20th-century

The term ends and three seniors graduate. There are no Commencement exercises. Continue reading »

Williams ambulance donated to the North African front for service with the British forces, following the earlier donation of three vehicles. Costing $1350, the machine was paid for by $450 in student contributions, $650 from a sinking fund, and $250 from faculty contributions. (North Adams Transcript, Tuesday, April 15, 1941.)… Continue reading »

The Shakespeare first folio is stolen from the Chapin Library by a man posing as a professor of English who presents a forged letter of introduction. The rare volume is retrieved by the FBI later in the year. Continue reading »

The college seismograph records a 14 second “earthquake” as the 75 foot brick chimney of the Greylock Hotel falls. The Williams Record, on the following Saturday, describes the end of the hotel’s long and colorful career. Professor Freeman Foote attended the demolition with a stop watch and Professor E. Perry… Continue reading »

The Williams Forum announces that André Malraux has canceled his speaking engagement. The “noted French lecturer and communist” canceled so that he could interview President F. D. Roosevelt in Warm Springs, Georgia. Continue reading »

The Williams Record reports that compulsory daily chapel attendance has been abolished. Sunday service is still required. Continue reading »

The Williams Record reports that Latin will no longer be considered a requirement for admission to the college. Continue reading »

The sinking of the Mohawk off the coast of New Jersey claimed the lives of Professor Herdman Cleland, and Williams seniors William Dwight Symmes, Lloyd Houghton Crowfoot, and Julius Palmer. The group was bound to the Yucatan for a geological expedition. Three Williams students survived this traumatic event. One year… Continue reading »

The Williams Record reports on the new road over Petersburgh Mountain pass. Work had begun the previous September on a highway that “cut off some 13 miles” from the trek to Troy. The route had temporary surfacing until 1929 when the winter storms and thaws settled the roadbed. New York… Continue reading »

The Lawrence Hall Art Museum opens with an exhibit of paintings and drawings by the late Mrs. Asa Morton. Mrs. Morton was the daughter of Joseph Ames, a noted portrait painter of the 19th century and wife of Romance Language professor Asa Henry Morton. She studied in France at the… Continue reading »