Nathalie Gookin papers

The Nathalie Gookin papers consist of the personal papers of Nathalie Clotilde Gookin, Bryn Mawr College class of 1920. The collection houses the hundreds of letters written by Gookin to her parents, and sometimes her aunt Nathalie Kennedy, while a student at Bryn Mawr from 1916-1920. Along with the letters, the collection also includes Nathalie’s diaries from 1916-1920. Additionally, there is some miscellaneous ephemera from Bryn Mawr.

The collection is housed in in four boxes, ordered by date. Each box is divided by month and year into folders.

Common subjects in her letters include the stress of the workload, homesickness, lectures, professors, social life in the dorms, small-scale activities, and larger, college-wide events, and traditions. In her freshman year letters and some of her sophomore year letters, she writes profusely about her admiration for Helen Harris, class of 1917. She also writes about the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918-19, which occurred during her freshman and junior years, respectively. In the collection there are also some letters from before she came to college, sent while she was on summer vacations with friends. In 1913, she writes to her parents from Rutland, Vermont, about playing with her friends and visiting Boston. In 1915, she stayed with friends on Mackinac Island, Michigan and writes about their daily activities. There are also some letters written after her graduation.

In the spring of 1921, she writes to her parents while visiting Bryn Mawr friends on the East Coast. In 1923, she writes while visiting her college friend, Anne Coolidge, in Boston. Mixed in with those letters are also letters written to Nathalie from college friends or to Maria Gookin about Nathalie. While the bulk of the letters in the collection are authored by Nathalie, here are also scattered letters (1913-1923) from her mother and father, Frederick and Marie Gookin, usually written while visiting their daughter.

One item in this collection, a program for a 1918 W. D. Griffiths’ film, is stored separately in the Playbill Collection of the Manuscripts collection. There are also some of Nathalie’s father’s books on Japanese art in the Bryn Mawr College Library. Her diaries record events of the day, and the entries are often short. She sometimes includes ephemera related to events, like pamphlets, in the pages of her diaries. In addition, there is an entire folder of miscellaneous ephemera from Bryn Mawr, another folder with approximately 40 of her exams, and a copy of her “school record,” a small book listing the classes she took and work she completed. More extensive folder description can be found under "Collection Organization."

Gookin’s numerous letters weave a detailed tapestry of life at Bryn Mawr from 1916-1920. These years were important on a national scale, as the US entered WWI, the women’s suffrage movement surged on, and the 1918 influenza epidemic threatened the health and safety of many institutions, including many college campuses. Bryn Mawr was immediately affected on a local level by these global events, and Nathalie chronicles political events, war efforts, and the influenza quarantine, as well as many other Bryn Mawr-specific events. Her correspondence, with the accompanying diaries and ephemera, would be an invaluable resource to anyone interested in Bryn Mawr College, colleges during World War I, women’s suffrage, college life, the influenza epidemic, etc.