Dickinsonian

In The Dickinsonian, an article entitled "Statistical Survey Shows Men Spend Money on Women" begins "That it is a man's world every woman sometime or another admits." A senior at the college conducted a survey for a statistics class in which he asked 132 men and 72 women how much money they earned during summer months and how much of it they spent on various expenses througout the schoolyear. Dickinson co-eds, he found, earned less than their male counterparts over the summer. Women, however, spent more for tuition and living expenses than men.

Dickinson College planned to replace Metzger Hall, former home of the co-eds, with the new women's dormitory at the start of the Fall quarter. The building could house 168 women and would have 77 double rooms, 8 single rooms, and two triples. The dormitory had a center core of bathrooms and laundry facilities; rooms were equipped with built-in desks and bulletin boards along the side wall.

The Dickinsonian began a series of illustrations meant to function as a coloring book. In one of these illustrations, a woman in a tight skirt leans against a wall and appears to be either bored or asleep. The caption beneath this illustration indicates how Dickinson students may have felt about the rules and regulations governing female students: "This is a Dickinson Coed. The college protects her virtue with many rules and regulations. Color her bored."

Some quotations featured in The Dickinsonian's "Quotes of the Week" reveal what professors at the college were saying about women. An anonymous English professor supposedly said that a "woman is like a rose because she appeals to the sense of taste and the sense of touch as well as the sense of sight." Another English professor purportedly said, "You look at her lips and wish to use them in certain rites but you can't until she says, 'I'm ready.'"

In The Dickinsonian's "Quotes of the Week," a list of humorous quotations gathered each week, a co-ed admits the reason she did not attend Swarthmore: "I didn't go...because I look horrible without lipstick."

The Dickinsonian staff reported in "Cupid Hits Target" that seven fraternities had announced pinnings. Neil Knowlton of Sigma Alpha Epsilon pinned Carol H. French from the Hague, Holland. Pinning occured when a man gave his pin to a woman in order to indicate publically that they were a romantic item.

The Dickinsonian staff reported on the defeat of a birth control champion at San Francisco State in an article entitled "Sex Loses Out." According to the author, Jeff Poland, a champion of birth control, ran for student council on a platform that advocated the sale of contraceptives at a discounted price in the student bookstore and the distribution of information and advice on sexual matters to college students.

The Dickinsonian printed a picture from 1892 showing an all-male editorial board for the newspaper. The caption explains that although co-eds were not represented on the newspaper's staff, they had entered the college eight years prior to 1892.

A reprinted article from February 11, 1922 in The Dickinsonian's celebration of the college's 90th anniversary described the "love code" of galoshes, saying that many women at the college indicated their stages of "fastenedness" or "unfastenedness" based upon the number of buckles they left open or closed.

No buckles open = married

One buckle open = I am not looking for a sweetheart

Two buckles open = Engaged to be married

Three buckles open = Not engaged to be married

Four buckles open = Have a sweetheart, but not engaged

An article in The Dickinsonian's celebration of the college's 90th anniversary entitled "Dolly Destroys Dickinson Tranquility As Students Protest Coed Admission" explains the 1884 furor over the admission of a coed on campus. When Dolly Longsdorf became the first coed, writes the author, the Freshman divided over the "coed question." Dolly and the Board of Trustees stood their ground, and sixteen women were admitted to the college by 1890. The college needed to remodel Old West in order to accomodate female students.