What's New (and Old) in Archives and Special Collections

Some of the items acquired by MHC's Archives and Special Collections during the past year will be on exhibit in the archives lobby through mid-November. "These items represent the range of material that we typically receive and make available to researchers," says Patricia Albright, archives librarian. The librarians encourage you to stop by and see these pieces of history that span two centuries.

Among the most interesting of the items, according to Albright, is a collection of letters written by Mary Otis Preston Spafford, class of 1879. They reflect her experiences as a teacher at one of MHC's daughter colleges, Huguenot College in Wellington, South Africa, from 1882 to 1889. Other items include letters written by Louise Fruen Barnett, class of 1949, during her first year at Mount Holyoke; letters by Margaret Currier, class of 1931, describing her years as a Mount Holyoke student, graduate study at the University of Michigan, her work as a librarian at Yale, and her travels in the United States (1928 - 1937). In addition there are the papers of Victoria Schuck, former MHC professor of politics (1940 - 1974) and founder of the Washington Internship Program. Included are snapshots of Schuck with John F. Kennedy in 1958 and of the professor and her students meeting with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in 1964.

The exhibition also includes a course notebook compiled by Sandra Klamkin Schocket, class of 1958; an account that the father of Eleanor Caldwell Jones, class of 1937, kept of his daughter's expenses at Mount Holyoke; an album for 1998 - 1999 compiled by the dorm historians of Abbey Hall; records of La Unidad and the V-8s, class of 2000 Junior Show material; scrapbooks compiled by members of the classes of 1908 and 1949; and pieces of dishes excavated from the site of Mount Holyoke's original building by students in the course The Archaeology of Mary Lyon's New England.

There are also course papers written in 1998 - 99 by students who did research in the archives; recent books and other writings based in part on sources in the archives; and glass slides of scenes from battlefields in France during World War I (photographic copies are on display). There is also a copy of Godey's Lady's Book, one of the first magazines published in the United States for women; and botanical prints from 1895 that reflect the arts and crafts movement.

If there is one lesson for current Mount Holyoke students in all this, it is don't throw anything away!