College Life in the 1950s
By Amber Cronin '11
Walking around campus, it's clear to see just from buildings' cornerstones declaring the year they were built that the place has greatly changed since the institution moved up the street from the Old Campus. There are now male students, for one thing, a population that was reinstated only in the early 1990s.
Plus, with every new building that crops up, it seems the student population grows proportionately. This leads me to think about Colby-Sawyer's past. What was the school like, say, 50 years ago, when it was for women only? What events were happening then, and how different were the lives of the women who studied here?
Before we look at student life in the 1950s, let's set the stage. In 1950, the world's population was about 2.5 billion, compared with today's 6.6 billion. There was war in Korea, mass production of computers began, and the first organ transplant took place. A year later, color television was introduced in America.
A year after that, Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president. Mt. Everest was conquered in 1953, the same year that Queen Elizabeth was crowned, DNA was discovered and the McCarthy hearings took place. The Soviet Union launched the space explorer Sputnik I in 1957 and the Cold War was a reality. Popular actors included Marilyn Monroe, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and John Wayne. The '50s was a decade in which people built bomb shelters, had babies (think baby boomers), and the television news was filled with what the “reds” or “commies” would do next.
By the end of the decade, segregation was illegal in the now-50 United States, almost 60 percent of Americans owned their own homes and 90 percent a television while making just over $5,000 annually. Castro was in power, and Barbie was starting her reign on the shelves of toy stores.
Now we turn back to the small town of New London (pop. 1,484) atop its hill. What was going on here in the 1950s? Well, in 1951 the first television was installed on campus so that students could see General MacArthur speak before Congress. Best Hall was added to campus in 1954 and dedicated to Dr. Samuel M. Best, who served as chairman for the Board of Trustees from 1933 to1968. Dr. Eugene M. Austin was appointed president of the college in 1955 and finally, in 1959, the Sawyer Fine Arts Center, home of fine and performing arts on campus, opened.
All of this is fine and dandy, but what were the students of Colby-Sawyer like? Looking through the college's archives, I found hundreds of photographs of life in the 1950s here on the hill. There were sports pictures, mostly of the girls ice-skating in the town park. Like many of the students who attend Colby-Sawyer College today, students enjoyed trips to the local mountains to go skiing.
In the '50s, the college was incredibly connected. Everybody knew everybody and it was easy to make friends. One student had this to say about life on campus at that time: “They were comfortable years because, being a small college, we got to know everybody on campus, including faculty and staff.”
Back then the school was much more isolated than it is now; there were no computers or video games to keep students distracted. Thus, the girls were more connected to each other than any of us, in the present day, could ever hope to be.
What do you see students wearing as you walk around campus these days? Are they wearing dresses, pearls, and is their hair always perfectly groomed? The answer to this is simply no.
Looking at the young women who currently attend Colby-Sawyer, it is rare to find even one who dresses up for each day of class like the girls of the 1950s did. Now you'll see plenty of girls wandering around in their sweats, their hair a mess on top of their heads.
As I skimmed the archives for photos and some hint to what life was like in the 1950s, in every picture I found the girls were dressed to the nines. One photograph showed the young women lounging around in the dorm common room, but were any of them dressed in sweats? No. If someone came into our dorms and photographed a random group of students, you can bet that none of us would look like they did.
One tradition that we have preserved is that beloved day in September we call Mountain Day, when all the students hike Mt. Kearsarge. The girls of the '50s all loaded into trucks, not vans and buses, and marched their way to the summit.
It is clear to see how much life has changed since the 1950s, though some things are similar. We no longer worry about the “reds,” but we are concerned about terrorists. Instead of having no televisions, now you can get television right on your cell phone, another new invention. Nevertheless, outside of all the obvious changes here at Colby-Sawyer, the college has maintained a reputation of excellence in its academics, athletics and student life.
Amber Cronin works in College Communications at Colby-Sawyer College.
