rope while wearing long black graduation robes with wide sleeves.) Others reveal buildings now put to other uses, such as the old gymnasium that became Blanchard Campus Center or Dwight Hall, which was once the art museum.
In addition to being fascinated with the cards' images, Albino also enjoys the messages sent by long-ago correspondents. One of her favorites has a photo of the gymnasium with the inscription "This is where I hope to extinguish [sic] myself in basketball." Another message says, "We need a chaperone. Beulah and Dick."
Although she is a computer programmer by profession, Albino had to learn how to publish information on the Web for this project. With help from alumnae including Katherine Klein Kuckens '75 and '98 and Margo Burns '79, and from MHC archivists Peter Carini and Patricia Albright, the site gets more extensive by the month. Links also lead to biographical information on senders or recipients of the cards, when known, and to other collections of MHC images, including Kuckens's stereo-view collection and the MHC archives' collection of postcards.
Albino's site also includes stereo-view cards, photos, and greeting cards, and she intends to branch out to paper ephemera in general. If you have pre-1970 MHC-related items such as event programs or photos to donate or loan, contact Albino at dalbino@mtholyoke.edu.
![[Index]](../index3.gif){kind=small}