Letters, Freshman Year, Semester II, 1918 March-May

The letters within this folder, which come from Henrietta’s second semester of her sophomore year, discuss illness, events at Bryn Mawr College, being courted by a young man named Albert, and fundraising efforts for the war.

She discusses a local epidemic of measles, in which the state department ended up closing local boarding school. Henrietta relates how Bryn Mawr students were prohibited from going past the railroad because of the measles outbreak, with the highest reported case including ninety people.

Events that go on during the end of her freshman year include the May Pole dance and the Freshman Banquet. There was also a class meeting about the decision of President Thomas, in which the students are unhappy at her decision to only admit 88 freshmen for the upcoming year and remove three of the classes offered to students. Additionally, Henrietta describes being courted by Albert, one of her four previously-mentioned suitors. Her attitude towards him, while she enjoys the attention he gives her, is somewhat indifferent.

As a student on campus, Henrietta used several methods of making money so that she could pay off her Liberty bonds, as well as fees from the Service Corps and the Christian association. Methods of fundraising in the public included having the lead actor of “Oh! Boy” come to auction off Liberty Bonds between acts. On campus efforts to finance the war included the College Farm, where Henrietta worked fertilizing and planting potatoes. The work on the farm was dangerous, as evidenced by the fact that a fellow classmate had three of her fingers mangled in a potato planting machine. The sophomore class also performed a Minstrel Show for the benefit of the Service Corps.