Choose One Founding President Cabell Building a College Studying at Potter Sports Leisure "Duck Supper" Commencement Potter College Graduates Potter College Exhibit Home

For a Potter College senior, no event in the school year was more highly anticipated than commencement, a five- or six-day-long public observance that threw the spotlight upon her musical talents, academic achievements, social skills and fashion sense. The week required participation in at least one and sometimes two entertainments--a recital in the college chapel and a concert, physical culture drill or play at the local opera house. An afternoon exhibition of students' art work preceded the senior reception in the college parlors, an event that drew several hundred guests including the young men of town. Class Day exercises featured tributes, a reading of the departing students' "last wills" and prophecies for each other, and recital of the class poem. After a Sunday baccalaureate sermon came the closing exercises in which members of the graduating class, usually numbering between three and twenty, received their diplomas or certificates. Finally, a dance in town might honor the young ladies assembled there for the last time.

Seniors spent much time planning their graduation gowns.  Although suitable wear could be purchased ready-made in larger cities, the local dressmaking firm of Mrs. A. H. (Carrie) Taylor Co. offered the girls an impressive variety of designs and fabrics. For graduation a white dress was traditional, its shade determined by the type of material-- cotton, silk, muslin, organdie or crepe. A sash, ribbons or embroidery and the traditional bouquet of flowers provided appropriate touches of color while lace, ruffles or plaits served as decoration. Gloves, white slippers and an appropriate coiffure completed a look that restored the daintiness and refinement that schoolgirl shirtwaists, uniforms and gym suits had temporarily subverted.

An 1890's graduating class

In addition to piano and vocal interludes, the graduation ceremony featured valedictory and salutatory addresses from the two students with the highest academic standing. Unlike their sisters in northern colleges, Southern students were never denied the opportunity to present their own compositions in public.

<- 1898 Class Pin

Potter College's commencement speakers over the years included U. S. Representative William Campbell Preston Breckinridge, a Confederate veteran and cousin to former Vice President John Cabell Breckinridge, Indiana senator and later Vice President Charles W. Fairbanks, and Bennett H. Young, a Louisville lawyer, railroad builder and college president who rode with John Hunt Morgan's raiders and was a leader in the United Confederate Veterans Association.

"We're going home, no more to roam."