Vassar 150: Access
As Vassar moves toward its sesquicentennial year, 2011, the Vassar Quarterly takes a look back at some of the significant moments in the life of the college. In this issue, we point to key signposts along the road to access.
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1861.jpg)
Matthew Vassar presents the Board of Trustees of Vassar Female College with $408,000 in securities for the founding of the college and a deed for 200 acres.
1861
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1864.jpg)
1864
After purchasing the art collection of trustee Elias L. Magoon, pictured, Vassar becomes the first college in the U.S. with a collection of art as an integral part of its curriculum.
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1865.jpg)
Vassar Female College opens with 353 students, including one Civil War widow.
1865
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1867.jpg)
1867
First Vassar Commencement held for four graduating students. By 1908, when this photo was taken, the number of graduates had grown considerably.
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1868.jpg)
Founder Matthew Vassar dies while addressing a meeting of the Board of Trustees. He bequeathed $50,000 to aid "students of superior promise."
1868
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1871.jpg)
1871
Associate Alumnae of Vassar College formed. Mary W. Whitney elected president.
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1872.jpg)
Horse-car route from Poughkeepsie extended to the college. Today, a shuttle bus connects Vassar to downtown Poughkeepsie.
1872
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1880.jpg)
1880
Telephone service established at Vassar.
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1882.jpg)
Class president Princess Oyama (Stematz Yamakawa), becomes the first Japanese woman to receive an American college degree.
1882
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1887.jpg)
1887
Florence Cushing 1874 becomes one of the first Vassar graduates and women to serve on Vassar's Board of Trustees. Cushing Hall was later dedicated in her name.
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1887-hemmings.jpg)
Educational circles are shocked when the race of Vassar's first African American graduate, Anita Hemmings, is revealed days before graduation.
1887
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1892.jpg)
1892
Princeton professor Woodrow Wilson visits campus to lecture on democracy 20 years before becoming president.
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1895.jpg)
Vassar’s student-run Athletic Association established to support new and existing Vassar sports. (Pictured: VC’s baseball team, the Resolutes.)
1895
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1896.jpg)
1896
Lucy Maynard Salmon, History Department founder, creates the Vassar Alumnae Historical Association, which collects and preserves materials for the Vassar Library.
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1905.jpg)
The Frederick Ferris Thompson Memorial Library is dedicated. It is the gift of Mary Clark Thompson, in honor of her late husband, a college trustee (1885-1899).
1905
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1913
Inex Milholland 1909 leads 10,000 "suffragettes" down Fifth Avenue in New York City. The Times called the march women's "greatest spectacular triumph" in the pursuit of the ballot box.
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1915.jpg)
Henry Noble MacCracken, Vassar’s longest serving president, appointed. He is credited with helping to increase Vassar’s involvement with the local community.
1915
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1916.jpg)
1916
Professor of English Gertrude Buck establishes the Vassar Dramatic Workshop, making Vassar the first college in the U.S. to offer drama as a course.
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1917.jpg)
The U.S. enters World War I. Around 200 graduates serve overseas. At home, Vassar "farmerettes" work as farmhands to replace labor claimed by military service.
1917
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1920.jpg)
1920
A French tank is donated to the college in appreciation for the service of Vassar women (such as members of the Vassar Relief Unit) during and after the war.
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1924.jpg)
Alumnae House is completed with a gift by sisters Blanche Ferry Hooker 1884 and Queene Ferry Coonley 1886.
1924
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1925.jpg)
1925
Hallie Flanagan Davis, theatrical producer, director, and playwright, joins faculty. A year later, she becomes first women to receive a Guggenheim Award.
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1926.jpg)
Wimpfheimer Nursery School, a laboratory school established on campus, provides Vassar students an opportunity for child study.
1926
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1927.jpg)
1927
Edna St. Vincent Millay 1917 wins Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Vassar students first take part in Junior Year Abroad.
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1929.jpg)
Stock market crashes, ushering in the Great Depression. Raymond House residents save $100 a year on room and board by doing their own cooking and housekeeping.
1929
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1931.jpg)
1931
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, governor of New York and trustee of the college (shown at left with President MacCracken), speaks at Commencement.
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1935.jpg)
The Van Ingen Art Library, added onto Taylor Hall, is named for Vassar's first art professor, Henry Van Ingen.
1935
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1938.jpg)
1938
Alumnae House opens an on-premises pub, attracting a steady stream of students and faculty members.
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1941.jpg)
Pearl Harbor is attacked. U.S. enters World War II. Back home, Vassar students practice first aid, just in case.
1941
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1946.jpg)
1946
Sarah Gibson Blanding inaugurated as Vassar's sixth and first women president (she served through 1964).
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1946-veterans.jpg)
Vassar admits 100 veterans of the war. Several women's college temporarily opened their doors to men–such a large number had returned seeking education.
1946
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1949.jpg)
1949
Field work office established. Here, a Vassar student works in a hospital play program.
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1951.jpg)
Paintings by Picasso exhibited in Taylor Hall.
1951
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1960.jpg)
1960
More than 100 Vassar students picket the local Woolworth's to protest lunch-counter segregation in the chain's southern stores.
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1961.jpg)
Vassar celebrates its centennial year with an international conference on world problems and their implications for education.
1961
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1969.jpg)
1969
Charter amended to welcome male students. After a takeover of Main Building by students, Black Studies becomes an integral part of the Vassar curriculum.
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1971.jpg)
Co-ed housing introduced.
1971
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1972.jpg)
1972
Vassar Gay Liberation Front holds first organizational meeting, three years after the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village.
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1985.jpg)
The Hallie Flanagan Davis Powerhouse Theater established to support emerging and established artists in the development of new works in theater and film.
1985
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1993.jpg)
1993
The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, founded in 1864 as the Vassar College Art Gallery, opens a 36,000 sq. ft. facility near the Main Gate.
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/1998.jpg)
The ALANA Center, originally opened as the Intercultural Center in 1976, is renamed to reflect the students it serves--those of African, Latina/o, Asian, and Native American descent. Its location, the renovated “Coal Bin” Building, was dedicated in 1993.
1998
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/2007.jpg)
2007
Vassar returns to “need-blind” admission policy.
![](https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2010/01/images/features/timeline/2009.jpg)
Vassar College announces participation in the Yellow Ribbon Program and offers discounted tuition to student veterans.
2009
Photo Credits: Special Collections,
Vassar College Libraries
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