Blount Library Blog

Archival Display, August 2024: The First Week Experience in 1940

This year's series of archival displays in Blount Library will begin where every student's college career begins: arrival on campus and introductory activities.  Based around material donated by alum Marian Flanary, the August-September display focuses on Flanary's first semester: Fall 1940.

Averett University, under one name or another, has been in operation for 165 years.  Averett is, thus, older than airplanes, automobiles, and even pedal-powered bicycles (which weren't invented until the mid-1860s).  In 165 years of operation, Averett students have used numerous different modes of transport to arrive on campus: planes, trains, cabs, busses, and carriages would all have been common modes of transport for student travel in various years.

For much of Averett's existence, students who did not live in Danville would have traveled to the city almost exclusively via passenger trains.  As early as the 1897, the college catalogue devoted a page or more to information about rail travel; by the mid-1900s, there were "thirty-two regular passenger trains arriving and departing daily" at the Danville station.  The 1947 yearbook even included the photo to the left: a posed shot of three students in front of a Southern Railway passenger car.

In 1940, Flanary was an anomaly; it was simpler for her to take a Greyhound bus to Danville and then hop into a cab for the jaunt across town to Main Hall.  Flanary's bus ticket and a White Top Cab business card (pictured on the right) are both included in the display.

Upon arrival on campus, the story of a student's first few days would be largely recognizable in any era, though always with era-specific elements.  While finding one's dorm room and unpacking has been a first-day event from day one, the array of paperwork and 'welcome' gatherings has shifted with the times.

By 1940, orientation activities were centered around four things: registration, intelligence testing, introduction to campus clubs/traditions, and welcome parties.

Flanary, and other new arrivals, would have been invited to no fewer than seven welcome dinners, teas, and other receptions between Wednesday night (Sept 18th) and Sunday afternoon (Sept 22nd).  This does not include the time set aside on Wednesday night for students to go see a movie, or the three hour block of Saturday afternoon that was surprisingly earmarked on the official calendar for "shopping."

In between all the teas, meals, and general shenanigans, was the standard paperwork of a new student.  Hours would be set aside for students to prowl from table to table meeting faculty and registering for classes.  The need to establish a workable schedule was likely considered low-key compared to the other major paperwork activity: the Thorndike Intelligence Test for High School Graduates.  The Thorndike - then the standard form of intelligence testing for academia, and an important precursor to the modern SAT and other tests - was a three-hour marathon to which all new students were subjected simultaneously on the afternoon of Thursday, September 19th.  With a full afternoon spent being tested little more than 24 hours after students had arrived, undoubtedly the first invitation for tea and conversation was quite welcome. 

The remainder of the first week or two would have been spent getting acquainted with the social life of Averett.  New students would be given their handbooks, would need to familiarize themselves with the honor code and sign the honor pledge, and would be sorted (by the random drawing of lots) into one of the two campus literary societies: the Philomatheans or the Mnemosyneans (groups around which much of the campus's intramural competitive activity was based).  In short order, new students would need to assimilate all of this knowledge sufficiently to select and try out for clubs and other organized activity.  Flanary, for example, submitted a writing sample and was accepted as a reporter for The Chanticleer, had a tryout and was accepted into the Verse Speaking Choir, and joined the Young Women's Auxiliary and the Home Ec. Club, all within a few days or weeks of setting foot on campus for the first time.

All students, staff, and members of the general public are welcome to visit the Averett library during August and September to view the display.