Here are a few items from the Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library and elsewhere on campus, and our thoughts about what they are and what they mean.

On Key

Each new �ֲ���ý president receives a set of keys, symbolizing the authority of the office, at their installation ceremony.

The current set was created for the inauguration of Elaine Tuttle Hansen on Oct. 26, 2002. Clayton Spencer received the keys on Oct. 26, 2012, and President Garry W. Jenkins will receive them at his installation ceremony on May 4, 2024.

Hoops Heroines

The Class of 1910 women’s basketball team won the inter-class basketball championship in two of their four years.

The team’s stars were Nellie Barker (top left) and Grace Archibald (lower right). In the 1909 title game vs. the sophomores, The �ֲ���ý Student noted how Barker, “not satisfied with a long shot into the basket which she made in the first half, apparently deliberately turned her back to the goal and tossed the ball over her head into the basket.”

Meanwhile, Archibald made five baskets from the floor in the 18 to 8 victory.

Gomes’ Good Life

This silver chalice by Shreve and Co. belonged to the late Rev. Peter Gomes ’65. His friends purchased the chalice at his estate auction in 2012 and donated it to �ֲ���ý to honor the naming of the �ֲ���ý chapel in memory of the beloved preacher, author, and �ֲ���ý alumnus.

It is inscribed “Good Life December 2002” (the title and publication date of Gomes’ book about moral traditions) and monogrammed “PJG.”

Hair Raising

The Edwardian hairstyle for women was the pompadour, a style worn here by Gladys Burgess Spear for her Class of 1906 yearbook portrait.

In that era, women rarely wore their hair down, and when they did it was mostly in private. The accompanying photo shows �ֲ���ý women in such a private moment with their hair down, having a “midnight party” in Rand Hall in 1908. While it looks like they’re smoking cigarettes, they’re having a midnight snack, probably Welsh rarebit.

Held at boarding schools and colleges, food-fueled midnight parties were popular at the time among women. (A midnight party figures in Virginia Woolf’s A Woman’s College from Outside.)

�ֲ���ý Bib

Until the 1960s, first-year �ֲ���ý students were obliged to wear certain clothing items marking them as freshmen. Men wore black and garnet beanies, whereas women wore green hair bows and bibs, oftentimes adorned with embroidery.

Found in a scrapbook created by late Muriel “Swick” Swicker ’42 for her freshman year is her bib, surrounded by personal commentary on her smock. Her comments:

• “That’s me!”
• “Palsie”
• “Now — we know who’s who!”
• “Yes — ties and caps sure get ’em! (Hope we do some getting)”
• “Excuse dirt! But — weren’t bibs made for spilling?”
• “Can I sew?”
• “So fetching! (especially with silk dresses)”
• “It keeps my neck warm!”
• “Got rather attached to you — I miss you — Bib!”
• “With my own little hands”

Here are a few items from the Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library and elsewhere on campus, and our thoughts about what they are and mean.

Sustained

The 540th birthday for Martin Luther, the German theologian and key figure in the Protestant Reformation, is coming up on Nov. 10.

The stained-glass depiction of Luther, showing him nailing the 95 theses to the church door, can be seen in Gomes Chapel with other great Western thinkers, from Homer to Marie Curie.

The specific window featuring Luther, along with Erasmus and Leonardo da Vinci, was dedicated on June 12, 1937, during class day exercises. The window was a gift of the Class of 1937, at the time the third in a series of four groups featuring ancient, medieval, renaissance, and modern figures.

The chapel’s stained glass imagery was designed by the famed Boston studio of Charles J. Connick, whose work in the Gothic Revival style is found worldwide.

Give a Ring

Held in the Muskie Archives and Special Collections, this silver �ֲ���ý cigar-band ring belonged to the late Jane Libby ’56, a noted editor of archaeological publications.

She co-edited the scholarly book Pendejo Cave (2003) with legendary archeologist R.S. “Scotty” MacNeish, offering research suggesting a much earlier human inhabitation of North America than scholars previously thought.

When MacNeish died before the volume could be published, Libby handled the final editing.

���Dz������ٳپ���’

This photo by George Conklin ’53 shows a Texas-style derrick, near what is now Lane Hall. It gushed water high into air during the 1952 Mayoralty campaign.

Replete with skits, stunts, shenanigans and contraptions, Mayoralty thrived during the mid-1900s — an epic, three-day student campaign to elect a mock mayor of �ֲ���ý.

In 1952, the Texas-themed campaign of “Smilin’ Jack” Davis ’54 defeated the Hollywood-inspired campaign of “Lymelight Lynn” Willsely ’54.

Fine Stein

Held in the Muskie Archives and Special Collections, this ceramic �ֲ���ý stein belonged to the late Margie Gregory Wright ’45, who used her chemistry degree to land her first job, selling scientific equipment. She later taught science and health in Baltimore, and was a consultant to a family-life discussion group for the board of education.

As with the ring photograph above, the era of this stein can be determined by the founding year on the seal: 1864, which is the year �ֲ���ý became a college, rather than 1855, the year the Maine State Seminary was chartered.

�ֲ���ý seals prior to around 1990 carried the 1864 date. Since then, it’s been 1855.

Here are a few items from the Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library and elsewhere on campus, and our thoughts about what they are and mean.

Taking Granite

In her first-year �ֲ���ý College scrapbook, Muriel Swicker ’42 collected this “piece of Mount David” during a climb to the summit with her Wilson House chums.

The climb, as it is now, was “just won-derful,” according to her notes on the page, offering a “swell view” of Mount Washington.

‘Gracious Juggernaut!’

This inscribed stone rests under the flagpoles at the northwest corner of Garcelon Field commemorates Maine’s first college football game, played on bygone Rand Field on Nov. 6, 1875, between Tufts and �ֲ���ý. The stone was installed in 1975 on the 100th anniversary of the game.

“Occasionally 10 or 12 men got into a promiscuous scramble for the possession of the ball,” reported a bemused Lewiston Evening Journal reporter, “and came forth rubbing their shins and using such phrases as, ‘Gracious juggernaut.’”

Slim Slate

The 1938 fall varsity sports schedule comprised just men’s sports and just two of them: cross country and football.

�ֲ���ý’ opponents were familiar ones, except perhaps Arnold College. Based in Connecticut, the physical education–focused college closed in 1953. �ֲ���ý won the 1938 football game 26-2.

One of the freshmen opponents, New Hampton School, has historical ties with �ֲ���ý. Like �ֲ���ý, it was founded with a strong  orientation. From 1854 to 1870, Cobb Divinity School was affiliated with New Hampton before moving to the �ֲ���ý campus, where it existed until closing in 1908.

That year’s New England cross country title went to the University of Maine (90 points), with �ֲ���ý second with 96 points.

After Dinner

According to a note in Muskie Archives accompanying this photograph, this image shows Lewis Penick Clinton, who came to the U.S. from Liberia and graduated from the Cobb Divinity School, the bygone divinity school located on the �ֲ���ý campus, in 1897.

The note says the photograph was taken “after a big Thanksgiving dinner.” The year and location unknown. According to various sources, Clinton was a prince in Liberia and, following his U.S. education, returned to Liberia to work as a Christian missionary.

Here are a few items from the Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library and our thoughts about what they are and mean.

Pin for the Win

Pinback buttons like this, adorned with ribbons and football charms, were the cat’s meow in the mid-1900s.

Trowel Power

Mabel Eaton, Class of 1910, donated to �ֲ���ý this trowel, which helped to prepare the soil for an ivy planting during the dedication of the 1910 ivy stone, which is located on Hedge Hall.

Mabel Eaton, a 1910 graduate, donated the trowel to �ֲ���ý. She went on to became �ֲ���ý’ famed librarian, first as an assistant (1921–1941) and as librarian until 1957. Eaton made significant contributions to �ֲ���ý: She founded the women’s honor society �ֲ���ý Key in 1936 and served as its president for 22 years.

The �ֲ���ý Key was so named because the alumnae membership served as “key people” in organizing activities for graduates and to “influence young women of the best type to come to �ֲ���ý in the future.”

The Lewiston Evening Journal called her “the key woman of the �ֲ���ý Key” in 1945. The �ֲ���ý Key and the men’s College Club later merged to create the College Key, whose scholarship is named for her.

Following retirement, she was the technical supervisor of the student nurses’ library at Central Maine General Hospital (now Central Maine Medical Center)

Bib Deal

Through the 1960s, under the guise of helping newbies learn the ropes, first-year students faced what today would be considered hazing, sponsored by the college’s respective men’s and women’s student governments.

Among other rules during the first few weeks of the first semester, women had to wear bibs (and had to sew their names into the bib) and men wore beanies.

This photo was likely taken in fall 1948 in Cheney House. Standing with bibs on are Mary Leckemby Merrill ’52 and Shirley Veale Davenport ’53. Seated before scrapbooks (in which two bibs seems to be placed) are Caroline Jaques ’52 (left) and Dorothy Pierce Morris ’52. The woman at right is unidentified.

Other rules for first-year women, as noted in a 1952 edition of The �ֲ���ý Student, included “show[ing] respect to the upperclass women in the following ways: By opening doors and permitting upperclass women to precede them on all occasions; by standing when an upperclass woman enters the room; by pouring milk and water in the dining hall.”

The first-year men, meanwhile, had to wear garnet-and-black beanies during the early weeks of the semester. Other “Frosh Rules” for men in 1952 included being required to “know the full name of every upperclassman in his dormitory by the end of the second week of classes” and, with their roommates, being “responsible for making a football placard which they will carry at all rallies and home football games.”

An earlier rule, in effect in the 1940s, required the men to wear green bow ties. The late Keith Wilbur ’45 wore this tie as a first-year student:

Here’s another selection of items that tell stories about �ֲ���ý’ past from the Muskie Archives and Special Collections and elsewhere.

A Nice Run

This vintage trophy honors the three straight Maine state titles, 1968 through 1970, won by Walt Slovenski’s cross country runners. 

Wait, vintage? Not so fast.

Three of the runners in that photo — Joe Grube ’73 (left), Jim Leahey ’71 (No. 65), and Joe Bradford ’73 (second from right) — just returned to campus for the 50th Cross Country Alumni Race. So, too, did the alumnus who took the photo, Joe Gromelski ’74.

Others in the photo also have returned regularly for the alumni race ever since it got started in 1972. 

Before the start of the 50th anniversary edition, on Sept. 3, Leahy proudly displayed a photo of the first group of alumni and students who took part in the first alumni race.

Among that group, Bradford, Grube, Leahy, and Mortimer, as well as Gromelski, came back for the 50th. Among the race founders, Bradford had the best time for the six-kilometer course, 31:48.

As , he’s “probably more dedicated now in terms of running than I have ever been in my life; I’m grateful for the times we all have.”

Star Bright

At the opening of the college 70 years ago, the College Club presented this Service Flag to �ֲ���ý. It was installed in the Chapel and hung there throughout World War II. 

Speaking at the first chapel service of the year, on Sept. 24, 1942, President Clifton Daggett Gray described the war outlook as “grim.” But, he said,  “It is our privilege to march forward toward an unknown future unafraid, with the invincible faith in the justice of our cause and with unshakeable confidence in ultimate victory.”

By war’s end the flag displayed 30 gold stars, symbolizing �ֲ���ý students or alumni killed in the war.  The number 1,305 represents the total who served.

Quimby’s Key

In 1964, legendary debate coach Brooks Quimby, Class of 1918, earned a distinguished alumni award — and this key — from the collegiate debating honor society Delta Sigma Rho–Tau Kappa Alpha.

As a student, Quimby was a member of the �ֲ���ý chapter Delta Sigma Rho (which merged with Tau Kappa Alpha in 1963).

At the national level, DSR was problematic: It prohibited Black debaters from becoming members of local chapters, including �ֲ���ý’. The college fought the rule, while also benefiting from membership.

Sporting Interest

This Women’s Athletic Association key belonged to Virginia LaFauci Toner ’53. 

The WAA was formed in 1905 to offer organized physical education to �ֲ���ý women for the first time. Among the group’s first activities was a “hare and hound chase” for the women.

A popular game in the early 1900s, it went like this: Fast runners (the hares) ran ahead creating a trail with pieces of paper or other clues.  The others, the hounds, tried to pick up the trail.  The 1914 version went like this: 

“The hares had been unusually diligent in making the trails as blind and misleading as possible, and the little paths of red, blue, yellow and white paper led over gates and railway embankments, thru swamps, fences, and thickets. It was nearly sunset before the Hares’ Retreat was reached, at a beautiful spot by the [Androscoggin River], where a brilliant camp fire was burning and a delicious lunch was served.”

Tennis and the relatively new American sport of field hockey were early offerings, too. The latter “involves much running and is both scientific and interesting when well-played,” noted The �ֲ���ý Student.

Betrayed

Ash trays aren’t seen much in homes anymore (or anywhere, for that matter). This one — with an image of Coram Library, and belonging to the late Melvin ’42 and Natalie Webber Gulbrandsen ’42 — is safely in the Archives.

It’s hard to believe the strength of the cigarette smoking culture through most of the 1900s. Here’s a 1930s ad in The �ֲ���ý Student for Don Draper’s favorite brand, Lucky Strike:

Here are a few items from the Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library and elsewhere:

Self portrait 

This is George French, Class of 1908, leaning on an Edison phonograph and wearing his class track uniform, presumably in his Parker Hall room.

It’s likely a self-portrait: French was a lifelong photographer. Behind him are probably his own photos, mostly of �ֲ���ý friends and teammates. There are a few other things in the photo, as we discovered last winter.

A baseball, football, and track standout who also played the mandolin, French was the official photographer of the Maine Development Commission for years. 

You look fobulous! 

Longtime �ֲ���ý trustee Oliver Barrett Clason, Class of 1877, received this �ֲ���ý watch fob from his fellow trustees in 1916.

A lawyer in Gardiner, Maine, Clason was a longtime state legislator who was Maine Senate president in 1899–1901. Clason House, on College Street, is named for him. 

Note that the �ֲ���ý seal on the fob is a different version from today’s seal. It displays the date �ֲ���ý was chartered, March 16, 1855. The current seal has just the year, 1855.

Getting a Handle 

Under 8 inches tall, this battered trophy cup has an oversized history. The Class of 1911 won it during an interclass competition in exercise drills, e.g., Indian clubs, dumbbells, and swords.

It later traveled with class member Roger Guptill to the Congo where he was a missionary. He lost it, then got it back years later, minus its handles.

Science symbols 

This lapel pin is from the Jordan Scientific Society, a bygone student club formed in 1910 to “foster an active interest in all fields of science,” said the Mirror. (It was for male students; the women’s science club was Ramsdell.)

Through crowd-sourcing from �ֲ���ý science professors, we believe the following to be true: 

• The owl suggests wisdom 

• It’s perched on a mortar, symbolizing chemistry 

• The telescope is for astronomy and physics 

• The tripod legs could suggest the tenets of the scientific method: observation, hypothesis, and testing 

• The skull might suggest biology 

It’s opening day of the 2021 Major League baseball season, and here are some photographs and stories about the old ball game at �ֲ���ý.

High Pitch

Called a “lanky portsider” by The �ֲ���ý Student and an “elongated lefty” by the Bangor Daily News, the late Donald Webster ’41 wore this glove as a 6-foot-5 lefthanded Bobcat pitcher. He was also a standout high jumper who held the Maine indoor record.

With a nifty curveball and changeup, Webster one-hit the University of Maine 70 years ago this month, allowing only two fly-ball outs and striking out eight. 

Ball Three

In 1956, governors attending their annual conference in Atlantic City, N.J., including then-Maine Gov. Edmund Muskie ’36, received as gifts baseballs signed by players on the three Major League baseball teams then in New York City: the New York Giants, the New York Yankees, and the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Here’s the Dodger baseball, featuring Hall of Famer ’s signature at top followed by those of , relief pitcher; , relief pitcher; , first base; , second base; , catcher; and , left fielder.

A year later, the Dodgers and Giants would both announce their moves to Los Angeles and San Francisco, respectively.

Good Contact

This video clip shows a 1930s baseball game on the old Garcelon Field diamond, near where the Residential Village now sits. Research suggests it might be a �ֲ���ý victory over the University of Maine from 1936.

The pitcher’s three-quarter arm slot — not overhand, not sidearm, but in between — appears to be “natural, loose, and easy,” says �ֲ���ý head coach Jon Martin. “And I would predict this type of pitcher could master a two-seam fastball and/or sinker.”

The �ֲ���ý hitter looks to have a great “two-strike approach,” meaning he’s trying to make contact to score the runner from third base. “I bet he’s a clutch hitter,” Martin says, noting how the batter attacks the outside pitch and drives it to right field. “I love it. This guy could hit in my lineup any day.”

My Lord

Harry Lord, who attended �ֲ���ý for most of the 1904–05 year, playing football and baseball, went on to a notable Major League career. In 1908, as captain of the Boston Red Sox, he hit .315, good for fourth in the American League behind future Hall of Famers Ty Cobb, Eddie Collins, and Napoleon Lajoie. 

As captain of the 1911 Chicago White Sox, he did even better, batting .321. “Lord is acknowledged to be the best third baseman in the circuit,” wrote The English News of Indiana.

Stating Their Case

The 1892 baseball team posted a 7-1 record en route to the Maine state title.

In this photo, the man in the tan suit is senior Jacob Little, team manager. (Another team photo, likely taken later that spring, shows Little brandishing a silk top hat, awarded to the state champion manager.) Team scorer Wilson Marden, a junior, stands at left displaying his scorebook.

The slugger on the team was mustachioed senior left-fielder William Putnam (seated), Class of 1892, who hit a team-leading four home runs, Putnam was 5 feet, 11 1/2 inches and 165 pounds. That’s a burly physique in a senior class that averaged 5-10 and 151 pounds, a fact we know because each graduating senior’s height and weight was noted in The �ֲ���ý Student.

Below, Putnam (seated at right) poses with the Class of 1892 team in their sophomore year after they beat the juniors during class competition in baseball.

Well Run

On Oct. 23, 2014, William “Chick” Leahey ’52 donned his No. 11 �ֲ���ý jersey at his home on East Avenue, the day before his jersey was retired during Homecoming festivities at the college.

“I never got run,” said Leahey that day, noting that in his half-century of organized baseball, including high school, minor league, semi-pro, and 36 years as a head coach of �ֲ���ý baseball, he never got tossed from a game by an umpire.

In 1990 the college’s baseball field was named in his honor and in 2014, his baseball jersey number 11 became the first �ֲ���ý baseball number to be retired.

Rough and Ready

Lewiston-born who led the Boston Red Sox to World Series titles in 1915 and again in 1916. In the 1930s, he coached the �ֲ���ý team. Babe Ruth, when he was with the Sox, called Carrigan his best-ever manager.

A catcher who earned the nickname “Rough,” Carrigan was famous for blocking a runner’s path to the plate, which often led to spectacular collisions — and fights. According to The Irish in Baseball (Carrigan was born to Irish immigrant parents), the ballplayer was “intelligent and well-spoken” off the field, “but one of baseball’s best fighters on it.”

“You might as well try to move a stone wall,” Chicago White Sox manager Nixey Callahan once said.

Here are a few items from the Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library.

Stay Strong, Men

In the movie Rocky, trainer Mickey famously said to his fighter, “Women weaken legs!”

In that vein, there’s a bit to unpack in this circa 1955 photograph of a pep rally in Alumni Gym, where Bobcat football players — see the banner at center — are exhorted to “forget your mates” as a key to beating Maine.

As to whether there’s any truth that sex decreases athletic performance, .

Runneth Over

In May 1920, the college’s Philhellenic Club took its production of Hippolytus to Haverhill, Mass., where the students were guests of the local immigrant Greek community. The hosts treated the �ֲ���ý guests to “four royal meals” during their overnight stay, reported The �ֲ���ý Student, and presented this “mammoth, loving cup” as a token of appreciation.

One of �ֲ���ý’ notable graduates, Euterpe Boukis Dukakis ’25, grew up in Haverhill’s Greek community. Then in high school, she met her future husband, Panagis Dukakis, Class of 1922, during the students’ 1920 visit. He played the title role in the play.

Their son, Mike Dukakis, became governor of Massachusetts and the 1988 Democratic nominee for president. Euterpe and her family established at �ֲ���ý the endowed Euterpe B. Dukakis Professorship in Classical and Medieval Studies in 1994, a chair held by Laurie O’Higgins.

Stanton Strip

This strip of leather shows legendary professor Johnny Stanton and the words “Uncle Johnny” at the top. That we know. Its use? Unclear. A bookmark?

High Honors

A great track athlete of his era, William Wheeler Bolster, Class of 1895, established a �ֲ���ý high-jump record of 5 feet, 4 inches, in June 1892 to win this medal. Bolster went on to become a local physician.

Today, the �ֲ���ý high jump records are owned by Matt Schecter ’89. He cleared 7-0.25 (indoors) and 6-10 (outdoors).

Here are a few items from the Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library and elsewhere:

Shortstrop

This 19th-century shaving kit in its garnet case was a prize to the �ֲ���ý baseball player having the highest batting average at the close of the season.

The item was donated by Tappan C. Pulsifer, Class of 1895. While we don’t know whether Pulsifer won the kit, the nearly 6-foot third baseman and captain was one of the team’s best hitters, with a gaudy .338 average as a junior.

After �ֲ���ý, he briefly played for Lewiston’s entry in the New England League, facing teams like the Pawtucket (R.I.) Phenoms and Brockton (Mass.) Shoemakers. Pulsifer then went on to be a physician.

�ֲ���ý Nurses

Seen here is the official �ֲ���ý College Department of Nursing cap, embellished with the department pin.

Responding to the growing need for healthcare workers during World War II, �ֲ���ý launched its five-year degree program to train nurses in 1942. The program continued until 1958 and graduated nearly 100 students.

Students in the program spent two years in residence at �ֲ���ý, then two years rotating through �ֲ���ý-affiliated hospitals in the Boston area, then returned to campus for a final year.

In the Class of 1958 50th Reunion book, Gail Baumann Karszes ’58 described the rotation:

“At New England Baptist we studied and practiced nursing in medical and surgical wards. We worked with the mentally ill at the Metropolitan State Hospital in Waltham, we learned about communicable disease at the Rutland State Sanatorium, about public-health nursing with the Worcester Visiting Nurses Association, and about pediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology at Lynn General Hospital.”

(The Metropolitan Hospital closed in 1992, during the deinstitutionalization movement; Lynn General closed, year unknown; and the Rutland sanatorium closed in 1991.)

A Commencement Treat

Julia Child receives an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree at Commencement on June 6, 1983.

Written by the late Carl Benton Straub, the whimsical degree citation for Child recalled how, in 17th-century Boston, the Puritans objected to French dance master Henri Sherlot and his troupe setting up a dancing school, calling it “French promiscuity.”

Straub, who was Dean of the Faculty, then said: “In our time, another French phenomenon has hit Boston, New England, and America. But Julia Child and her troupe have not been accused of promiscuity. It’s just that the sauces are so rich!”

Child was honored for “her generosity of spirit through which she shared the artistry of cooking” and for providing “recipes for fruitful diversion and happiness among friends.”

Patricia Morse ’60, a �ֲ���ý trustee at the time, recalls a charming Child at the traditional honorand dinner held the night before Commencement at the President’s House on College Street.

“‘I remember the remarkable way she connected with everyone, paying particular attention to the president’s visiting mother and visiting the �ֲ���ý cooks in the kitchen,” Morse recalled a few years ago.

A Note for an A

Muriel Swicker ’42 aced Professor August Buschmann’s German class in 1939, which earned this note from “Herr Buschmann,” typed on her report card.

A few years ago, the late Professor of German Craig Decker offered this translation: “It was a great pleasure for me to have you in class this year. I hope you enjoyed your first year here in Lewiston and that you are looking forward to next year with particular pleasure.”

Rule of Thumb

This 1944 banner features five Bobcats spelling out “B-A-T-E-S” with the final cat thumbing his nose.

Produced by Collegiate Manufacturing Co. of Ames, Iowa, “lineup banners” with the final mascot doing something different from the others were a popular Collegiate product of the era.

Presidential Support

Props for the president: This white wooden cane belonged to the college’s fifth president, Charles F. Phillips.

Here are a few items and images from the Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library.

Like a College Should?

Around 1910, smokers of the Turkish cigarette Murad found a college trading card in each pack (college = smoking = cool, right?).

In pursuit of the young smoker, Murad . (Most NESCAC colleges were represented with Colby, Middlebury, and Connecticut College the exceptions.)

The card for each school shows the college’s seal, a pennant with its name, and, typically, an athlete in a sport that was well-established by the early 1900s, like baseball, football, or track and field. A few depict athletes in “newer” college sports like hockey or basketball.

Meanwhile, some other cards, including the one for �ֲ���ý, show a hunter or fisherman.

The �ֲ���ý card issued by Murad shows a hunter in snowshoes. (Mike Bradley/�ֲ���ý College)

Well-Troweled

The engraved text on this trowel notes that it was “used on Dec. 14, 1925, in the laying of the cornerstone of the Athletic Building given by William Bingham II.”

Bingham, a philanthropist who lived in Bethel, Maine, requested that the building be named for President Clifton Daggett Gray.

This trowel was used during the laying of the cornerstone of the Gray Athletic Building in December 1925. (Mike Bradley/�ֲ���ý College)

Held on a Monday morning, the cornerstone ceremony was attended by the entire �ֲ���ý community, which marched to the site en masse after chapel services.

In its advance story, The �ֲ���ý Student reported that the respective president and vice president of the senior class, Kirby Baker ’26 and Elizabeth Stickney ’26, would assist Gray with the cornerstone installation.

The Student noted that the ceremony would conclude with the singing of the Alma Mater, “led by the college band, which will be called out especially for the occasion after disbanding for the winter.”

The Student was all in when describing the need for the new athletic building, both to support current students and as a “potent force in attracting preparatory school athletes of prominence” to �ֲ���ý.

This could be Elizabeth Stickney ’26, senior class vice president, using a trowel to place mortar during the laying of cornerstone for the Gray Athletic Building on Dec. 14, 1925. President Clifton Daggett Gray, the building’s namesake, is second from left. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

Sign of the Times

It might be hard for later generations to comprehend just how ubiquitous — at least in some segments of American society — the peace sign was during the height of the U.S. anti-war movement 50 years ago.

Designed in 1958 in England to support nuclear-weapon protests, the peace sign was everywhere and anywhere, such as on snow-covered Lake Andrews in this photo, .

This peace sign appeared on Lake Andrews circa 1970. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

Paddling Along

This �ֲ���ý Varsity Club paddle, owned by the late Don Webster ’41, has a few doodles and signatures.

One doodle reflects how boxing once gripped the full attention of �ֲ���ý students, not to mention the nation. It depicts Joe Louis’ defeat of Al McCoy on Dec. 16, 1940, at the Boston Garden.

This detail of a Varsity Club initiation paddle features a doodle showing a 1940 Joe Louis boxing match. (Mike Bradley/�ֲ���ý College)

Similar to fraternity paddles, this paddle was used in Varsity Club initiations, which apparently did feature physical hazing, according to this 1938  by George Lythcott ’39.

Lythcott happens to be the father of author and educator Julie Lythcott-Haims, whose memoir, Real American, was the Common Read for the Class of 2022.

Paddles like this were part of Varsity Club initiations circa 1940. (Mike Bradley/�ֲ���ý College)

Designing Women

Straight from the suede-loving ’70s is this silver sculpture within a rough-out leather display box, which was presented to �ֲ���ý in 1973 as a Maine State Arts Award honoring the design of Ladd Library.

The sculpture was designed by Fay Golya of Augusta, Maine.

The award praised �ֲ���ý for “a rare refinement of taste and a willingness to commit substantial resources to an unseen result,” a nod to �ֲ���ý taking a chance on a modernist design for its new library.

The building’s of The Architects Collaborative; she also designed Olin Arts Center.

This silver sculpture was presented to �ֲ���ý in 1973 as a Maine State Arts Award honoring the design of Ladd Library. (Mike Bradley/�ֲ���ý College)