By Lorett Treese
By Lorett Treese
Those researching the lives of Bryn Mawr alumnae are sometimes surprised to discover that their subject was a double major. But this was not at all uncommon; all the early graduates of Bryn Mawr College were double majors. The fact can be confirmed in that series of documents that forms one the most valuable components of the Bryn Mawr College Archives: the Bryn Mawr Course Catalogs.
Originally published in “Eleventh Month, 1883,” the course catalogs clearly state the purpose of the college, the courses of study, and the requirements for admission, as well as describing the campus and even the cost of attending.
As for the double major or “Group System,” the 1885-86 edition states “It is required that every candidate for a degree take two such major courses as shall be homogeneous, or shall complete each other, and major courses which fulfill this condition are designated as Groups. It is meant that the student, under this system, should lay the foundations of a specialist’s knowledge.” Students had a number of choices; they could combine physics with chemistry, history with political science, any language with any other language - the course catalogs list all the possible choices.
They also list the “academic appointments” for the year. While Woodrow Wilson was teaching here as an Associate in History, his name appears with the information that that he graduated from Princeton in 1879 and studied law at the University of Virginia. Since a great deal has been written about Woodrow Wilson, this information is available in a number of secondary sources. But biographers researching scholars who did not go on to have quite such public careers are often delighted to learn these details.
In addition the catalogs list the members of the board of trustees for each year and the other members of the college community. In the case of students, they mention the student’s hometown, her majors (if she had declared them), and identify her high school with a polite phrase like, “Prepared by Miss Irwin’s School, Philadelphia, PA.” Genealogists are often quite pleased to thus discover the name of an ancestor’s high school.
Today’s Bryn Mawr students are sometimes fascinated by the original floor plans for the dorms that are also to be found in the early course catalogs. These were once useful to students in selecting a specific room. They show current students just how the dorms have been altered over the years and a glimpse of what college life was like “back then.”
The Bryn Mawr College course catalogs have traveled the world via interlibrary loans. Scholars interested in the education of women or the teaching of a particular subject, like physics or chemistry, specifically to women, have been eager to review them. Volumes of the course catalogs have been sent to England, Australia, and Japan as well as many states. It is hoped that funds will become available to microfilm these valuable sources, so that they can be made accessible to even more scholars in the future.
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