The Shock of the New, 1919-1968
War greatly changed Dartmouth in the twentieth century. The repercussions from global conflicts challenged and changed the College and American higher education. Faculty and students alike, in concert or clash, recast curriculum and the place of the liberal arts. Those beyond the campus looked to Dartmouth and liberal education to prepare America’s youth for new thinking in the face of present and future challenges. A vision of a broad undergraduate education as preparation for working with knowledge, information, and ideas began to take hold at Dartmouth College and served as a model for others while democratic impulses evident throughout twentieth-century American higher education intensified.
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Naval trainees at Dartmouth, ca. 1943-1946
Several trainees in the U.S. Navy’s V-12 program pick up books at Dartmouth. The V-12 program enrolled some 125,000 men at more than 100 U.S. universities and colleges to develop a vastly expanded officer corps for World War II.
Dartmouth College Campus Maps, ca. 1950
Like medieval mapmakers who placed Jerusalem in the center, mapmaker A.K.D. Healy chose to center the Dartmouth College universe on its library.
Tower Room, Baker Library, 1955
Students enjoy the comfortable setting of the Tower Room circa 1955. A note on the back reads “smoking is permitted in the Tower Room.”
AT&T Executives and the Liberal Arts
Four photographs show American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T) executives at Dartmouth College during the 1950s. At these summer institutes, business managers could expand their creativity through exposure to the liberal arts.
Class outdoors at Dartmouth, ca. 1960
Text on the back of the photographic original suggests this image may have been intended to promote the College: “A class on the lawn in front of Dartmouth Hall demonstrates photographically the informality and average size of classes at Dartmouth. The emphasis is upon undergraduate instruction in the liberal arts and in the development of critical and productive powers in the minds of the students.”