Tag Archives: Sarah B. Whitaker

‘Hamp Alumnae Speak (1966)

by Rick Teller '70, Williston Northampton Archivist

This fall we are celebrating the 95th anniversary of the 1924 founding of Northampton School for Girls, which merged with Williston Academy in 1971.   Many Northampton alumnae consider their school a unique, special place.  It is harder, with nearly half a century’s perspective, to pin down just what the essence of Northampton School was.  But recently a survey of ‘Hamp alumnae came to hand.  It comes close.  The study was carried out in 1965 and published in their Alumnae News the following year.That report is reproduced here in its entirety, without further commentary.  We’ve included a few additional photographs mostly because we like them, and they break up the page.  They’re not meant to illustrate any particular narrative.  (As always, please click each image to enlarge.)

(For a history of ‘Hamp and the merger, please see Northampton School for Girls — and After.  Links to other posts about Northampton School are at the bottom of this article.)

Founders/Principals Sarah Whitaker and Dorothy Bement in 1925.

The library in Scott Hall.

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Summer Reading

by Rick Teller '70, Williston Northampton Archivist

June — the seniors have graduated, the underclassmen have finished assessments (which are what we at kinder-gentler Williston used to call “exams”), and a lazy green quiet has settled onto the campus.  Our parting shot to our returning students: “Goodbye, and don’t forget your summer reading!”  It has been so for nearly a century.

I have a confession.  Back in the summer of 1966, prior to my entering Williston Academy’s 9th grade, I was handed a list of perhaps half a dozen books.  Now, I loved to read, almost at the expense of any other summer activity.  And there was good material on the list, most especially Walter Edmonds’ Drums Along the Mohawk, which was an exciting story, although in retrospect, I don’t recall its subsequent mention even once in David Stevens’ English 9.  But also on the list: Henry David Thoreau’s Walden.  Now imagine yourself in 1966, as a 13-year-old boy who has recently discovered the works of Ian Fleming and is anxious to get back to them (albeit under the covers with a flashlight), but is faced with endless pages of prose about living in the woods and planting beans.  I tried.  I really did.  But I couldn’t do it.  And in the ensuing 51 years, I’ve tried several more times but, apparently scarred by my adolescent experience, I still find Walden barely readable.  I think of Thoreau as the guy who put the “trance” in “transcendentalism.”

A summer reading requirement at Williston appears to date from the 1920s.  No syllabi have surfaced from that early date.  However, we have a list from 1941, which is worth reproducing in its entirety.   (Please click images to enlarge).

Once one gets past the still-valid point about a “foundation for effective expression,” as well as whiff of testosterone, one notes that the requirement – a minimum of three books – isn’t especially onerous, despite a suggestion (“hearty cooperation”) that one attempt “as many as possible.”  Where something doesn’t appeal, students are encouraged to move on.  And nowhere is there even a hint of a test or paper in the fall.It is interesting to note what is, and isn’t, here.  So many of these authors have fallen utterly out of fashion, never mind out of the canon, that some names are unrecognizable even to a pre-elderly librarian.   And with few exceptions, almost everything is by American or English authors, the overwhelming majority of them male, and only one identifiable as an author of color. Continue reading

Christmas, 1930

Northampton School for Girls founders Sarah Whitaker and Dorothy Bement sent annual Christmas cards, usually featuring the work of Northampton photographer Eric Stahlberg, whose many images of the campus often had a silvery, soft-focus quality.  (Mr. Stahlberg will be the subject of a future post.)  The line art is much in keeping with the popular taste of the time.

Happy holidays from the Williston Northampton Archives!

The Angelus

“There is so much to be done at school that we often forget to think, to pray, or just enjoy the taste of life. This Student Council is presenting an Angelus bell to the school to remind us all of the need of quiet thought. Traditionally the Angelus is rung as a call to prayer. Our Angelus will be what we make it. There is much to think about in that brief moment of our own. There is world peace to pray for, boys in Korea to be remembered, people at home to be loved, and our own thoughts to be thought. The Angelus will be rung daily to provide a moment of peace in the whirl of activities. It is a small beginning but if eighty girls pause in the middle of rush and confusion to pray and to think, it is a beginning.”  – Maria Burgee ‘52 [Maria Burgee Dwight LeVesconte], at the dedication of the Angelus, 1952.

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