Earliest Years at Vassar: Personal Recollections

A librarian's personal recollections portray the college's earliest decades, narrating how a single benefactor's vision and the first president's organizing work established a fully equipped institution for women. The account describes faculty composition—predominantly male with a few women in key roles—an academic program modeled on men's colleges, evolving student grading, and the prominence of the music department. It also records campus rituals, religious services, public debates over terminology and the place of women's higher education, and domestic anecdotes that convey the informal, intimate character of daily life during the college's pioneering years.