{"id":2496,"date":"2014-04-07T10:47:44","date_gmt":"2014-04-07T14:47:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/?p=2496"},"modified":"2018-03-28T19:48:42","modified_gmt":"2018-03-28T23:48:42","slug":"williston-boys-at-home-1932","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/williston-boys-at-home-1932\/","title":{"rendered":"Williston Boys at Home (1932)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"wbahcover\"<\/a>1932.\u00a0 The national economic depression was at its worst.\u00a0 President Herbert Hoover, forced to defend his record, was about to receive the worst electoral whipping ever at the hands of Franklin Roosevelt, who promised a New Deal for the American People.\u00a0 But even FDR’s most rabid supporters knew that recovery would take years.\u00a0 And the people who managed tuition-dependent private schools weren’t sure they had years.\u00a0 Williston Academy’s Headmaster Archibald Galbraith (served 1919-1949) was no exception.<\/p>\n

To be sure, Williston was in somewhat better shape than some of its competitors.\u00a0 The 1920s had been reasonably good years for fund-raising.\u00a0 When the 1929 crash came, much of the school’s assets were liquid, since Williston was midway through a major construction project.\u00a0 So we were less affected by the implosion of the investment market.\u00a0 The construction of the Recreation Center (see previous post<\/a>) proceeded on schedule, and the building was opened in 1930.\u00a0 But endowment was nearly nonexistent, and the pool of academically eligible students whose families could afford boarding school was shrinking.<\/p>\n

\"wbahtitle\"<\/a>One answer was more aggressive marketing.\u00a0 Gone were the days when a combination of alumni networking and discreet ads in a few prestigious magazines was sufficient to create a viable group of applicants for admission.\u00a0 Galbraith needed to cast his net wider, to appeal to families that perhaps had never considered private schools.\u00a0 Among the products of this re-thinking was a 1932 pictorial pamphlet entitled “Williston Boys at Home.”<\/p>\n

The booklet is nearly devoid of text, in contrast to the dry, text-heavy and pictureless Annual Catalogue <\/em>of the time.\u00a0 It manages to avoid nearly any mention of Williston’s crumbling Old Campus, although more than half the students lived there and all classes met there \u2014 in fact, whether through oversight or design, there is no reference to the academic program at all.\u00a0 This Williston is a place of hockey and dancing, theatricals and swimmin’ holes.\u00a0 Times are good.\u00a0 Williston boys are indeed at home.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>(“Williston Boys at Home” was generously donated to the Archives in 2008 by Gordon Cronin of Taurus Books, Northampton, MA.)<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The sole evocation of the “Old Campus” in the entire booklet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/p>\n

\"wbah03\"<\/a>\"wbah04\"<\/a>\"wbah05\"<\/a>\"wbah06\"<\/a>\"wbah07\"<\/a>\"wbah08\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Alumni<\/a>
Alumni from classes before 1952 may recognize Latin master Lincoln Granniss holding the tape.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"wbah10\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Legendary<\/a>
Legendary French teacher, drama director, and Alumni Secretary Howard G. Boardman is at the center of both images.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Conductor<\/a>
Conductor and English master Chuck Rouse is in the front row, center.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"wbah13\"<\/a>\"wbah14\"<\/a>\"wbah15\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Headmaster<\/a>
Headmaster Archibald V. Galbraith, who typically coached three sports, is at the left.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Coaches<\/a>
Coaches Galbraith and William Jordan Lossone are at either end.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1932.\u00a0 The national economic depression was at its worst.\u00a0 President Herbert Hoover, forced to defend his record, was about to receive the worst electoral whipping ever at the hands of Franklin Roosevelt, who promised a New Deal for the American People.\u00a0 But even FDR’s most rabid supporters knew that recovery would take years.\u00a0 And the … Continue reading Williston Boys at Home (1932)<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[53,476,453,12],"tags":[322,323,175,31,321,203,320,319],"class_list":["post-2496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campus-and-building-history","category-publications","category-student-life","category-williston-academy","tag-1930s","tag-323","tag-archibald-victor-galbraith","tag-campus-life","tag-depression","tag-marketing","tag-pamphlets","tag-viewbooks"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2496"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2496"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3785,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2496\/revisions\/3785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}