Institutional Memory of Racialism at Vassar

An article in the Vassar Encyclopedia, “Monumental Honors,” reflects MV’s desire to have an enduring legacy: it was not his “desire to have … the work executed during [his] lifetime” ²³. Based on a 1914 Miscellany News article in which an emeritus professor at Vassar, Miss Amy Reed, stated that MV had entrusted students with “the future of the College,” it is worth considering whether a portion of the continuity of MV’s highly-desired legacy was to be achieved by Vassar students perpetuating his racialist ideology after his death ²⁴. In order to do so, I will explore the continuation of Vassar students’ relationship with MV during the early 20th century, the time period in which blackface was performed during Founder’s Day.

Students in the early 20th century, after MV’s death, may have been inclined to honor MV based on what can best be characterized as a parasocial relationship. According to “Parasocial Relationships: The Nature of Celebrity Fascinations,” parasocial relationships, a term coined by R. Richard Wohl and Donald Horton, are “one-sided relationships, where one party extends emotional energy, interest and time, and the other party, the persona, is completely unaware of the other’s existence” ²⁵. Medical News Today specifies that a parasocial relationship can occur with a deceased individual, which would apply to a relationship between early 20th-century Vassar students and MV ²⁶.

Such a relationship was formed in part based on stories passed down from Vassar alumnae, who were students during MV’s lifetime and had a direct relationship with him. Thus, it is necessary to first consider the relationship between MV and these Vassar students. The students viewed MV as God-like, as portrayed in a Miscellany News article, in which one student even demanded: “in the name of Matthew Vassar, that ‘Founder’ be spelled with a capital F” ²⁷. The alumnas’ basis for viewing MV in this inflated way was an overly intimate relationship between themselves and him. For example, he wrote to one student, Sarah Stillson, that “I would have been glad to have taken each of you [Vassar students] by the hand, had an opportunity offered” ²⁸. This relationship can be understood as a somewhat pseudo-parental relationship. MV never had children of his own and, in a letter to Stillson, referred to Vassar students as his “college children” ²⁹.

A comparison to the relationship between a founder and students at another early all-women’s educational institution reveals that the interpersonal connection between MV and students at Vassar was unusual. Compared to MV, the founder of Mount Holyoke College (“Holyoke”), Mary Lyon, had a professional and more distant relationship with Holyoke students during her presiding, setting forth requirements for entrance exams and creating rules for students, including that they must perform domestic duties, an early form of work/study ³⁰. She served solely as a managerial and authoritative figure. In keeping with Mary Lyon’s bounded relationship with Holyoke students, Founder’s Day celebrations honoring her did not begin until 1891, after Lyon’s death ³¹. Comparatively, Founder’s Day celebrations honoring MV began in 1866, just five years after Vassar was founded, and while MV was alive.

MV’s awareness of students’ overblown image of him is reflected in his cited reason for stepping down from his administrative duties during John Raymond’s time (1864–1878) as president of Vassar. During Raymond’s presidential presiding, MV resigned his direct control of College matters due to his ill health to use his time to enjoy the “reward of his labors, the spontaneous devotion proffered to him by the early students of the College” ³².

Alumnae’s perpetual passing down their view of MV as a “God” to subsequent 20th-century Vassar students is reflected in various Miscellany News articles authored by the alumnae. One particular story, as documented in a Miscellany News article dated April 30, 1926, paints MV as generous in his relationships with students: “we are told of … when the students, lunch baskets in hand, set out to spend the day at Mr. Vassar’s old home in Springside” ³³. Hosting students in his home would be regarded by the early Vassar students as an especially kind gesture in light of the tight restrictions imposed on student activities during the first several years of the College. For example, students were not allowed to “leave campus unless escorted by a teacher” and students in their junior or senior years could only attend church or go shopping in Poughkeepsie ³⁴. 

The 20th-century Vassar students would have been particularly vulnerable to adopting these positive views of MV due to their gratitude to him for providing them with access to higher education, which women had previously been almost wholly denied. An October 1915 Miscellany News article reflects students’ awareness of the opportunities that MV has afforded them, in which a student wrote, “we live in retrospect the half-century which has passed since Matthew Vassar … gave to [women] the opportunity of gaining intellectual development” ³⁵.

An additional factor that was the basis for a parasocial relationship between early 20th-century Vassar students and MV was pressure from administrative faculty to commemorate MV. In a 1916 address to students, President MacCracken reportedly hailed MV as an example that the students should follow ³⁶. Several years later, as reported in a May 3, 1922 issue of the Miscellany News, President MacCracken addressed students from his doorstep: “he spoke of Matthew Vassar’s generous spirit in founding Vassar College and his largeness of plan which made possible the establishment of this College” ³⁷. Additionally, during this address “the President urged that this spirit of democracy and harmony of the founder should be recognized by the students of today [sic]” ³⁸. These speeches by President MacCracken reflect the pressure put on students by administrators to both view MV positively and act in his honor.

Further, MV-related paraphernalia was widely marketed to students. The Autobiography and Letters of Matthew Vassar was repeatedly advertised in the Miscellany News and the Vassar Quarterly. At least seven issues of the Miscellany News and Vassar Quarterly in the months leading up to Founder’s Day in 1916, the work’s publication date, encouraged students to purchase the book, which touted MV as “a pioneer champion of women’s education” ³⁹.

MV’s “greatness” being repeatedly reiterated to 20th-century students by alumnae, the Vassar administration, and on-campus publications was effective in constructing a parasocial relationship: The 20th-century students’ relationship with MV is shown by the closeness they claimed to feel toward him and their expression of his continued influence on their decisions, even nearly 50 years after his death; students widely created art dedicated to MV, reflecting their feeling of continued connection to him. For example, a 1917 issue of the Miscellany News contains a student-authored poem, “The Portrait,” which reads:

“Now Matthew Vassar built this place
In eighteen sixty-five;
And even from that day to this,
His spirit’s still alive.

He watches every one of us,
Keeps track of where we go,
He knows which ones are loitering
And if we work or no.” ⁴⁰.

Now that I have separately established both MV’s racialist ideology, which emphasized the clear distinction between whiteness and blackness, and students’ continued parasocial relationship to MV during the 20th century, we can examine whether Vassar students were acting in accordance with MV’s legacy in partaking in school-sanctioned activities that “othered” people of color.

Firstly, the Vassar students held colonial beliefs and partook in colonial activities. Such displays of colonialism clearly highlight the belief that white individuals are supposedly “superior” to Black individuals. MV himself held colonial views; MV’s beliefs are displayed in The Autobiography and Letters of Matthew Vassar when he speaks to the distinction between “civilised [sic] nations,” such as the United States, and other nations (that presumably defy Western standards) ⁴¹. Speaking about the civility of such nations implies that he believes in the supremacy of Western civilization. Reflecting students’ similar colonial attitude, “Vassar Women: An Informal Study” noted the following statement from the 1939 Student Handbook, produced by the Vassar Student Association:

“We feel that the Students’ Association has reached the point in its development where it can look beyond its own immediate problems and establish contact with … students of other nationalities and races in order to reach broader and deeper insight into the interests and problems of the student world” ⁴².

This statement reflects a colonial attitude because it suggests that Vassar’s Students’ Association, an all-white group, is in a position to offer some type of enlightenment or insight to students of different nationalities.

A student mission trip to Palestine provides an example of 20th-century Vassar students partaking in colonial activities. The objective of the trip was to force Jewish women of color to adopt supposed white ways of life, including converting them to Christianity. The trip was documented in Three Vassar Girls in the Holy Land, the last book in a series of travel documentation books written by Elizabeth W. Champney, a Vassar graduate. During this trip, the students met their first non-Christian, non-Anglo-American individual, a Palestinean Jewish woman named Bird, and treated her inferiorly. Bird’s identity is reflected in “Domesticating Palestine” where she is described as “Jewish, Eastern-European born” ⁴³. The chapter recounting the students’ interactions with Bird is aptly titled “A Peculiar Girl,” reflecting the students’ opinion on her nonconforming religious affiliation ⁴⁴. The students stated that they would be happy to welcome Bird to the “Vassar family,” so long as she adopt “Anglo-American type and culture” ⁴⁵. “Domesticating Palestine” analyzes this moment and concludes that the students’ view of Bird is that despite her being “a high-minded, noble-hearted girl,” she must “assume both whiteness and an acceptance of Protestant values” because such values are vital for her belonging in America, and particularly at Vassar ⁴⁶. This interaction with Bird, encouraging Palestinian women to assimilate into allegedly superior American norms (acting white-ly and practicing Protestantism) under the guise of welcoming them to the “Vassar family,” reflects the long, pervasive influence of MV’s ideology on Vassar students. Moreover, “Domesticating Palestine” theorizes that the Vassar alumna’s book was intended to conceptualize Jewish Palestineans as “proto-Protestants,” indicating that it would be unchallenging to convert them to Protestantism ⁴⁷. In summary, the students, in accordance with MV’s racialist writings, sought to “civilize” Palestinian Jews.

Similarly, the blackface performances on Founder’s Day during this same era reflect students mocking and stereotyping Black individuals in a way that highlights Black “inferiority” and supposed incivility. For example, in a photo from the Glass Plate Negative Collection taken on Founder’s Day in 1922, students wore blackface and tattered clothing ⁴⁸. According to the Jim Crow Museum, this is a portrayal of the “coon caricature” ⁴⁹. A “coon,” abbreviated from raccoon, was portrayed in blackface minstrel shows as immature, lazy, and inarticulate. The character wears worn clothing as a representation of being “too lazy or too cynical to attempt to change his lowly position” ⁵⁰. The students playing into typical minstrel tropes, such as the “coon,” suggests that broader American societal norms supplemented the racialist ideology that 20th-century students may have adopted from MV. 

Interestingly, 20th-century Vassar community members seemed to view themselves as uniquely racially progressive as compared to America at large. President MacCracken’s aforementioned 1922 address suggested that the “principle of equality of opportunity [at Vassar] should not be allowed to be changed by such things as sectional and national prejudices” ⁵¹. While MacCracken seems to be categorizing Vassar as progressive, he overlooks the discordance between his proclaimed progressivism and the blackface performances occurring on campus during Founder’s Day.

Thus, MV’s original ideology is evident in 20th-century Vassar students’ colonial activities and, most notably, in Founder’s Day blackface performances. The students’ partaking in both colonial activities and blackface suggests that they, like MV, believe that white individuals are distinctly different and “civilized” as compared to people of color. Knowing this, it is ironic that President MacCracken would suggest that Vassar was internally any less racially bigoted than America’s “sectional and national prejudices” during the 20th century.

In summary, MV’s racialist ideology informed his creation of Vassar as an exclusively white women’s college. Based on a parasocial relationship with him, rooted in alumnae and faculty’s overblown opinion of MV, and the marketing of MV-related literature in student publications, Vassar students during the early 20th century may have subconsciously adopted MV’s racialist opinions.

Recognizing the increased prejudice resulting from students’ parasocial connection to MV highlights the danger inherent in blindly idolizing a historical figure and illustrates the importance of exercising independent thinking. Lucy Maynard Salmon, a historian at Vassar from 1887 to 1927, emphasized “go[ing] to the source,” meaning that students should thoroughly investigate claims, starting at the source, rather than blindly believing information that is presented to them ⁵². According to Salmon’s school of thought, to maintain the integrity of an institution like Vassar, one must view an authority figure like MV critically, rather than giving credence to potentially biased second-hand sources.

In a spring 2023 article, “Complicating Founder’s Day,” Larry Hertz raised an interesting question that is especially relevant given the racialist understanding of MV proposed by this paper: What alternate “founders” can Founder’s Day celebrate ⁵³? He proposed that on Founder’s Day, instead of honoring MV, Vassar should honor as an alternate “founder,” Vassar community members who have pivotally fostered inclusivity. One proposed alternate “founder” is Vassar administrator Edward Pittman, “who founded the ALANA Cultural Center (recently renamed the Jeh Vincent Johnson ALANA Cultural Center)” ⁵⁴. The ALANA Center seeks to allow students to connect with their cultural identity and, through doing so, find comradery and community. Celebrating racial and cultural inclusivity at Vassar on Founder’s Day could offset past racial harm caused by Vassar students’ use of blackface on Founder’s Day, and MV’s larger legacy of racial exclusion at Vassar.