Founded in 1861, Vassar College is one of the nation's oldest and most prominent liberal arts colleges. Located just
75 miles north of New York City, Vassar is nestled in the
historic Hudson Valley. Vassar is renowned for its pioneering achievements in science, social science and education, and for the beauty of its historic campus. Its alumni -- 36,000 strong -- are leaders in virtually every field and industry, in every state and country.
To celebrate Vassar's sesquicentennial anniversary in 2011, I encourage you to read up on the College's fascinating past. Whether you are an alum or a prospective student, Vassar's history will captivate you and connect you to a long and proud story. One place to start your reading is the
Vassar Encyclopedia, maintained by College Historian Elizabeth Daniels '41 and Dean Emeritus of the College Colton Johnson. And below is a small sampling of books about Vassar's history, all available online at Barnes & Noble and Amazon (note that there are many more such books; this is just a sample of some of my favorites):
Princeton Campus Guide: Vassar College (2003): Lisa Reilly and Karen Van Lengen are both Vassar College graduates. Reilly is a professor of architectural history at the University of Virginia. Van Lengen is dean at the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia. In this incredible book -- 250 pages of beautifully crisp photographs and architectural drawings -- the authors give a detailed look into the history of many of Vassar's most important buildings. Acknowledged as one of the most beautiful in the country, the Vassar campus comprises over 1,000 picturesque acres and more than 100 buildings, including two National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International, designed over the course of the College’s history by some of the most prominent architects of the day -- James Renwick Jr., Francis R. Allen, Eero Saarinen, Marcel Breuer, and Cesar Pelli. These buildings are the subject of study for many Vassar students enrolled in the famous Art History 105-106 course or any of the College's classes on architectural history. This book's rich images will remind you of the magic of Vassar's historic campus.
Authors Maryann Bruno, former associate director of college relations, and Elizabeth A. Daniels, Vassar historian and retired Vassar professor and dean, know their subject well and have worked together in the College libraries collections to produce this book. They are both Vassar alumnae. Many photographers have had their cameras focused on the campus and environs since the 1870s, allowing these photographic chroniclers to sample Vassar's past. Betty Daniels, a member of the Class of 1941, has functioned as the College's historian, publishing numerous books and articles on Vassar's heritage. Betty often relates her stories of digging through the old boxes in the basement of Main Building, recovering countless decades of records on topics ranging from admissions to the curriculum to student life.
Bridges to the World: Henry Noble MacCracken and Vassar College (1994): This is one of my favorite of Betty Daniels' many books on Vassar. Bridges to the World offers a fascinating account of the extraordinary life and times of Henry Noble MacCracken, Vassar's fifth president. Dr. MacCracken served as president of Vassar College for 31 years, beginning in 1915, and his influence far exceeded the confines of the campus. He fostered a host of educational ideas that impacted the larger educational world. When he died in 1970, The New York Times noted his pioneering efforts in "the fight to abolish academic formalism." MacCracken radically changed the "town-gown relations" between Vassar and the College's Hudson Valley neighbors, prompting Franklin Roosevelt to say, "Until MacCracken came to the college, Vasssar might just as well have been a thousand miles away." MacCracken is truly one of the most compelling figures in Vassar's history, and this book is well worth a read.
Vassar first admitted men after the G.I. Bill after World War II. This historical novel describes Ralph LoCascio's own experiences as a soldier-turned-student at Vassar. Eleven of the 49 veterans graduated. This novel follows one of the men, battle-hardened Frankie Fanelli who was raised in the slums of Newburgh, New York. Before Frankie enters Vassar he is a physically confident, sexually active, barroom brawler, unhappy that only unskilled jobs are open to him. At first he finds himself intellectually and socially intimidated by the Vassar ambiance. Gradually, he copes with the new demands, not the least of which is a romance with beautiful, self-assured, upper middle-class Alexis. Interweaving the veterans experiences with historical documents, articles from student newspapers, and newspaper headlines, Vassar Outlander becomes more than another coming-of-age tale. Characters confront major issues that reverberate today, more than a half-century later, e.g., Israeli-Arab conflict, Korean tension, anti-Semitism, race bias, homosexuality, pre-marital sex, religion, and politics.
Covering the Campus: A History of The Miscellany News at Vassar College (2009):
A shameless plug for my own research into the history of The Miscellany News, Vassar's student newspaper since 1866. The Miscellany is one of the nation's oldest collegiate newspapers. I worked on the paper for my first three years at Vassar, and loved every moment of my time there. The paper has had an incredible history; digging through the archives, one finds interviews with leading political and social figures, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, W.E.B. DuBois, and William F. Buckley, to name only a handful. The paper's history also traces the campus climate of each decade, as the editorial board waffles between Vassar's more conservative past in the nineteenth century to the College's more progressive politics in the twentieth and twenty-first. The book begins with a foreword by Catharine Bond Hill, 10th President of Vassar College, and includes interviews with more than 150 former editors of the paper ranging from the Class of 1937 to the present.
