In addition to these eateries, students visited some places noted more for their beverages than their food. Ma Iva’s Tearoom in Laurens was one of these. The ceiling was covered with either old newspapers or egg cartons, and it was “popular with off-duty millhands, there were lots of rednecks, white socks and Blue Ribbon beer there, along with the misguided Blue Hose. And a juke box full of great old country music hits, 3 plays for a quarter.” Similar establishments were The Kilt (later the Hound’s Tooth), Morgan’s, and the Purple Pit.

In later decades, students continued to patronize Robert’s and Whiteford’s, and the Stewart Burger was still a popular late-night item, although the Texaco station on I-26 was the place to get them. They also visited the Clinton Café on Musgrove Street, and even the Bailey Hospital vending machines, until the police ran them off. Added to the list were Hamrick’s on North Adair Street, Terry’s Fine Dining (which later became George’s, then Zorba’s, and is now the Parthenon), and Unkie’s Sub Shop on South Broad. According to one informant, “Unkie wore lots of cologne and it seeped over into the subs sometimes! No one minded too much. Unkie's was open into the wee hours.” The Waffle House was and is a favorite late-night hangout, and at one time was the busiest Waffle House in the U.S. For pizza lovers, there was Pizza Hut and the Pizza Inn, which is now Dempsey’s.

During the 1990s, students and faculty began to gather at Coffee, Eggs-Up & Grille, which used to be the old Huddle House, to enjoy chicken pot pies and omelets. Hickory Hills Barbecue and Wise’s Barbecue are good for Saturday morning “recovery meals,” South China (beside Bi-Lo) has a good, inexpensive lunch, and Michele’s Grill (formerly Earl’s EZ Mart), is a great place for a “meat and three.” Current students also chow down at El Jalisco, Steamer’s, and the Jacob’s Highway Study Club.

El Jalisco (above) and El Jal's Omar Cruz (right), who had his own page in The Pac Sac in 2005

(Thanks to the following for contributing to this story: Randy Randall ‘75, Dan Hartley ‘69, Bob Staton ‘68, Holbrook Raynal ‘70, Chris Bates ’86, Mitchell Spearman ’03 Robert Cook ’06 and Forrest Adair.)

October 2008

PRANKS

The ever-curious Chris Bates (he is a librarian, after all) inquired recently about stories involving Volkswagens and Neville Hall. We did a little research, and came up with details on that event, as well as several other memorable pranks.

The following confirmation of the VW story comes from Randy Randall, our intrepid alumni director (who probably participated in a number of pranks himself). Sometime around 1977 or 1978, several students “put planks on the back steps of Neville Hall and pushed Andy Gibson’s yellow convertible Volkswagen up the steps and parked it under the chandelier…It was sitting there on Monday morning for 8 o’clock classes.” Dr. Ann Stidham remembers that this particular prank happened more than once; her recollection is that the students took the doors off Neville and stripped the car to its chassis, and then reassembled everything when they got it inside.

From The Blue Stocking, April 1977

Dr. Jim Skinner, not a particular fan of such foolishness, remembers a prank from the late 60s, shortly after the college became fully co-educational. In protest, apparently many of the men on campus refused to date PC girls, and “imported” their dates from other campuses. A well-know football player actually dared to bring a PC co-ed to a dance, and was soundly chastised by his fraternity brothers. They drove him into the Sumter National Forest, removed his clothes, and left him there to find his own way home.

From The Blue Stocking, March 1974

Other stories include the “rolling” of the campus during exam week, panty raids on the women’s dorms, putting the Bi-Lo cow on the roof of GDH, and anesthetizing fruit flies and slipping them under biology professors’ doors. And there was apparently some sort of “burning bush” event between Judd and the maintenance sheds, as well as a social psych class “experiment” which terrorized the campus for a couple of weeks.

In the 1970s the streaking fad arrived on campus and in March of 1974 a streaker was featured on the front page of The Blue Stocking.

Apparently, students from Smyth Hall started the trend, and were followed by students from Georgia and Spencer. They were watched by an enthusiastic crowd of 400 students. The aforementioned Randy Randall admits to observing every night, although he won’t actually confess to participating. The Clinton police were called, and one officer said “We don’t know what’s goin’ on here, but it looks like a few students are raisin’ hell.” The gathering eventually turned into a protest against recent disciplinary actions. While the crowds had dispersed by 1:30 a.m., scattered streakers dotted the campus into the early morning hours. The Clinton police attempted to thwart a repeat performance the following night, but some streakers managed to escape and were greeted by cheering onlookers.

From The Blue Stocking, March 1974

The practice remained popular for several years. In April of 1977, The Purple Pantie, a parody of The Blue Stocking, announced that the Board of Trustees had vetoed the formation of a PC streaking team because, as trustee Quincy Prude put it, “If the Good Lord had wanted man to run around in the nude, he would have created him that way.”

Students today seem to limit their frivolity to decorating the campus’ numerous statues, and putting soap in the fountain behind Neville. One year, however, on the eve of graduation, two brave seniors, dressed in black, managed to load all the chairs from Greenville Dining Hall onto a truck, videotaping their antics all the while. Unfortunately, as they were making their escape, they noticed that the door wasn’t closed. When they went back to close it, much to their chagrin, they found themselves face to face with campus security. As with most PC pranksters, these alums are now highly respected members of their respective communities.

2005

September 2008

RAT SEASON

With the freshmen having recently arrived on PC’s campus, we thought it would be fun to explore the freshman experience at PC over the years. The college’s Matriculation Pledge, which all incoming students signed until 1971-72, strictly prohibited students from engaging in any type of hazing. There was, however, an institutionalized form of hazing, called “Rat Season," which served as a forerunner to today’s Freshman Orientation. According to Ben Hay Hammet’s The Spirit of PC, “The first few weeks of each fall were devoted to this custom in the belief that it served as mixer and spirit-builder while bringing to new students the humility they had lost as high school seniors.” Students were required to wear beanies called “rat caps,” large name tags (which resembled sandwich boards), and to do chores for upperclassmen. Any student seen without the required hat and sign could be punished with a paddle, broom, belt, or whatever other implement an upperclassman might have available. Freshmen were not permitted to walk on the grass; since there were no sidewalks on the West Plaza, this meant that a trip across the plaza was really a trip around the plaza. They were also required to bow to the mailbox located outside Spencer Hall.

Painting of a "Rat" by Lillian G. Brown

"Rat" giving a shoeshine to an upperclassman

Painting of a "Rat" bowing to the mailbox by Lillian G. Brown

Rat Season culminated in the annual “Rat Run”, when all freshmen lined up on the plaza in front of Spencer and grabbed onto a long rope. Then, accompanied by upperclassmen armed with belts, they made their way through the Thornwell campus to the square in downtown Clinton. The upperclassmen urged them on with strategically placed licks from the belts. When they arrived downtown, they discovered that many of the town’s merchants had opened their stores, and were passing out free fruit, candy, and ice cream. After a songfest around the Confederate monument, the freshmen were released for a free movie at the local theater.

This annual ritual is indelibly engraved on the minds of some PC alums. Ernest Arnold, who was a freshman in 1932, recalls that after the rat race he “was selected or forced to climb the monument, with the assist of other rats, and sing the prisoner’s song while eating a large raw onion – never again have I eaten a raw onion.” William P. Jacobs III, whose father had recently become president of the college, has vivid memories of Rat Season in 1935. He remembers that “A football player had first pick of freshmen to use as a "servant" and/or to beat or not beat on him as was the pleasure of the football player. Since I was the son of the new President, the biggest footballer chose me. He wielded a mean paddle, but I must confess he was as gentle as one could be with a two foot paddle. We were lined up on freshman night, and marched up town from the present location of Springs Athletic Center … On arrival up town near the Police station we were turned around, released from bondage, and allowed to attend the movie in the theater, to which we ran hoping to find a soft seat in the movie house, only to discover that sitting down was no more fun than getting whupped. There were no girls living on campus and they were not hazed as were the men, but they were required, as were we, to wear a PC Rat Cap, and carry a sign … They followed us up town feeling sorry for the poor boys…The President approved of the "toughening" procedure. I know. He laughed at me. And two years later at Hugh [William’s younger brother]. Oh . . . memories. Funny today, but not then.”

From Pac Sac, "A Freshman's Diary and Scrapbook," 1941

From Pac Sac, 1925

Freshman reception 1956

Freshmen did receive other forms of welcome when they arrived on campus. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, the Student Christian Association and the faculty wives sponsored a reception where they could meet the faculty and staff, as well as local girls. Rat Season continued, however, including a tradition called “Gin, freshman.” When an upperclassman yelled “Gin, freshman!” the freshman was required to leap high in the air shouting “Beat ….” – whoever the football

opponent happened to be that week. By the 1960s, the rat caps had changed from beanies into tams. Students continued to wear name signs, do chores for upperclassmen, and respond to “Gin, Freshman”. When PC went fully co-educational in 1965, women students were also included, with the addition of beauty penalties for sloppy dress, lack of makeup, or wearing curlers in public.

Holbrook Raynal, who was a freshman in 1966, has vivid memories of an activity called “the dying cockroach”: “the ‘rat’ received a high decibel verbal communication from a control board member….something like ‘let me see you do a dying cock roach, Scum bucket!!!!’…whereupon the obliging recipient of the exhortation would fall to the ground on his/her back and with all four limbs flailing upward continuously until commanded to cease.” By 1969, there were concerns about the degrading aspects of this type of orientation. On March 21 of that year, The Blue Stocking printed an article in which Dr. Jim Skinner described Rat Season as “completely useless and degrading to all concerned”, bringing out the animalistic nature of the upperclassmen and destroying the dignity of the freshmen. In addition, he declared that “the current system encourages traits which are unhealthy to education. It implies a rigid orthodoxy to which the student must adapt and is intolerant of dissent…it cannot be controlled no matter what limits are put on it.”

The custom didn’t end immediately, however. Forrest Adair, who was a freshman in 1970, remembers that the Freshman Control Board “would make all of us meet at certain times of the day in front of Neville Hall (of course most of the student body was there to watch) and ask us all sorts of silly questions (What do most college men buy Vaseline for? The right answer was 25 cents), and make us do all sorts of foolish things to get laughed at by the girls, but nothing harmful ever happened, to me anyway. I was glad for the week to end, but all in all it was fun and not nearly as bad as "hell week" with the frats.”

The Dying Cockroach, 1962

Freshman "ratting" activity

Randy Randall, who was a freshman the following year, remembers freshmen men gathering on the front steps of their dorm to sing silly songs. One morning, when they were serenading the girls in Bailey Hall, they received a call from President Marc Weersing, who could hear their rather rowdy tunes from his home across the street. Freshmen marched in a group to meals and orientation events, and sometimes had to sing the alma mater or fight song before they could eat, thus ensuring that they knew the words to both. Women students had to wear dresses or skirts in the dorm, and always had to have matches and an ash tray for upperclass girls.

Freshman Orientation 2000

By that fall of 1971, however, the Freshman Control Board had been changed to the Freshman Orientation Board, and the freshman handbook clearly stated that “Any freshman who feels that his moral or civil rights as a human being are being infringed upon is charged with the responsibility of reporting any such infringement to the SGA.” The Knapsack for 1971-72 is the last one to describe a formal “Rat Season.” The hazing of earlier years gradually developed to the more informative type of freshman orientation still seen today, with the later addition of Hose Leaders and moving day assistance.

[Our thanks to the following people for contributing their memories: Ernest J. Arnold ‘36, William P. Jacobs III ‘40, Bill Putman ‘55, Holbrook Raynal ’70, Forrest Adair ‘74, Randy Randall ‘75, and Dr. James Skinner.]

August 2008

CHILL OUT!

Since we have now reached the dog days of summer, we thought it might be fun to cool everyone off with pictures of PC in the snow. Yes, it does snow here in Clinton – perhaps most notably, the severe ice and snow storm we had in January of 2000. And, as you can imagine, the campus looks beautiful, and the students always find creative ways to enjoy themselves. Rumor has it that in 1977, snowball fighters entered the halls of Jacobs, and a professor in Richardson was actually carried out of class and dumped in the snow! So relax and cool yourself off with our snow scrapbook.

Freezing in 1940

1940

Snow behind Clinton Hall (undated)

1965

Snow in front of Neville (undated)

Cartoon from The Blue Stocking, January 1968

January 1968

February 1969

1972

1972

1972

April 1972

January 1977

Truck skiing, January 1977

Snowball fight, February 1979

January 2000

January 2000

2004

2004

2004

2004

July 2008

THE TURBULENT 60s AND 70s

CHAPEL REQUIREMENTS

At the beginning of the 1960s, the student body at P.C. was quite conservative. According to a poll taken in 1960, students supported Richard Nixon over John Kennedy almost 3-1. Thus it isn’t surprising that the first demonstrations on the campus were not political, but concerned more local issues. The first of these actually concerned the tennis program. According to a new athletic plan adopted by the trustees in 1963, related to the college’s planned move to the Carolinas Conference, spring sports were to be allotted only two scholarships. This meant the de-emphasis of tennis, a sport which had brought national attention to PC for two decades. There were numerous letters and articles in the Blue Stocking, as well as a petition to the Board sponsored by the Blue Key leadership society and a mass meeting of protest. A poll at the time indicated that 40% of PC students preferred tennis as an intercollegiate sport, compared to 29% for football and 24% for basketball. Any change in the situation, however, was constrained by Carolinas Conference rules; the only compromise that could be made was to award both of the spring scholarships to tennis.

That same year, the students’ long-standing concern about required chapel surfaced again. According to an editorial published in the Blue Stocking on February 22, 1963: “Although it involves beating one of the oldest of PC’s dead horses, something should be said about required chapel, which is currently a completely ridiculous situation. A speaker must be appalled to look out upon a sea of sleeping and reading people; and no doubt the people are equally appalled at being there…A religion is a chosen discipline, not a dictated one…Many of the students we contacted felt that the religiously associated compulsion placed on them three times a week was more than enough to quell a desire to attend further sessions.” Other causes of unrest were college regulations on class cuts, drinking, ROTC, dormitory visitation, student input into policy-making, and the curfew, sign-out and dress regulations for women students.

A cartoon from a 1965 issue of The Blue Stocking

Although the earliest PC catalogues don’t list specific chapel requirements, students were “encouraged in every right-way to put their religion into active exercise, and the older classes especially shall, as far as practicable, be familiarized with Sabbath-school, Missionary, and prayer-meeting work.” By 1887, however, all students were required to attend morning prayers each day, and “to attend Sabbath-school and public worship at the Presbyterian church, unless otherwise directed by parents.” This tradition continued until around 1950, when chapel services were reduced to three days a week. The students’ vocal protests of the 1960s, however, eventually resulted in the dropping of the chapel requirement. The required assemblies, however, remained on the schedule, and students were still urged to attend Sunday services at the church of their choice. Gradually, the program of required assemblies was replaced by the Lectures and Fine Arts Series, which was voluntary. In 1983 this was replaced by the Cultural Enrichment Program (CEP), and students were required to attend a certain number of CEP events in order to graduate.

On the national front, PC students supported the Vietnam War in its early years. According to a Blue Stocking poll published in 1966, 82% of the students surveyed agreed with the war policy, and 90% were in favor of America’s intervention in Vietnam. Students held blood drives for the troops, and organized projects to send them Christmas cards. Protests were still local in nature. In early 1967, many students and faculty protested the decision not to renew the contract of popular professor. Some faculty saw it as infringement on academic freedom, and some students demonstrated. According to a letter to the editor published in The Blue Stocking on January 20, 1967: “January 17, 1967 is the day on which Presbyterian College announced that it would no longer defend free speech, free thought, and honest inquiry. The announcement came in the form of the dismissal of H. Larry Ingle…from his duties as history professor after this year. Professor Ingle is one of the most qualified men on campus. He possesses a devotion to his subject and to his students that is second to none. His shortcoming was that he spoke out firmly for free speech, for inquiry, and for rational thought. Undoubtedly, his downfall came about because of the probing nature of his questions.”

A cartoon from a 1967 issue of The Blue Stocking

Students continued to push for improved communication and representation. In 1966 they requested non-voting membership on two faculty committees. Their request was denied at first, but membership on a number of committees was granted the following year. The trustees also worked to improve the lines of communication. At one of their board meetings in 1968, they set aside an hour for an informal meeting with students. The rules for chapel and assembly were also changed, making attendance at worship services voluntary, while attendance at weekly assemblies was still required.

During this period, an alternative student newspaper called The Blue Spectre appeared on campus. According to its first issue, published on March 21, 1967, “The Blue Spectre is able to criticize more directly and without fear of reprisal from the administration. We, the writers of the Blue Spectre feel the time is at last here for the students to actively dissent against administrative policy…Why do we as students at P.C. repeatedly skirt our duties to demand recognition of our beliefs. Saturday classes, too many cars on campus, religion course requirements, the drinking rule. What next? It is our future that is at stake and it is now our decision to make.” The paper also attacked the continuing racial segregation at PC. The college had declared its compliance with the Civil Rights Act in 1965, but the only two African-American students to attend came for summer school. The Blue Spectre was published a number of times during the spring of 1967, and appeared sporadically during the next few years.

Tensions seemed to begin escalating in 1969. In answer to a Board resolution that urged “all segments of the college community…to continue to exercise sound judgment so that institutional and individual freedoms may be preserved in an atmosphere most conducive to learning,” the president of the student body replied “We do not try to usurp any authority from our elders, but students do feel a degree of responsibility to speak up for change where it seems needed.” At this same time, the Board issued a college policy on demonstrations. All such activities were to be registered with the dean of students, who was to “designate an appropriate area for the purpose.” Demonstrations were not to interfere with scheduled college activities, destroy property, or involve any occupation of buildings or physical contact. Students failing to comply with these rules were to be subject to the college’s regular judicial processes.

In April of 1969, twenty students held a peaceful demonstration at the ROTC battalion’s day of Federal Inspection. According to The Blue Stocking, the main issue involved was whether or not ROTC should be compulsory at either a Christian or a liberal arts college. That same year, there were indications that support for the Vietnam War was lessening when a number of students, faculty and staff participated in the national Vietnam Moratorium Day. Student opinion eventually led to changes in the two-year ROTC requirement. Starting in 1970-71, participation was to be voluntary for sophomores and required for freshman. After that, it would become voluntary for everyone.

Other campus issues continued to simmer. In October of 1970, President Weersing and Dean of Students Tom Stallworth, awakened in the middle of the night, held a midnight rap session with 85 students in the lobby of the Administration Building. Student complaints ran the gamut from drinking to the cut system to women’s rights. Unrest continued into 1971. In February, the SGA held an open meeting to address such concerns as student representation on the Board of Trustees, the system of class cuts, the “antiquated” drinking rules, and dormitory visitation. Following this meeting, students marched from Neville Hall to the Broad Street side of Belk Auditorium. There students were allowed to speak and voice their concerns.

A cartoon from a 1971 issue of The Blue Stocking

The following month, when the Board of Trustees held their meeting on campus, the campus was papered with streamers and signs. The trustees held an open meeting with students, with some positive results. Students were permitted to sit with both voice and vote on the Board’s academic affairs and student activities committees. As for meetings of the full Board, they would be permitted to speak, but would have no vote. The Board refused to grant open dormitory visitation, and discouraged the use of alcohol or drugs on campus. Later, however, limited use of beer was allowed on campus, in certain places at certain times. Limited dormitory visitation was finally permitted in 1974.

The college had actually weathered this period of campus unrest fairly well. In 1974, the Board issued a resolution praising “the Faculty, Administration and Student Government for their part in resolving past problems and in returning the affairs of the college to a condition of tranquility and Christian cooperation.” One of the keys to this success was the college’s commitment to a free press. The editor of The Blue Stocking had the following to say in 1975: “I was forced to take a new awareness of the freedom that the PC Administration has allowed The Blue Stocking. I am also thankful that their tolerance has not been manifested in indifference toward the paper. The fact that PC has protected the freedom of the student press (despite temporary reasons not to) makes it much easier to listen to other ideas that the Administration has concerning other areas of student freedom.”

June 2008

Special thanks to Chris Bates, PC Class of 1986, for the question that inspired this entry

THE LEGACY OF WOMEN AT PRESBYTERIAN COLLEGE

When Presbyterian College was founded in 1880, it was open to women as well as men. According to the catalog, “young ladies are entered in the same classes and upon the same footing, except that in their case, the classical studies are optional.” Female students were not, however, permitted to live on campus. They were either local women, or made arrangements to board with families in town. The college’s first graduating class, in 1883, consisted entirely of women, including Dr. Jacobs’ daughter, Florence. According to the 1888 college catalog, the presence of young women on the campus “has in no way proved detrimental to the scholarly work of the Institution, and has materially lessened difficulties of discipline.”

According to Fronde Kennedy, who graduated in 1896, the college took no responsibility for the co-eds when they were not on the campus. However, while on campus, “they were carefully chaperoned, being required to spend their free hours under the eye of a professor – an arrangement equally distasteful to both parties.” Among the social activities were parties in local homes, dancing (not, however, on the campus – dances were held in Copeland Hall, in downtown Clinton),

The PC Crowd

swimming in the Enoree River, picnics, hikes, and fraternity banquets. Co-eds did not engage in sports, except for recreational tennis on the college tennis court. They of course attended other games, including baseball, where, in the absence of stands, they “sat in chairs brought from the mess hall by devoted swains.”

In the early years, there were very few female students at PC, with only 11 in 1915 and 21 in 1918. Indeed, the College’s slogan in those days was “Where men are made.” For a time, between 1921 and 1931, no women were admitted to the college, because the Synod of South Carolina wished to bolster enrollment at Chicora College, its women’s college in Columbia. When Chicora merged with Queens in Charlotte in 1932, women day students were once again welcome at PC.

One woman student from this period described some of her experiences in the college magazine in 1932. Although her experience as a co-ed at PC was a positive one, apparently the co-eds had to make some adjustments in the classroom. “At the beginning of the year, we took seriously the masculine idea that boys know more than girls; we listened attentively when they opened to us their spacious minds. But it didn’t take us long to realize that masculine knowledge is mostly masculine bluff. Now we listen demurely and allow them to get what satisfaction they can from telling us things that we already know.”

There were still not many social activities for women.
A local sorority, Alpha Psi Delta, was organized in 1933. Otherwise, women were involved in campus organizations only as “sponsors” -- women, sometimes girlfriends or wives, sometimes even mothers and children, who were chosen by the organization to represent them. Aside from a short-lived women’s basketball team in the 1930s, there were no women’s sports except intramurals until 1974, when the varsity tennis team was organized.

Alpha Psi Delta

Housemother and coeds, 1965

In the 1950s, the Synod of South Carolina began to discuss making PC fully co-educational. The first step in this process was the opening of Calvert House, a house on Calvert Avenue which housed 14 students and was supervised by a faculty family that lived on the first floor. Full co-education arrived in 1965, when Clinton Hall was opened. In a truly amazing article in The State in October of 1965, the reporter noted that “Girl-Watching is now one of the

favorite sports at Presbyterian college, with the advent this fall of full co-education.” Included was a picture of three male students sitting on the steps, “absorbed in their work.” Apparently, male students were terribly distracted during meals and study time, but appreciated the fact that they didn’t have to travel 60 or 70 miles to date girls from nearby colleges. By 1966, Clinton Hall was almost full, with 118 women, who made up 17% of the student body.

The rules for these new students were quite different than those today. Clinton Hall was supervised by a housemother. There was a curfew, and coeds were required to sign out of the dorm any time they planned to be out after 7 p.m., or any time they planned an out-of-town trip. “Anyone leaving the campus after 7:00 in the evening must be accompanied by a date, an adult, or another student.” Parental permission was required for overnight trips. No men were permitted in the living areas of the dorm, and a dress code required skirts or dresses except for PE class.

Eugenia Carter

Women were also added to the faculty and Board of Trustees. Eugenia Carter, who had been teaching in the science department since 1958, was joined by 5 women professors in 1967. In 1968, Mrs. J.B. Fuqua of Atlanta and Dr. Virginia S. Hardie of Clemson were added to the Board. By 1973, PC had its first female student body president, Ginny Nichols.

The number of women students continued to grow – by 1968-69, they made up 21.4% of the student body, 222 students. This was the year that Bailey Hall was turned into a women’s dorm to house the overflow. By 1975, when Mary Erwin Belk Hall was added, there were 358 women on campus, comprising 39% of the student body. There were also more activities for women students. In 1981, Martha Anne Green started Women’s Social Hall, a campus-wide organization for women. In 1989, national sororities were permitted on campus for the first time, and Alpha Delta Pi, Zeta Tau Alpha, and Sigma Sigma Sigma were organized.

The percentage of women students gradually increased, until it reached 48% in 1990-91. Women continued to be housed in Clinton, Bailey and Belk. The following year, Grotnes and Barron were added as women’s residences, as were three houses on Calhoun Street. By the fall of 1993, women made up 50% of PC’s student body; since that year, they have surpassed 50% in all but two years, reaching a peak of 56% in 2001-2002. Additional facilities that have been opened to women over the years include the townhouses, Laurens, Smyth, Carol International House, the Scottish Arms, and the Senior Hall.

Prominent women who have graduated from PC include Anne Austin Young (1910), pioneering SC doctor; Ann Eliza Hatton Lewis, (1922) founder of Georgia Magazine; Mary Ella Williams Osman (1938), journalist and senior editor of Architecture; Julie Johnson Weatherly (1983), lawyer and nationally recognized expert on school law and special education cases; Joan Standridge Gray (1973), current moderator of the PC(USA); and Capt. Kimberly Hampton (1998), helicopter pilot, killed in Iraq in January of 2004.

Anne Austin

Kimberly Hampton

May 2008

THE EARLY DAYS OF PRESBYTERIAN COLLEGE

So, where to begin? Perhaps the best place to start is at the beginning, with PC’s early history. The college, founded in 1880 as Clinton College, was a result of the work of Rev. William Plumer Jacobs, then the pastor of the Clinton Presbyterian Church.

The first classes were held in a white frame building located near the center of town. The only existing photograph shows it in later years, when a porch had been added.


	The first college catalogue includes an interesting description of the town:

Both men and women students were accepted, although the female students were not permitted to live on campus, and were either local or made arrangements to board with local families. Although the college was largely governed by the session of the Presbyterian church, it was non-sectarian. According to the catalogue, “its teachings shall be such as to build up pure religion, and to attract students of all denominations. Hence while avoiding the so-called ‘Liberalism’ of Modern Philosophy, yet this Institution shall not be exclusive or illiberal in its Christianity .”

Tuition was much less in 1880 than it is today, but it must have seemed high at the time, since the catalogue takes great pains to justify it:

Like many schools of the period, Clinton College also had a Preparatory Department for the education of younger students:

The Preparatory Department existed until the 1920s, and many students received their entire education from Clinton College.

The college’s first class graduated in 1883. Among the three members of the class was Florence Lee Jacobs, who was the eldest of William Plumer Jacobs’ five children.

If anyone has a question, or a suggestion for a future entry, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me (contact information above).

Nancy Griffith

August2008_uacct = "UA-620678-1"; urchinTracker();