What follows is a meandering summary of my thesis research, mainly focusing on trends in Swarthmore’s curriculum relating to American topics until 1950, but with stops along the way to look at President Aydelotte's disdain for non-Honors students and an Economics professor
Before Worthstock, the LSE, or even Olde Club, there was the Swarthmore Folk Festival. For a few decades, Swarthmore became the center of the folk music world for one spring weekend each year.
In Jonathan Franzen’s 2010 novel Freedom, protagonist Patty Berglund visits her daughter Jessica at her Philadelphia-area liberal arts college on Parents’ Weekend. There are a number of clues that Jessica attends Swarthmore, Franzen’s alma mater. Swarthmore, indeed, plays a prominent role throughout
Our oldest campus newspaper was first published in 1881, rising from the ashes of the Great Fire of Parrish. In its earliest form, the Phoenix was more of a literary journal than a newspaper as we think of it today.
It’s not uncommon for Swarthmore students today to make plans for a hypothetical zombie apocalypse. Yet it’s a little-known secret of Swarthmore history that once upon a time, Swarthmore students were actually forced to make these decisions.
The sudden influx of soldiers on the GI Bill who enrolled in Swarthmore after serving overseas was completely unprecedented in American higher education, and while Swarthmore didn’t suddenly increase enrollment like many schools, the college did change. The war years were turbulent,
When America broke out of its isolationism in 1941, Swarthmore faced a dilemma: how could a college with a traditionally pacifist Quaker ideology respond? Swarthmore founder Benjamin Hallowell was a conscientious objector in the war of 1812. Should the college encourage
In 1964, a college press release spoke of “a place of noble proportions” that had sprung up at Swarthmore. The alumni bulletin called it “a humane setting for the fine art of eating.” This, of course, was Sharples.
Given current discussions about student activism at Swarthmore, it’s fitting to look back to the era of student protest and arrest: the 1960's.
In the wake of Halloween, I think it’s appropriate to celebrate the 80th anniversary of one of the more wonderful pranks ever pulled at Swarthmore: the Cow Episode. On December 4, 1929, the editor of the Phoenix received a letter from the
