Whedon, Helen Knowlton (1891-1992) University of Michigan and Mount Holyoke College scrapbook.
United States: October 1909-ca. 1914.
Oblong folio-format scrapbook overflowing with ephemera including: photographs, autograph letters, telegrams, postcards, notes, valentines, Christmas cards, event programs, class records, exam schedules, enrollment slips, sorority initiation invitations, songbooks, handwritten poems and clever stories, dance cards (some with their small pencils still attached), notably well-preserved handmade tissue party hats, paper dolls, restaurant menus, pencil drawings, contemporary fashion catalogues, newspaper clippings, a small hand-felted bunny, an intact cigarette, and much more, all adhered to cardstock leaves, both the rectos and versos; bound in a fraying dark blue cloth album with the University of Michigan "M" in yellow felt on the front cover (leaves waved, with last 10 or so somewhat affected by water damage; worn, hinges tender); 11 x 14 in.
Born in Norwood, Massachusetts, Helen "Peachy" Knowlton Whedon enrolled at the University of Michigan's School of Music in their Department of Literature, Science and the Arts in 1909. As a freshman, she pledged to the Collegiate Sorosis, one of the university's oldest secret societies for women. It is purportedly the first sorority on campus to build and have its own building, the Grace Darling house, a picture of which is included here. Knowlton Whedon also enrolled in Mount Holyoke College from 1910 to 1911, likely as a student in a special musical program. There, she became a member of Chi Delta Theta. She returned to Michigan in 1912 and completed her final years of study while actively involved in on-campus organizations right up to her graduation in 1913. She became engaged to Harvard undergraduate George McElvaine Graham in the same year. Upon graduation, they moved to Malden, Massachusetts, married in 1920, and had two children.
