Recent Thrift Store Purchase: College Yearbook
Yesterday I bought a couple of books from the Goodwill Outlet store, among them a 1957 University of Maryland Yearbook ($2). I pick up high school and college yearbooks whenever they cross my path. They offer a view into another age. I've read history books about teenager life in the 50's, and seen films about it, but flipping through this yearbook makes those works seem real and not works of fiction. It's a shock when a yearbook confirms what I already know about a particular period, and a shock again when the impressions I've formed are contradicted. I don't trust history books.
Some quick observations about this yearbook:
1. The study body is overwhelmingly white. I noticed only two minorities in its entirety: one Japanese-American man and one African-American woman. Racism was a real thing.
As an art-project, digitize all senior photos are University of Maryland from earliest yearbook to present. Morph photos of all male students of a year into one photo; photos of all female students of a year into a photo. Display photos of progressing years in a line to show changing America.
2. There are many pages devoted to the sports teams. But all the teams are composed of men. There is not even one women's sport team--the only athletic pursuit that women were involved in, modern dance, is categorized as an activity, not a sport.
3. The men really knew how to use hair gel. I have several models I can consult if I ever decide to adopt that sort of hair style.
4. It seems as if all, or at least most, of the student body participated in Greek organizations.
5. Women look good in dresses--I wish more women today wore dresses, and on more occasions.
The yearbook:
Beauty queens:
A master of hair-gel:
newmistakes would love this white dress--it accentuates the favorite part of her anatomy, the small of her back, or area just beneath it:
thecolorsanctum would like this cheerleading outfit I think--it is something that I can imagine Marilyn Monroe wearing:
'Cares are thrown to the wind whenever the setting is a sorority slumber party.' Girl doing her Arsenio Hall-raise the roof gesture:
Redneck, asshole cop (they never seem to change):
Yep, no racism here:
Some quick observations about this yearbook:
1. The study body is overwhelmingly white. I noticed only two minorities in its entirety: one Japanese-American man and one African-American woman. Racism was a real thing.
As an art-project, digitize all senior photos are University of Maryland from earliest yearbook to present. Morph photos of all male students of a year into one photo; photos of all female students of a year into a photo. Display photos of progressing years in a line to show changing America.
2. There are many pages devoted to the sports teams. But all the teams are composed of men. There is not even one women's sport team--the only athletic pursuit that women were involved in, modern dance, is categorized as an activity, not a sport.
3. The men really knew how to use hair gel. I have several models I can consult if I ever decide to adopt that sort of hair style.
4. It seems as if all, or at least most, of the student body participated in Greek organizations.
5. Women look good in dresses--I wish more women today wore dresses, and on more occasions.
The yearbook:
Beauty queens:
A master of hair-gel:
newmistakes would love this white dress--it accentuates the favorite part of her anatomy, the small of her back, or area just beneath it:
thecolorsanctum would like this cheerleading outfit I think--it is something that I can imagine Marilyn Monroe wearing:
'Cares are thrown to the wind whenever the setting is a sorority slumber party.' Girl doing her Arsenio Hall-raise the roof gesture:
Redneck, asshole cop (they never seem to change):
Yep, no racism here: