vintage seven sisters

Mt Holyoke + Vassar + Wellesley + Smith + Radcliffe + Bryn Mawr + Barnard

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Vassar, 1967. 

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Mount Holyoke, 1945.

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Cutting edge style in the sciences. Smith College, 1929. 

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Warm days at Vassar, circa 1950. 

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“Wellesley students in the lab, circa 1890.”

[Wellesley College]

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“Students—perhaps members of the Suffrage League—wear 'Votes for Women' sashes and march through campus playing instruments.”

[Mt. Holyoke]

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“In the 1920's, voting booths were set up on campus for students to practice a new enfranchisement.”

[Vassar]

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You must encounter, confront life. Life loves the liver of it, ladies. It is for you to increase your virtues. There is that in the human spirit which will not be gunned down even by death. There is no person here who is over one year old who hasn’t slept with fear, or pain or loss or grief, or terror, and yet we have all arisen, have made whatever absolutions we were able to, or chose to, dressed, and said to other human beings, “Good morning. How are you? Fine, thanks.” Therein lies our chance toward nobleness—not nobility—but nobleness, the best of a human being is in that ability to overcome.

Excerpt from Maya Angelou's Commencement Address at Wellesley College, 1982.

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Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bryn Mawr College President Katharine McBride at Commencement in 1966, where King delivered the Baccalaureate address.

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"Diploma Circle, Smith College Graduation, 1994"

(Smith College Archives)

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Protest for equal access to Harvard at the 1971 commencement. 

(Radcliffe Archives)

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Hillary Rodham at the 1969 Wellesley College Commencement, pictured with Board of Trustees Chairman John Quales, College President Ruth Adams, and commencement speaker Senator Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts. As President of College Government, Rodham gave the student speech.

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Laural Chain at Mount Holyoke Commencement 1922

(Mount Holyoke College Archives)

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Wellesley students cheer Boston Marathon runners outside Cazenove Hall in April 1983.

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Vassar students studying outdoors, 1950s.

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Students study in the Cloisters at Bryn Mawr, 1950s. 

(Bryn Mawr College Photo Archives)

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The Wellesley College Banjo Club, 1892.