Thursday, September 16, 2010

Dartmouth Songs

Searching around on the internet, I found out that the Office of Alumni Relations has an online booklet with the lyrics of many Dartmouth songs.

You can find it here:

Alumni Songbook


The Class of 1965 website has recordings of many of the tunes featured in the booklet. The recordings are from a 1965 record by the Glee Club which was sold at James Campion's shop.

This is the link:

Reflections of Dartmouth LP


It's great that this record is now preserved in mp3 format and now available for all.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Orientation - 1947

Even as I write this post, Dartmouth's newest class, the '14s, have been arriving in Hanover to embark upon their freshman Outing Club trips and enjoy the great outdoors. Here we have a video from the Dartmouth archives chronicling orientation in 1947.



1947 was the first "normal" year at Dartmouth following World War II, and Dartmouth enrolled a record number of students that year.

As soon as the video starts, I was amazed to see the students stepping off the bus in jackets and ties, and the students were similarly dressed in the classroom. Nary a t-shirt to be seen throughout the whole film.

There are some nice shots of Main Street, including the now long-gone Campion's haberdashery, and the College Bookstore.

One "tradition" that I was amazed to see was that freshman, wearing their beanies, were required to help upperclassmen with their luggage at the beginning of the year. I can't imagine something like that happening today, but the thought of the unlucky '14s carrying my boxes around is not a bad one.

The video also shows a model for a performing arts center which would have stood where the Hopkins Center stands today. Designed along the lines of Webster Hall, personally I would have preferred it to the modernistic and ugly Hop.

The video ends with scenes from the famous Freshman trips, although the trips of yesteryear feature a lot more flannel and a lot less flair that those of today. However the point of the trips is the same; to introduce them to the wonderful countryside of New Hampshire and to welcome students to the best college in America