The annual ice carnival was held. "Fancy dress is the order for the evening and the lake is to be strung with Japanese lanterns." Poughkeepsie Daily Eagle, Dec. 14, 1905.
Fritz Kreisler gave a violin recital at Vassar.
The Frederick Ferris Thompson Memorial Library was dedicated, Allen & Collens, architects. Perpendicular Gothic in style, exterior of Germantown granite with trimmings and interior of Indiana limestone. Called "brightest jewel in Vassar's crown." It was the gift of Mary Clark Thompson, widow of Trustee Frederick Ferris Thompson. The building had a seating capacity of 360 readers and a book capacity of 150,000 volumes. Library contained more than 50,000 volumes and several thousand pamphlets; more than 200 periodicals received.
The Trustees limited enrollment to 1000. The annual fee for tuition and residence was increased from $400 to $500. The previous spring when Dr. Taylor had announced the tuition increase in chapel the following hymn was sung:
O Lord, I know that all my life is portioned out for me The changes that are sure to come I do not fear to see.
The James Monroe Taylor Chair of Philosophy was established in appreciation of Dr. Taylor's twenty-eight years of service as President of Vassar. It was first held by Henry Heath Bawden, Professor of Philosophy, 1901-1907. Donations were received from trustees, alumnae and other friends of Vassar College.
The addition to the Alumnae Gymnasium was completed.
The Board of Trustees accepted the Carnegie Foundation pension plan for faculty.
Milo P. Jewett House, dormitory, was completed, Pilcher & Tachau, architects. It was built with college funds and named in honor of the first president of Vassar. Lewis F. Pilcher was Professor of Art, 1900-1911.
Gilbert Murray, Fellow of New College, Oxford University, lectured on "Greece and Progress". He also lectured at the college in 1912 on "The Chorus".
The Nativity, a 14th century English play was presented as Second Hall. The prologue was spoken by Inez Milholland, '09.
Samuel Parsons, landscape architect, was appointed by the trustees to make a plan for beautifying the entire campus. The Alumnae Association gave half of the cost of the plan.
The Goodfellowship Club House was completed, Pilcher & Tachau, architects. It was built with funds given by the Students' Association. The Goodfellowship Club for maids and students had been organized in 1902/03. The Steadfast Club, in 1890/91, was the first club of maids, students and faculty. The Club House provided the employees with a place for gatherings and classes as well as for recreation and rest.
"Late in May and early in June a group of suffragists led by Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch [Vassar '78] travelled by trolley up the Hudson Valley holding open air meetings. The most notable of these was held at Poughkeepsie near Vassar College." International Year Book, 1908. Mrs. Blatch was the daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Inez Milholland, '09, held a suffrage meeting in a small cemetery adjacent to the college after President Taylor had forbidden a meeting on campus. "The meeting consisted of about forty undergraduates, ten alumnae, two male visitors, and Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch ['78 ], Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Miss Helen Hoy, corporation counsel for the Equality League of Self-Supporting Women, and Miss Rose Schneiderman of the Cap-Makers' Union. Mrs. Blatch, in order to allay the fears of any member of the faculty who might chance that way, bore aloft a yellow banner on which was inscribed in large black letters, 'Come, let us reason together.'" Woman's Journal, June 13, 1908.
The International Woman Suffrage Alliance met at Amsterdam. Caroline Furness, '91, Professor of Astronomy, attended. On her return she helped gather signatures for a petition to Congress in favor of woman suffrage.
Abby Leach, '85, Professor of Greek, received a gold cup from the Emperor of Japan in recognition of her services to Japanese education, the first such presentation made to an American woman.
The Sanders Laboratory of Chemistry was completed, Ewing & Chappelle, architects. It was the gift of Dr. Henry M. Sanders, a trustee, in memory of his wife, Eleanor Butler Sanders. Dr. Sanders later presented to the Art Gallery an important group of etchings.
The 400th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin was celebrated with a special program and an exhibition in the Library.
Joaquin Nabuco, Ambassador from Brazil, lectured on "Camoens - The Lyric".
Baroness Uriu, who had been a special student from 1878 to 1881, with her husband, gave Vassar a silver bowl which Emperor Mutsuhito and Empress Haruko of Japan had presented to them in appreciation of their furtherance of Japanese-American relations at home and abroad. The gift to the college was a token of gratitude made with the permission of the Emperor and Empress.
The College took part in the Hudson-Fulton celebration. Illustrated lectures were given by Professor Lucy M. Salmon and Professor Laura J. Wylie. Governor and Mrs. Charles Evans Hughes were guests of President and Mrs. Taylor. A half holiday was given on October 4th when the state celebration centered in Poughkeepsie.
Booker T. Washington, Principal of Tuskegee Institute, lectured on the Institute.
Edith Wynne Matthison, English actress, gave a reading of Gilbert Murray's translation of the Electra of Euripides.
The first inter-class Song Contest was held. "The songs written for it were to be given to the College, and the most successful to receive from the Students' Association a rose and grey banner similar to those given for the athletic championship." Vassar Miscellany, June 1910. The contests, later held on Founder's Day, were discontinued in 1929.
The Sunday evening prayer meeting was devoted to the celebration of the Tercentenary Anniversary of the publication of the King James version of the Bible. Speakers included William Bancroft Hill, Professor of Biblical Literature, President Taylor, Associate Professor Margaret Hudson of the English Department and Dr. Jean C. Bracq, Professor of French. The development of the English Bible was shown by a library exhibition.
Founder's Day was observed with a special celebration in honor of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Granting of the Charter to Vassar College, Jan. 18, 1861. The events of the first Founder's Day were portrayed. A pageant, Women of Culture in Five Ages, was presented. The Students' Association, the alumnae, and the faculty were represented by speakers. Dr. Taylor's address was entitled "The Founder and the College". There were no outside guests except alumnae.
An equal suffrage meeting was held in the Collingwood Opera House, Poughkeepsie. Professor Laura J. Wylie of Vassar attended as president of the local Equal Suffrage League and Inez Milholland, '09, who had carried a banner in the first suffrage procession in 1910, made a stirring appeal. A large number of Vassar students attended.
Lady Augusta Gregory, director of the Abbey Theatre, spoke at Vassar on "Making a Theatre".
Electric lighting was installed in the Main Building, replacing gas lights.
McCaleb House, faculty dwelling, at 71 Raymond Avenue, was completed, Allen & Collens, architects. It was given by alumnae and others as a recognition of the services to the college of Ella McCaleb, '78, Dean-elect, and for twenty-eight years Secretary of the college. She held the post of Dean from 1913 to 1923.
The brook at back of Avery was dammed to form a lake for skating, called Sunset Lake.
Professor Marian P. Whitney and Associate Professor Lilian L. Stroebe of the Department of German walked across the frozen Hudson River to visit the uncle of a Vassar student who, they had heard, collected Goethe material. Through their efforts Yale University acquired the famous Speck collection, the best of its kind in the United States.
President Taylor, in response to a student petition, granted permission for a mass meeting on woman suffrage.
Outside electric lights on the Vassar campus were turned on for the first time.
The alumnae raised an additional $40,000 for endowment.
The first Lantern Festival was held at Vassar Lake, for even classes. On Class Day night the seniors handed down their songs to the sophomores.
Associate Professor Lilian Stroebe of the Vassar German Department conducted a German Summer School in Lakeville, Connecticut. This was the predecessor of the Middlebury German Summer School.
Olivia Josselyn House, dormitory, was completed, Allen & Collens, architects. It was given by Mrs. Russell Sage in honor of her grandmother.
For the first time the Choir sang Christmas carols from the library tower. "The students assembled below, replied in chorus, led by Miss Dorothy Smith, who from the top of the tower swung a large light for a baton. Stille Nacht, sung from such a high altitude was most effective, and at the end all broke forth in a triumphant Nowell." Poughkeepsie Enterprise, Dec. 21, 1912.
Students' Building was completed, McKim, Mead & White, architects. It was the gift of an anonymous donor, for "exclusive needs and interests of student organizations."
The Lady Principalship was abolished and the Board of Wardens appointed.
A woman suffrage parade in Washington was organized by Inez Milholland '09. The New York Times of the following day under headline "1000 Women March, Beset by Crowds", noted "Miss Milholland was an imposing figure in a white broadcloth Cossack suit and long white-kid boots. From her shoulders hung a pale-blue cloak, adorned with a golden maltese cross. She was mounted on Gray Dawn, a white horse..."
For the first time, members of the Junior Class were elected to membership in Mu Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.
Alfred Noyes gave a reading of his poetry. He also visited the college in 1919.
The Frederick Ferris Thompson Chair of Political Science was established by Mrs. Thompson in memory of her husband, a trustee of Vassar, 1885-1899. This was the first professorship in political science founded in a woman's college. Emerson David Fite, Professor of Political Science 1913-1944, was the first to hold this chair.
"For the past three years President Taylor has asked members of the faculty to outline in lectures for the College at large the recent history of their particular subject, and to define its field. The first of such lectures for the year was given this evening by Prof. Emerson D. Fite on Political Science." New York Post.
President Taylor retired. Presidential duties on the business side were assumed by the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees. Administrative offices carried on routine duties. Matters of discipline were assigned to a committee consisting of Professor Herbert E. Mills, Chairman of the Faculty, the Dean, and the Head Warden. In February of 1913 Dr. Taylor had written the Board of Trustees asking to be retired at the end of the first semester of the next year. "In his administration of twenty-seven and a half years the college expanded from a small institution inadequately equipped to a college for 1,000 students, all housed on the campus. The material expansion in that time included, besides the erection of six dormitories, the building of a recitation hall, laboratories for biology and chemistry, a library, a chapel, an infirmary, a gymnasium and a students building. The library grew from about l2,000 to 80,000 volumes. Five hundred thousand dollars were added to the general endowment, and the inner growth of the college was far more significant since it involved the abolition of a preparatory department and of the admission of poorly prepared special students in music and art; one epochal revision of the curriculum; the establishment of twelve new chairs in the faculty, including those of history, biology, economics, psychology, Biblical literature and political science. With these factual changes, moreover, there was maintained in the college a high ideal of what a liberal education should signify and an inspiring standard of college life and college work." Footnote by E.H. Haight in The Life and Letters of James Monroe Taylor.
The first issue of the Vassar Miscellany Weekly, a news supplement, was published. After Feb. 9, 1917, it was continued as the Vassar Miscellany News.
Vassar students decided to raise $1,000 to aid students who had lost their belongings in the Wellesley fire.
The Seniors graduated in cap and gown for the first time.
Associate Justice Charles Evans Hughes, father of Helen Hughes, '14, attended the 1914 Commencement dinner.
The first Convocation for the opening of college was held at the suggestion of Lucy M. Salmon, Professor of History, 1887-1926.
Vassar faculty and administration finally gave permission for a student Women's Suffrage Club.
For the first time a German nativity play, Ein Altes Weinachtspiel aus Hessen, was given by the Deutsche Verein. Following the play the audience and cast sang German Christmas carols. After 1917 the German Christmas play became an annual event. It was usually given in the chapel.
Last updated: 10 November, 1999, by Jeremy R. Linden, '00.