A College Year 1913-1914 : A Year in the life of two Whitworth College Students
One hundred and ten years ago the life of a college student was very different from those in 2023. Starting in September we will journey back in time to examine student life in 1913. Follow the two students through their year through diary entries, letters home, scrapbooks and photographs.
Martha Simonton Bell was a college freshman from Spokane, Washington when she entered Whitworth College in Tacoma, Washington in September of 1913. She kept a diary of the memorable events of the year as well as a “Good Times Book” that summarized her experiences at the end of the year.
…and also:
Augustus Williams – Gus also known to students as “Dub” was a senior in the fall of 1913. He had attended Whitworth for the 1909-10 year playing football for the college. He left college for a few years returning in 1912 where he played football and basketball. His story is told from excerpts from letters and postcards he wrote and sent home to Rushville, Indiana to his parents, other relatives and friends.
Whitworth University Archives
Live through the experiences of these two individual students, their friends and classmates to glimpse a bit of College life from a bygone era.
A College Year 1913-1914 was first envisioned with my initial reading of the Martha Simonton Bell diary. Her writing provides a lively and descriptive view of Whitworth College life in those early years. The information about the city of Tacoma, Washington (at that time home to Whitworth College) provides a glimpse of early 20th century life in the Pacific Northwest.
The project owes a special thanks to the Montana Historical Society which is the holder of the Martha Simonton Bell diary of which we are only using a year. It is housed in their collection Bell Family Papers MC294.
Thanks is also given to the family of Augustus Williams, Bertha Lee, Ruth Lee, Hazel Burge and others for gifting Whitworth Archives the letters, scrapbooks, photographs and memories that make this presentation possible.
I hope that you enjoy the series.
Nancy A. Bunker
Whitworth University Archivist
archives@whitworth.edu
https://libguides.whitworth.edu/archives
A College Year 1913-1914 - Whitworth Archives 