Two issues of The Scribe from the 1910s, full of school news and classified advertisements from local businesses.
Recently, our team got access to more than a dozen issues of the Scribe and other student newspapers from 1914, 1915, and 1940 before they are stored in the OUSD archives. These newspapers focus on school events and announcements, offering a glimpse into what high school life was like over eighty years ago.
Today, Tech has both unique and traditional clubs and organizations, from Cheese Club to student government. The same was true in the first half of the 20th century, and some organizations have withstood the test of time, like student government and community service organizations, while others described in these papers are a relic of days gone by.
Of these deceased clubs, organizations, and events, we were most perplexed by an article about the YMCA Bean Feed. These events seemed to happen every Thursday in the “Bean Parlor” at the Y. Freshmen were not allowed to attend but had their own Bean Feed on Wednesdays. After “the eats” (probably beans), attendees would discuss “vital questions of high school life” and then be allowed access to the various amenities at the YMCA. There is no modern equivalent that we can think of.
One of the first things that sticks out in these articles is how many clubs were split by gender. Glee Club, for example, had two separate groups, Boy’s Glee Club and Girl’s Glee Club. While these short articles do not show the full picture, the differences between the two were still stark: Boy’s Glee Club was said to have more than one hundred members in 1914, while Girl’s Glee Club repeatedly put recruitment advertisements in The Scribe.
Like today, school organizations hosted events to fundraise, recruit, and socialize with the student body. These events have changed dramatically in the last century. The newspapers we have tell of a Girls Carnival, which seemed to have been run and attended exclusively by female students.
Tech also had many academic clubs that have not survived the last century, like the Historical Society, Latin Club, International Club, and the Botanical Society. Many of these clubs seemed to correspond with classes that were also discontinued, like the botanic science or foreign foods classes. This is different from today when nearly none of our clubs are related to or coordinate with academic classes.
The club that stood out the most to me, though, was Yacht Club. It is hard to imagine that Tech would have a Yacht Club today, but 110 years ago, Tech had a club run out of the Berkeley Yacht Harbor. Imagine leaving school in the afternoon and going to Yacht Club!
These papers are a peek into the lives of students like us from decades ago, and offer important insight into how high schools have changed, for better or for worse.