| Streamline your searches: |
| Topper InfoPortal |
| See What KYLM Can Offer: |
| KY Lib. & Museum Online |
| Navigate the pages: |
| Department Home |
| WKU University Archives |
| Finding Aids |
| Donations |
| Hilltopper Heritage |
| Services & Fees |
| TOPCAT |
| TopSCHOLAR |
| WKU History |
Department of Library Special Collections
University Archives
Potter
College for Young Ladies Exhibit
Bowling Green, Kentucky
1889-1909
Studying at Potter College
Like many young women of the day, students often lacked the credentials for advanced study. Potter College consequently supplemented its five-year collegiate program with certificate studies in particular courses and special studies often consisting of music or art lessons mixed with a few academic subjects.
By 1897 Potter's collegiate program had been shortened to four years, culminating in the Bachelor of Arts degree. A few years later the school introduced the Mistress of the English Language (M. E. L.) degree for students wishing to avoid the Latin component of the B. A. program.
Most students, however, did not obtain degrees. Some enrolled in Potter's college preparatory course, some were secondary students ("Academics"), and others were "Specials." Many took one or more "ornamental" courses such as music (piano, voice, violin), drawing and painting.
Elocution was also popular. "We are convinced," the catalogue stated, "that no young lady's education is complete who has not been trained to read aloud with intelligent appreciation, and deliver gracefully the thoughts of the best authors."
The young ladies coped with a bewildering array of other course offerings that included astronomy, literature, psychology, rhetoric, French, botany, trigonometry, algebra, Greek and Latin, music history, physics, political economy, ethics, chemistry, constitutional history and geology. They were also called upon to keep their dorm rooms neat and tidy, and to be quiet and ladylike in their deportment.
Dormitory room, 1897
- Maud
Cole's 1903 diploma
8:25 a.m. Pearl Cochran practices "My Ships."
11:15 a.m. Again Pearl practices "My Ships."
1:00 p. m. Once more, Pearl practices "My Ships."
Order of the Day, 1908 yearbook
"At first all College Street was alarmed when Celeste Cuthbertson practiced her elocution, but now they think nothing of it when they hear deafening shrieks coming from her home."
-- Student magazine The Green and Gold, 1902.
-- Student magazine The Green and Gold, 1902.
- Student magazine The Green and Gold, 1903.
“Is
my daughter getting well-grounded in the classics?” asked the anxious father
of a Potter College girl.
“I would put it even stronger than that,” replied Miss Torrance. “I may say that she is actually stranded on them.”
- reported in the student magazine The Green and Gold, 1908.
Worried teacher Catherine Torrance, 1908
Are hard to understand;
And electricity, I fear,
Will finish up this land.
These mysteries will all be solved
By some other scientist,
But I'll be doing wondrous well
To catch the slightest gist."
- A puzzled student, 1906
Pauline (in
Constitutional History)–“Miss Bigham, is a tax on whiskey an internal
tax because you drink it?”
- 1908 yearbook
"To find out which way the wind blows, go to Edna's room and look on her dressing table."
"Wanted: Someone to find Edna's things after she once puts them down."
- 1908 and 1909 yearbooks
Was it not Willie Ethel Myers that ascended Potter hill at eleven p. m. on the day of the Flag Rush, and tore from the lofty top of a telegraph pole the Senior Flag that so triumphantly waved?"
- 1908 yearbook
- Hallie
Brite
"Hallie Brite and Maud Cole have received the greatest number of demerits given this year, on account of their boisterous conduct in the halls and class-rooms."
- Student magazine The Green and Gold, 1903.
| Site Index | Site Map | Suggestion Box |