The Free Box Mystique

Catching up with my old roommate, Isabelle Rule- Becker ’23, I asked what she’d been reading lately. “The Feminine Mystique, actually,” she responded.

I praised my fellow sociology major of yore, “Wow, very good, very Bryn Mawr.” In fact, she told me, she’d grabbed this very copy from a Bryn Mawr “free box.”

The free boxes, large cardboard bins that sit in common areas of each residence hall, are where students leave items they’ve outgrown, available for adoption by their neighbors. Shortly before graduation, Isabelle took one of her last walks through Radnor’s third floor, spotted the tattered but classic feminist text atop piles of discarded clothes, and thought, well sure. As they say, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

The free-box patron is frugal, environmentalist, and undeterred by an item’s storied past. Reminiscing with my friend Joy Kruse ’23, she remarked, “God, I think half my wardrobe is from the free box.”

"As they say, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure."

During our matriculation, we partook in the traditional student pastime of “free-box shopping” — hopping from dorm to dorm, on the hunt. Sometimes we sifted through junk: dead flashlights or single socks. But other times we found a perfect fit at just the right moment: a pair of overalls, a fedora for a Halloween costume, an enduring social critique.

Each box tells the story of the hall’s inhabitants. Who had dumped this thoroughly used book? Perhaps someone who had their fill of second-wave feminism and needed room on their shelf for contemporary theorists. Maybe they wrestled through an Emily Balch Seminar and decided that they ought to major in mathematics. Or, maybe they purchased a pristine edition for their collection.

It’s like an everlasting neighborhood flea market but even better, because it’s free. And years after graduation, you can still wear your classmates’ old sweatshirts and still read their old books and remember when you still lived among them. That’s the power of the free box.

Illustration by Chelsea Kneedler