Virginia Intermont in Print, 1894 to 1963

Ask the archive

A full Glider can answer questions in plain English from the pages themselves, with a citation for every claim, and say so when the pages hold no answer. The ten answers below were prepared that way from the 61 volumes in this sample, so you can see what such answers look like and check each one against its page. The live version would take any question.

Each answer ends with how sure it is. Several rest on something the reader should check, and the last one finds no answer in these pages.

1. When and where did the school begin?

The Annual for the 1894-95 session says the Southwest Virginia Institute opened for pupils on Sept. 17th, 1884, at Glade Spring, Va., with thirteen boarders and three teachers in its first year, and was conducted there until June 1893 [1]. A 1937 advertisement in the Intermont gives a different year for the move: "Founded 1884 at Glade Spring, Va. Moved to Bristol, Va., 1892" [2]. The trustees' page in the 1894-95 Annual, dated May 16th, 1893, already speaks of the Bristol building as one the school had entered [3], so the pages do not settle whether the move came in 1892 or 1893.

Sources

  1. The Annual, session 1894-95, the history of the school
  2. The Intermont, 1937, "A few quick facts" advertisement
  3. The Annual, session 1894-95, the trustees' page on the founder

How sure: Sure of 1884 and Glade Spring. The year of the move rests on pages that disagree and should be checked against Bristol records from 1892 and 1893.

2. When did the school become Virginia Intermont College?

It began as the Southwest Virginia Institute [1]. The school's advertisement in the 1910 Pennant still reads "Virginia Institute" [2], and the same advertisement a year later reads "Virginia Intermont College (Chartered as Virginia Institute)," opening Thursday, Sept. 14th, 1911 [3]. The 1917 Intermont's history of the college mentions the change of name but gives no year for it [4].

Sources

  1. The Annual, session 1894-95, "Southwest Virginia Institute for Young Ladies"
  2. The V.I. Pennant, 1910, the school's advertisement
  3. The V.I. Pennant, 1911, the school's advertisement
  4. The Intermont, 1917, "History of Our Alma Mater"

How sure: Sure that the new name was in print by 1911. The date of the legal change is not in these pages.

3. What did a year at the school cost?

For the session of nine months in 1895-96, board, a furnished room, fuel, lights, and tuition in the literary subjects came to $190, and washing cost a dollar a month [1]. The same table appears in the Annual for 1894-95, but its scan text turns the figure into a jumble of letters, so read that year's price on the page image [2]. In 1910 the school advertised "board and literary course, $200 to $300" [3], and by 1937 the rates were "$460 to $560 for board, room; literary tuition" [4].

Sources

  1. The Annual, session 1895-96, "Terms for Session of Nine Months"
  2. The Annual, session 1894-95, the terms, garbled in the scan text
  3. The V.I. Pennant, 1910, the school's advertisement
  4. The Intermont, 1937, an advertisement

How sure: Sure of the 1895-96, 1910, and 1937 figures. The 1894-95 figure needs the page image. Music, art, and other extras cost more and are listed separately.

4. What did the main building look like, and does it appear later?

The 1894-95 Annual prints a full-page engraving of one large building with a central tower and a flagpole [1]. The picture is printed sideways, and the scan text reads its caption, "Southeast View of Building," as nonsense, so read it on the page image. The school's 1910 advertisement describes a "Building of 165 rooms with modern conveniences, including steam heat, electric lights and spring water on every floor" [2]. A tower with a flag above it opens the 1936 Intermont [3] and stands on the 1961 title page under the letters V.I.C. [4].

Sources

  1. The Annual, session 1894-95, "Southeast View of Building"
  2. The V.I. Pennant, 1910, the school's advertisement
  3. The Intermont, 1936, "A Picture Record"
  4. The Intermont, 1961, the title page

How sure: Sure of each page. That the 1894 engraving and the later photographs show one building rests on comparing the pictures; a dated building history would settle it.

5. How did the First World War reach the college?

The 1920 Intermont tells how the college Y.W.C.A. bought the Bristol Red Cross Canteen at auction when its wartime service ended, and moved it from the grounds of the Norfolk and Western station to the oak grove on the campus [1]. The same page reprints the canteen's "High Points" from a program dated Nov. 1st, 1918, among them the first troop train served on March 28th, 1918, and influenza service in October and November 1918 [1].

Sources

  1. The Intermont, 1920, "The Canteen Bungalow"

How sure: Sure of the page. Parts of the list are garbled in the scan text, so read the dates on the page image. The page records the canteen's work and does not say how many students served there.

6. What did students do during the Second World War?

A page in the 1942 Intermont says one campus society was "again deep in war work" and had sent twenty-five dollars to Bristol, England [1]; its name is garbled in the scan text and has to be read on the page image. In the 1943 volume, students gave up Saturday afternoons to make surgical dressings at the Red Cross center, many took Red Cross first-aid courses [2], and student air raid wardens checked that the campus kept to the black-out rules [3]. The year's calendar lists a War Stamp Campaign on Dec. 7th, under the line "Remember Pearl Harbor" [4], and the 1944 volume carries a full-page drawing of a soldier among bombers, a fighter plane, and a field gun [5].

Sources

  1. The Intermont, 1942, a campus society's page
  2. The Intermont, 1943, "Surgical Dressing" and "First-Aid"
  3. The Intermont, 1943, "Air Raid Wardens"
  4. The Intermont, 1943, the calendar
  5. The Intermont, 1944, the drawing of a soldier

How sure: Sure of each page. The 1942 society's name needs the page image. The calendar gives Dec. 7th without a year; it falls in the 1942-43 school year the volume covers.

7. Why is the 1933 volume so thin?

The Class of 1933 wrote its history in the manner of Samuel Pepys, and its January entry says the seniors voted "not to put forth ye usually expensive annual due to ye giant depression, but instead to substitute ye 'Hand Book'" [1]. The cover reads "Intermont Hand Book" and 1933 [2], and the scan runs to 86 pages, against 198 for the 1932 Intermont.

Sources

  1. The Intermont Hand Book, 1933, the senior class history
  2. The Intermont Hand Book, 1933, the cover

How sure: Sure. The entry gives the month but no day; the history begins on Sept. 13th, 1932, which places it in January 1933.

8. When do new words turn up in the pages?

The sample's Words page counts the spellings "basketball" and "basket-ball" from 1899 and "jitterbug" from 1943. The pages put both a little earlier: the 1895-96 Annual lists "Basket Ball" among the games in its physical culture course [1], four years before "Basket-ball" heads a picture in Sense and Nonsense [2], and the 1942 Intermont remembers "jitterbugging" in the lounge right after dinner [3], one volume before the 1943 calendar's "not a jitterbug in the lot" [4]. Radio arrives in 1924, in an alumnae history's claim that one graduate was "the first woman whose singing has been heard over radio from America to Europe" [5].

Sources

  1. The Annual, session 1895-96, physical culture
  2. Sense and Nonsense, 1899, the contents
  3. The Intermont, 1942, the opening pages
  4. The Intermont, 1943, the calendar
  5. The Intermont, 1924, the alumnae history

How sure: Sure of each page. The radio claim is the yearbook's and should be checked. Several years have no volume here, 1900 to 1905 among them, so a word may have arrived during a gap.

9. What traditions ran across the years?

The trip to Natural Tunnel is one: the 1905-06 calendar lists a "Trip to Natural Tunnel" on Oct. 10th, 1905 [1], the 1937-38 social calendar has a "Kiwanis outing at Natural Tunnel" on Oct. 14th, 1937 [2], and a student diary in the 1940 Intermont says the fall outing there "certainly 'hit the spot'" [3]. Class basketball is another: in 1933 the trophy cup stayed with the Juniors [4], and a diary in the 1950 Intermont records the Seniors beating the Juniors while no Junior found the effigy in its well-hidden place [5].

Sources

  1. The V.I. Pennant, 1906, the college calendar
  2. The Intermont, 1938, "Social Calendar, 1937-1938"
  3. The Intermont, 1940, "Excerpts from My Diary"
  4. The Intermont Hand Book, 1933, the senior class history
  5. The Intermont, 1950, "Life at College"

How sure: Sure of each page. The 1940 and 1950 diaries give no year; 1939 and 1950 are worked out from the weekdays in their entries.

10. Why did Virginia Intermont College close?

These pages do not say. The college closed in 2014, and the latest of the 61 volumes here is the Intermont of 1963, half a century earlier. The nearest they come is the 1963 volume's note that Science Hall, "the latest step in the Development Program," was nearing completion [1], which shows a college still building. Bristol newspapers from the years before 2014, and Bristol Public Library and the Library of Virginia, which scanned these volumes, would be the places to look.

Sources

  1. The Intermont, 1963, Science Hall

How sure: No answer in these pages, and the answer says so rather than offering the nearest match as if it were one.

Check the answers: a sheet for a class

Give each student or pair two of the answers above. For each one:

  1. Open every source. Does the page say what the answer says? Mark it yes, partly, or no.
  2. Is anything left out that changes the meaning?
  3. Is the source reporting a fact, or someone's claim about a fact?
  4. Where the answer says to check the page image, check it. What does the page say?
  5. What would you search for next, and where outside these volumes would you look?

Answer 1 is a good one to start with: two pages give different years for the move to Bristol, and newspapers or records from 1892 and 1893 would show which is right.