By Erasmus Baxter
In December of 1899, the first issue of a campus newspaper, “The Normal Messenger,” was published to mark the beginning of a new school–The Whatcom State Normal School (which would eventually become Western Washington University). With a class of 200 it sat “far up in the Northwestern corner of the Evergreen state, on the beautiful shores of Bellingham Bay.” As a college dedicated to training teachers it featured a 6-page manifesto on the role of a teacher. It also included ads for dry goods and electric lights.
The paper featured reports on the six different literary societies that had formed. Each featured their own colors and their own cheer. One such cheers was:
”Boom-a-lacky! Boom-a-lacky!
Zip! Boom! Bah!
Utopia! Utopia!
Rah! Rah! Rah!”
One can only assume that such yells were issued as a war cry as they skirmished with other literary clubs for turf in the library.
For fun, the literary clubs would challenge each other to debates. One debate in particular was on the topic of women’s suffrage. After hearing from both sides, the judges decided that women should remain second class citizens.
In a particularly horrific act of cultural appropriation, one of the literary groups named themselves the Chillick tribe after the name of a Lummi chief. This group of white students held “council fires,” “potlaches” and smoked “the pipe of peace.” No word if they also showed up at Coachella in Native headdresses.
In further literary club drama, the following March of 1900 it was reported that the male membership of the literary clubs had quit and formed their own men’s only literary club. They claimed that they were looking for more opportunities to practice parliamentary procedure, but one can suspect that sexism might have been a factor.
When was the last time you met a member of the board of trustees? The March issues of the Messenger thanked the board of trustees for “manfully” responding to students requests for speeches. Before Netflix there must have been a real shortage of entertainment.
In May of 1900 the Senior class took the faculty on a fun field trip. They went to a coal mine where they rode through the mine in carts and were completely covered in coal dust. For some reason, they seemed to enjoy the expedition.
As proof that Western never changes, in 1900 Long Bros. Company was buying advertising in the Normal Messenger to advertise hammocks for sale in the Spring. In the fall, there was also an ad for waterproof shoes. A more unusual ad tried to sell students life insurance. Dead week has never been taken so literally.
Other things that have never changed: facing increased enrollment, the Normal school ran into a shortage of space for classes to be held, and a local dormitory for students filled up as soon as it was built. However, housing was only estimated to cost $3-4 a week. Those were the days!