Blount Library Blog

In the 1930s, the Great Depression was a global crisis.  Its effects were felt everywhere, including at Averett.

In an interview for a student research paper from the early 1970s, long-time Dean Mary Fugate remarked that student accounts at this time were sometimes settled via barter, resulting in stretches of time where meals regularly included beets, peaches, or some other produce the school had acquired in lieu of cash.  It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that cook Bea Nelson was often praised in other reminiscences for her baked goods - rolls and pies - items that would have stood out in a relentless flood of stockpiled goods acquired from student families.

In the same essay, Fugate is also quoted as saying that faculty salaries were cut at least twice during the Depression.  Evidence for salary issues exists in at least two places in the archives. First, according to contracts she preserved, Mary Fugate's salary, which had risen almost every year prior to the Depression, dropped by nearly 1/3rd - from $1900 per year to $1312 per year - between 1933 and 1938, and had still not fully recovered by 1943.  Second, in the faculty file of music teacher Laura Janos Fuessel - who appears to have been accustomed to living at the limit of her means - relentless letters to the administration are preserved that bemoan her low rate of pay and ask for cash advances to help cover her debts.  (It would certainly have come as a surprise to Ms. Fuessel to learn that she was actually one of the school's highest paid employees at that time.)

In this environment, where students had few luxuries and many couldn't even afford to make a short trip home during holidays, small acts of kindness coupled with free food could create lasting memories.  Such is the case with Mary Fugate's "Story Hour."

On Sunday evenings, Ms. Fugate - who, like most faculty in the 1930s, lived on campus in the same building as the students - invited any interested student to join her for an hour of stories and snacks.  The invitation was accepted gratefully by countless young women over the years.

It is unclear where the event was held specifically during the Depression years.  Dr. Hayes' A History of Averett College mentions that it took place in the 'radio room,' though it's unclear if that applies to all years, or was simply one of a revolving door of locations.  (Hayes' citation for the paragraph includes personal correspondence with three alumni - two from the class of 1930 and one from 1937 - but it is not clear which of the three mentioned the radio room.)

Wherever they met, the gathering was delightfully low-key.  Unlike official campus events, the evening's casual atmosphere was assured by the lack of a dress code, with the result of this particular freedom being that "[m]ore often than not it looks like a pajama party."  Over the course of the evening, Ms. Fugate herself would read the students one or more short stories - a particular favorite being the Henry Van Dyke Christmas piece "The Story of the Other Wise Man."  (A copy of this story was donated to the library in the mid-1980s by alum Nina Pruett [1928-30], with an inscription on the inside front cover reading "Remembering kind considerations of a busy person" and identifying this story as her favorite of the many that had been read.)  But the evening's best feature, as far as the students were concerned, were the treats.  Always a surprise, they were prepared by Ms. Fugate herself (with assistants, which included librarian Dorothy Shipman and assistant physical education instructor Katharine Carter in 1934-35), and were considered a wonderful addition to the bagged meals provided for the students on Sundays.

Mary Fugate's Story Hour - though, like most campus culture, it left minimal archival traces - is a sweet example of the sort of event that was only possible back when Averett was a small women's college.  Fond memories of almost familial experiences became much less common as the student body expanded and the faculty took housing off-campus (and often out of Danville entirely).

Pictured above are three 122-year-old roses from Newport News, Virginia.  They were picked on the 11th of May in 1903, and kept in honor of Robert C. Fugate, who had died of typhoid fever three days earlier - May 8th, at 2pm - at the age of 26.  Robert's niece was Mary Catherine Fugate of Abingdon, Virginia - then only a toddler roughly a year and a half old, but who would eventually become a history teacher, then the Dean, and briefly an interim President of Averett College.

Although the Archives and Special Collections of Averett predominantly hold material related to the history of Averett itself, occasionally we have accepted personal papers of historical relevance to the region and/or the daily lives of Averett-related individuals.  One of these personal collections is the family archive left to us by Mary Fugate [RG 52/4], which contains a significant amount of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century family correspondence (most in their original envelopes), along with a few other treasures.  This collection includes numerous items from the final few years of Rob’s life, including: letters sent home from college (first Hampden-Sidney, and then the University of Virginia), report cards and other writing from his formal education, a business card from his all-too-brief career as a lawyer in Newport News, and even numerous letters and invitations from amorous young women.

The collection provides a remarkable window not only into the life of a young man around 1900, but also into a family processing its grief in the same way many of us do – preserving the remnants of a life unexpectedly cut short.  The collection's personal correspondence, receipts, and minutiae of a life lived culminate in a heartbreaking flurry of letters and telegrams detailing Robert's worsening case of typhoid fever in an era prior to a vaccine.  Rob died of the disease years before the development of medical antibiotics, and was infected roughly contemporaneously with ‘Typhoid Mary’ who, as an asymptomatic carrier, notoriously infected numerous people in the New York area.

The Fugate Family Papers are open for research, although the aging and brittle letters must be handled with great care.

125 years ago (June 4th at 8:30pm, to be exact) Averett University - then known as Roanoke Female College - held Commencement exercises at the end of its 40th academic year.  All these years later, the ceremony is remarkably similar to current graduation practices.  Even a cursory comparison of the program (pictured to the right) to a 21st century version shows a remarkable level of consistency:

• Whereas we now open with a musical "Processional" and a religious  "Invocation," and close with a musical "Recessional," the college of 1900 opened with a "March" and a "Prayer," and closed with a choral piece by Wagner, along with Ernest Gillet's "Loin du Bal" (performed between the medals and the diplomas).
• Then, as now, the bulk of the program was filled with the conferring of degrees though, as Roanoke Female College was a very small institution - typically featuring only a handful of graduating students each year - the program was lengthened significantly by conferring certificates of "Promotion, Distinction, and Proficiency" on most if not all matriculating students.  Three medals and three other prizes rounded out the night's honors.
• The event also included speeches by prominent individuals - the President and the class valedictorian - although the tradition of inviting a high-profile guest speaker was apparently not practiced in 1900 (though evidence of guest preachers exists for graduation exercises in prior years).

Of particular interest on the night of June 4th, 1900, President Charles Fenton James gave an address that was surprisingly gloomy.  Slowly recounting his personal difficulties over his first eight years as College President, punctuated with occasional highlights of positive changes, he wound his way through stories of financial struggle, ill health, and worry before finally culminating with a hope that "the next session [will be] the most successful & prosperous of all."

Through this litany of despair, the listeners would have heard stories of numerous building renovations (the addition of a new front porch, a new fence, and the addition of bathrooms with hot and cold running water), changes to graduation requirements (using a then in-vogue 'points' system to determine when enough classes had been taken to justify a degree), and fluctuations in enrollment.  Bizarrely, this latter was explained by the inclusion of a visual chart - something nearly impossible to get across in a purely verbal speech.

This speech, seemingly conceived more to market the school to listeners in the audience than to congratulate graduates, provides invaluable data to a historian researching the late 1800s at Averett.  That said, it seems unlikely that the students especially enjoyed hearing it in 1900.

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The class of 1900 with President C.F. James.  Back row: Annie Pollock, Janie Terry (winner of President's Medal), Lucee Johnson, Ethel Reynolds (Valedictorian and winner of Weller Medal), Ella Vaden.  Front row: Elise Williams, Pres. C.F. James, Robbie Browning.  Not pictured: Jennie Button.

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Full Transcription of C.F. James's Commencement Address:

              The exercises of this evening mark the close of my eigth [sic] session as president of this institution.  And as there remains but one more under the existing contract between myself and the trustees and as I wish the ninth session to be the best of the nine as this has been the best of the eight, I hope you will follow me as I hurriedly sketch the history of these eight years in the hope of finding encouragement and inspiration for the future.

              When I came to Danville in 1892, it was in obedience to what I regarded as a Divine call.  It was not of my own seeking, for while the trustees advertised for a president, I, for one, did not send in any application.  I had resigned the principalship of Alleghaney [sic] Institute without any idea of again engaging in school work, but with the idea of returning to the pastorate.  But while I was waiting for a call to some pastorless church, or churches, Dr. Thames came to Roanoke, as the representative of the Trustees, to interview me on the subject of taking up the work which had been laid down by my honored predecessor, Capt. J. T. Averett.  That visit led to my making Danville & the College a visit, which was followed by a call from the Trustees and my acceptance.  Had I then foreseen all that was in store for me, I should almost certainly have shrunk back from the ordeal.  But I did not know.  It is best for us all that God only knows what the future has in store for us.

              In my ignorance I had miscalculated as to the patronage of the school, with the result that I became deeply involved in debt the first year.  We had a good local patronage, but only sixteen boarders, not counting two who were in the college only a few weeks.  That was discouraging.  But that was not the worst.  If prosperous conditions had continued throughout the country, the losses of the first year might soon have been overcome.  But, in the summer of 1893, there came a financial crash which almost paralyzed business and seriously crippled our schools.  And yet our college made progress during the next two years, the number of boarders increasing to 23 the second session, and 32 the third.

              It was confidently expected that the fourth session would be better still.  Teachers, pupils and patrons were all encouraged and the outlook was bright.  But the failure in the tobacco crop affected us most seriously, and the boarding patronage fell off to 28 the 4^th session and to 24 the fifth.

              But it was not only the depression in business resulting from the financial crash of ’93 & failures in tobacco crops that affected our patronage; we have been suffering from competition with the numerous lower-rate schools that have sprung up all over southern Virginia and North Carolina during these years of business depression.

              And yet notwithstanding these unfavorable conditions, we have struggled on through eight years and have just closed the best session of the eight.  A glance at the matriculation lists shows the ups and downs of our patronage.

This shows that the last three sessions have been the best three, and that the last session, the 8^th, leads in the total enrollment, excluding my own children, leads in the Literary Department, and in the Preparatory Department, and leads also in the Boarding Department, for while the number of boarders, 42, does not exceed that of the 6^th session, far more have remained through the session.

              I have every reason to believe that the next session will show a marked increase over any of the rest.

Improvements in grounds & buildings.

              I wish to call your attention to the improvements made in the grounds and buildings during these eight years.  Some of you know the condition of the buildings & grounds when I accepted your call in 1892.  The city authorities had taken off a slice of land on Ridge street [sic] and left that side without a fence.  And the rest of the fencing was practically worthless.  The buildings needed a thorough renovation inside & out, the furniture was old and unfit for use, and there was only one piano in first class order.  Now, the grounds have been newly fenced, the buildings have been repaired and painted, new furniture has taken the place of the old, the old stiff pianos have been rebuilt, valuable additions have been made to the capacity & comfort of the buildings, with the introduction of gas, hot & cold water & bath rooms.  There have been two small, but very important changes for the health and comfort of the pupils. One is the early introduction of Pasteur’s filter, which gives us the purest and best water, however muddy the river may be; and the other is the change in the Chapel, or study Hall, by which pupils sit with their backs to the light, the rostrum having been moved from the end next to the street and placed at the opposite side of the room.

              But one of the greatest additions and improvements is the long front porch.  It is hard for us to realize now how we ever got along without it.

              I must not fail to mention that our Literary Society has been adding to the library from year to year, until now they have a very respectable section of books of reference and for general reading.

System of Graduation by Points

              The courses of study and the requirements for graduation remain essentially the same, but we have changed the names of the Degrees from “Full Graduate” and “English Graduate” to “Master of Arts” and “Bachelor of Arts” respectively, and added one other, Bachelor of Letters.  We have also adopted the system of graduation by “points,” which is so much in vogue in the largest Northern Colleges, and which has been adopted by Richmond College and Washington & Lee University.  The special advantage of this system is that it gives the pupil full credit for all that she does in class work and in examinations.  (Explain.)

              I know that some of the friends of the College have felt discouraged at times and so have I; and yet I think that this exhibit [?] has much in it to encourage us.  These have been exceedingly trying years, and no one has felt it more than myself.  Never before, in all my experience, have I been so embarrassed & heavily burdened financially.  Under my contract with the Trustees, I pay them ten per cent of all tuition fees, whether collected or not, besides keeping up repairs and meeting all expenses for advertising, canvassing, concerts, commencement, and teachers’ salaries.  If business depression causes a falling off of patronage & revenue, or if some patrons fail to pay their bills, the loss is mine.  As I have already said, my first session involved me in debt.  And just when, at the close of my third session, I began to feel relieved and to take a hopeful view of the future, there came two bad years, instead of the prosperous one that all of us expected, and I found myself, at the end of five years, more deeply involved than ever before.  If I had not been through the four years [sic] war between the States, and other experiences which try one’s faith, I should have given up then.  But I hated to give up.  And I could not believe that the Lord had led me to this field to bury me in financial ruin.  So I resolved to struggle on, and three prosperous years have lifted much of my burden; but the long continued strain has been too much for my health.  Twelve months ago, in May, I had a serious collapse.  Last October I had another, followed at Christmas with a severe spell of pneumonia, which made my physician very uneasy.  He said my system was run down and that I needed rest.  I took a short rest in May, which helped me very much, and I am planning to take a longer rest this month as soon as I can get away to the mountains.  After than I shall be at work for the coming session.  I trust I may have your co-operation in this work.  And I feel that I have a right to ask it, for no one has worked harder or made more sacrifices for the College than I have.

              If I had died of pneumonia last winter, my debts would have been paid out of my life insurance, but my family would have had little or nothing left.  Through the goodness of Providence I have been spared to see the end of my best session, and I trust that through the same kind Providence I may be able to make the next session the most successful & prosperous of all.

As Averett is a relatively old institution (dating to 1859) which displayed little rigorous concern with historic record keeping until the 1920s, we tend to have large gaps in our knowledge about our earliest years.  Occasionally, by happenstance (followed by significant effort), the archivist or a student researcher will stumble across some information that helps to fill one of those gaps.

One excellent example is the interim presidency of George H. Swann.  Following the death of C.F. James on December 5, 1902; and preceding the presidency of Robert Hatton in fall 1903, Swann was in charge for the remainder of a single academic year.  Though the archives has long held both a diploma (signed "Geo. Swann, Acting President") and a photo of the graduating class of 1903 (gathered around a man that is clearly neither C.F. James nor Robert Hatton), the brief tenure of Swann at the head of the college had not previously drawn a researcher's attention.

Swann is now the third known individual to hold the top position on a short-term basis, alongside:

• John Cralle Long: offered the principalship for the Spring of 1863, after President William Allen Tyree abandoned the school in favor of an offer to become pastor of a church.  Long held the position for at most six months until the arrival of Isaac Beverly Lake that fall.  (There is a slight possibility that he may not have actually taken the job.)
• Mary Catherine Fugate: took over as Acting President beginning in February 1966 after the death of Curtis Bishop.  She stepped down with the arrival of Bishop's official successor, Conwell Axel Anderson, for the fall semester.

While it is unlikely that many decisions of consequence were made during Swann's tenure as Acting President, acknowledging his career with the school is not, in itself, inconsequential.

Swann was our institutional second-in-command for at least a decade.  From the fall of either 1897 or 1898 (information is unclear), until the death of C.F. James, Swann was our Assistant Principal.  After James's official replacement, Robert E. Hatton, took over in July 1903, Swann returned to his previous position - albeit with a new title.  Now referred to as the college's "Vice President," Swann would remain in that position until his departure in the summer of 1908.

Likely due to his high administrative rank, it was Swann who was contacted when James began to feel unwell.  C.F. James described his "strange sensation" to Swann on the afternoon of December 3rd, and it was likely Swann himself who opened James's office windows to give him some air, and who gave instructions to summon medical assistance.  Presumably Swann was also a key figure in the commissioning and installation of a memorial stone for James, which was unveiled in the Patton Street Campus's chapel on June 8th 1903 (and was moved to Main Hall when the new building was constructed a few years later).

Beyond administrative work, Swann, James, and Hatton were also full-time faculty during the academic year. (Administrators commonly had teaching responsibilities until the 1930s.)  In addition to his work as "Assistant Principal / Vice President," Swann was the college's primary language teacher, leading students through Latin, Greek, French, and German.

His decade in the field of higher education in Danville was not an anomaly.  Swann appears to have had a long-standing commitment to education - especially at women's colleges.  He is known to have taught Latin and Greek at Chowan Female Institute in Murfreesboro, NC, probably from fall 1896 until his arrival at Averett.  He is also said to have taught at Bethel College, Kentucky (also a women's college), at an unknown school in Orangeburg, SC, and to have been the Principal of the Fincastle School, although years are not known for these positions.  Swann was also on the Board of Trustees of the University of Richmond for 51 years (1888-1939).

George H. Swann was born in 1851 in Powhatan County, VA; he returned to Powhatan County after his retirement and died there in 1939.  Twice married, his first wife, Lillie Rogers, was a teacher at Averett until her early death in the summer of 1907.  His second wife, Linda Collie, survived him by a few years.  George and Lillie's son, Dr. George Rogers Swann, also had a long career as an English professor at numerous academic institutions.

George Swann (center) with the 16 members of the 1903 graduating class.  Although we cannot connect names to faces, the image includes: Ethel Adams, Gertrude Adams, Bessie Anderson, Mamie Chaney, Mattie Fitzgerald, Lottie Hancock, Blanche Howell, Julia James (daughter of C.F. James), Susie Ligon, Grace Morrison, Iva Nelson, Alice Rogers, Mattie Slate, Mattie Tilman, Addie Tyree, Marguerite Williams.

C.F. James and George Swann (standing bottom center) in happier times in 1901.  This photo, included in the 1901 college catalog (but no longer extant in any copy owned by the Averett archives), depicts the staff and students of Roanoke Female College during the 1900-01 academic year.  As was common in the years at the Patton Street campus, the group photo was taken on the grand staircase at the front of the building. 

Just before 8:00 am Hawaiian local time, on December 7th, 1941, Japanese planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor - an event which would instantly draw the United States actively into World War II, after a long period of isolationist American policy.  This blog post was published exactly 83 years after the attack began.

Researching the Averett response to national and global events is difficult, as most of the items that survive do not document such things.  Even the Chanticleer student newspaper is typically insular, discussing only those events which occur within the confines of the Averett campus or which directly relate to activities of the student body.  But World War II was different.  Articles about the war, particular relating to how Averett students could help, were published semi-regularly, even in the years prior to American entry into direct conflict.  (This blog has already discussed the Red Cross knitting efforts beginning in 1941, as well as the arrival of veterans on campus after the war's end, both of which were documented primarily in the Chanticleer.)

Below are two items printed in the December issue of 1941, likely published no more than a week after the event, which provide a glimpse of the reaction from both staff and students.  On the left is the statement of Curtis Bishop, then President of the college, which concludes with a somewhat typo-riddled quotation from Henry van Dyke's poem "Four Things."  On the right is a 'guest editorial' signed "M.A.T.," which is almost certainly junior Margaret A. Tilson.

Although Averett's football program didn't take shape until the year 2000 - and the school wasn't even officially co-ed until the late 1960s - through an odd set of coincidences the Averett Archives holds a football memento dating all the way back to 1899 which is technically Averett-related.

Although football was still in a relatively early state of development in 1899, other colleges in the region were among the sport's early adopters.  Richmond College (now the University of Richmond) took up the game in 1881.  Hampden-Sydney began play about a decade later, with the earliest recorded game taking place in 1892.

This small flier (4 1/2 x 6 3/4 inches) was either handed out or posted in the Richmond area to announce a home football game, at Broad Street Park, on October 28, 1899 (a date we can only confirm because the flier's owner wrote in the score).  By chance, one of the players for the Richmond Spiders in this game was center J.W. Cammack who, 28 years later, would become the President of Averett College - a position he would hold for about a decade.  Reporting on the game, the Richmond Dispatch described it as a "hotly-contested" and well supported game, with a crowd of rooters for both sides adding up to a total of around 500 spectators.  Included in this report was a drawing of Cammack, then in his early 20s, although nothing regarding his play was mentioned in the article itself.

The flier's journey into the Averett Archives was long and winding - and utterly accidental.  It was kept by someone in the Phifer family (Robert S. Phifer was a music teacher at Averett from the late 1870s to the mid 1890s).  Although it is unclear who kept the flier and why, it was donated to the Averett Archives more than a century later, as a stray bit of ephemera included by chance in the Phifer Family Papers.  The flier's relationship to Cammack, and thus to Averett, had been entirely forgotten until the University Archivist did research on the item today: November 11, 2024.

The Richmond Spiders team photo.  Cammack is second from the left in the top row.  (From University of Richmond Archives.)

This year the Averett archival displays will include a few months focused on items held by the archives that are not directly linked to Averett history.  This month, we have a display of some gorgeous and/or silly sheet music cover art from the early 20th century.

In late July of 2012, the archives received a large collection of sheet music and other items that had been owned by Robert S. Phifer and his descendants.  Phifer was the music teacher for Averett from 1878-1890, back when the school was known as Roanoke Female College.  (Phifer has become something of a Danville legend, as he brought the future celebrated-composer Fritz Delius to Danville for a year in the 1880s, when Delius was a young man.)

Although mass-produced sheet music has existed since the late 1400s, it was during the American boom in parlor music, between the late 1800s and early 1900s, when publishers began to commission commercial artists to create attractive cover art to help market each piece.  The original artwork would then be reproduced via the process of chromolithography.  Numerous commercial artists (most of them based in New York, just like the publishers) thus built successful creative careers as accessories to the music industry.

Although much of the material in the Phifer collection is either classical or religious music (neither of which typically featured ornate covers), numerous pieces of popular music did make it into the family's collection.  The archivist has put on display a dozen of the more striking or noteworthy pieces of cover art, including several pieces from well-known commercial artists like the Starmer brothers and Andre De Takacs.

Many of the pieces have only a passing relationship to the music to which they are attached, and could just as easily have graced a random book dust-jacket or magazine cover - for example, the pipe-playing faun pictured to the right, created by Morris M. Einson and used as the cover for the song "In Maytime."

Unfortunately the collection also acts as a reminder that archival materials are often fragile and in danger when not properly preserved and protected.  A number of the items - due to age, accidents, or encounters with destructive pests - have significant damage, are no longer playable, and must be handled very carefully.  A good example is the copy, shown to the left, of the World War I song "It's a Long, Long Way to Tipperary," (which reused an image of a soldier by H.A. Petersen originally published as the cover for the 1 October 1914 issue of news magazine Leslie's Weekly).

All students, staff, and the general public are welcome to come see the display at any time during the month of October, on the main floor of Blount Library.  Please make an appointment with the archivist if you would like to see more of the music.  Though processing is ongoing, there are a large number of pieces in the collection which you are more than welcome to come and see.

For those interested in classic sheet music art, or who may have a desire to play some classical popular music, many online repositories contain digital scans of music from this era.  To name just three: the Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection (from Johns Hopkins University) provides high quality pdf scans of thousands of pieces; there are also approximately 150 in the Hague Collection (Ball State University); Images Musicales likewise provides high quality scans, though only of cover art.

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.

Current students - frittering away leisure hours on anything from friendly Smash Bros. tournaments to casual cellphone games - may be surprised to learn that they are part of a tradition of video gaming on Averett's campus that goes back at least 40 years.

Although the global history of computer gaming extends at least as far back as the 1950s, these early experiments were largely confined to the computer labs of major research institutions and technology companies.  There is no extant evidence of video games even being on the radar of Averett students until 1981, when the Silver Odyssey "electronic game room," across the river in the Piney Forest Shopping Center, advertised directly to the Averett student body with a 'free game' coupon in the pages of The Chanticleer.

It wasn't until the fall of 1983 that Averett developed an organized relationship with the developing hobby of digital gaming.  That summer, the Bottom Inn - a student center on the bottom floor of Bishop Hall offering food, a public television, and general communal recreation - was renovated to add, among other things, a wall of arcade cabinets.  Throughout the 1980s, images appear in the college yearbook of students playing the likes of Centipede, Galaga, and especially Ms. Pac-Man (one of the most popular games both on campus and nationwide).  Although the industry in general was struggling through what has come to be known as the "video game crash of 1983" - a financial downturn caused primarily by the market being flooded with poor games designed to make a quick buck - the Bottom Inn machines were reportedly in nearly constant use, with many students spending upwards of $5 per week on their gaming habit.

From that point, video gaming never really left campus.  Although the Bottom Inn arcade slowly disappeared (by 1990 there were only three remaining cabinets, although a pinball machine had been added), console gaming took over immediately.  By February 1989, the Nintendo Entertainment System was declared the "latest campus craze" in the pages of the Chanticleer.  Multiple students were interviewed about their consoles - the habit reportedly having been picked up from their younger siblings, many of whom had acquired Nintendo consoles "during the 1987-88 Christmas season."  Although gaming consoles were never again openly discussed in the Chanticleer or other archived materials, students have been bringing their Nintendo, Sega, Sony, or Microsoft gaming consoles to school ever since.

In recent years, as the industry has matured and become a stable part of popular culture, gaming has appeared in more official venues at Averett.

The first turn was from entertainment to education.  Video games have been a subject of study in multiple courses over the past decade.  Computer science students have occasionally created small games as class projects at least as far back as 2002.  Retired professor Steve Lemery has retained screen captures of student game and game-like creations ranging from an adaptation of the classic game Asteroids to a silly geography application called Random Drunken Walk.  Semester-long courses in game analysis and various elements of game production and culture have been offered or developed since at least spring 2014, when I taught "Reading Videogame" for the first time as a general education elective.

In 2017, gaming leaped from the classroom into the field of official competition, when Averett launched its own esports program - the first four year school in the state of Virginia to offer esports in varsity competition.  In a delightful twist of fate, Main Hall - a building that didn't even have electricity when it was first constructed - has been the home of Averett's competitive gaming for the past 7 years.  The team currently occupies the southern wing of the basement, and participates in regular competition in a variety of games.

Students, staff, and other visitors are welcome to visit Mary B. Blount Library any time during the month of March and take a look at a display of images, artifacts, and newspaper reports on gaming on campus.  Any alumni with additional photos, mementos, or memories they'd like to add to the University's collections should always feel free to contact the University archivist.

During the 1967-68 academic year, Averett College, Stratford College, and the Danville branch of Virginia Polytechnic Institute - all hesitant to book expensive performers without a guarantee that they could sell tickets - made a joint decision to distribute the financial risk by combining their efforts.  The three schools shared three different musical guests for Spring Weekend; each school would host one of the three performances, but would be allotted a pre-determined number of tickets for all three events.

This act of coordination between the three schools - a precursor to much larger ties between Averett and Stratford in the early 1970s - was designed explicitly to bring at least one big name act to the Danville area for the students to enjoy...and it worked.

Although Averett would not host the headlining event (that honor went to Stratford), the joint effort afforded the schools the opportunity to bring in The Platters - a group with multiple #1 hit singles in the late 1950s, who were still releasing charting singles in 1966 and '67.

On Saturday, March 16th, 1968, The Platters played a two hour set to a packed crowd in the Stratford gymnasium (pictured bottom left).  Later that evening, the group gave a second, more intimate, performance at another Stratford venue - solely referred to as the "Methodist 'coffeehouse' in extant materials (pictured bottom right).

Although Averett would fly solo for Spring Weekend 1969, the coordinated effort in 1968 became the pattern for multiple subsequent Spring Weekend performances.  Averett, Stratford, and Danville Community College would join forces in 1970 (highlighted by The Friends of Distinction), 1971 (The Grass Roots), and 1972 (Goose Creek Symphony).