Poughkeepsie, NEW YORK - Vassar College - Rockefeller Hall

Description: Poughkeepsie, NEW YORK - Vassar College - Rockefeller Hall: In the mid-1890s, as Vassar expanded its accommodations for students with what would become the first quad dorms, an acute need for more classroom and office space for professors also came to light. Meeting on June 12, 1894, the trustees acknowledged that “a building devoted to the purposes of lectures and recitations is the first great necessity of Vassar College,” and they charged President James Monroe Taylor with raising the necessary funds. By the spring of 1896 Taylor had found a willing donor in trustee John D. Rockefeller, a previous supporter of campus projects. Four years earlier he had donated $35,000 for the completion of the first residential accommodations outside Main Building, Strong House, named for his daughter Elizabeth Rockefeller Strong, a former student. With the announcement of Rockefeller’s pledge, in the amount of $100,000, the executive committee was authorized to begin work on the new recitation hall, along with the newly commissioned residence hall, Raymond House. The name “Rockefeller Hall” was decided upon the following spring and the building was completed by the fall. Rockefeller Hall opened on Friday, November 19th, 1897, at a dedication ceremony involving musical performances, an address from the President G. Stanley Hall of Clark College, the presentation of keys and the singing of an original dedication hymn, written for the occasion by Fanny Lee McKinney ’98. Rockefeller Hall was the first commission of Edward York and Philip Sawyer, two architects who left the New York firm of McKim, Mead and White in 1898 to form their own firm, York and Sawyer. Originally based on plans for a high school in Plainfield, New Jersey, which Sawyer described as a “compact classroom building with its lower story sunk to sill level to economize its height, its two amphitheaters superimposed in the rear, its classrooms ideally lighted,” the Beaux Arts design for Rockefeller was adapted to include a variety of English architectural elements. The large windows of the building were representative of Tudor and Elizabethan styles, popular for new buildings on college campuses at the time in large part because the size of the windows meant that classrooms were illuminated by natural light. Georgian elements are present in the design of Rockefeller too, especially the thick columns and fanlights around the main entrance. Vassar College is a private, coeducational, liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the first degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States. It became coeducational in 1969, and now has a gender ratio at the national average. The school is one of the historic Seven Sisters, the first elite female colleges in the US, and has historic relationship with Yale University, which suggested a merger with the college before coeducation at both institutions. This Undivded Back Era (1901-07) postcard is in good condition. A. C. Bosselman & Co., New York. No. 696.

Price: 8.5 USD

Location: Brooklyn, New York

End Time: 2025-01-27T03:17:55.000Z

Shipping Cost: 0 USD