As the first flurries fall on campus, Hamline University begins to feel the spirit of the season. Thanksgiving is a time honored celebration in homes and schools across the United States, and Hamline is no exception from the rule. Floor parties, turkey dinners, and taking a few days away from classes are only a few of the many ways in which today's Pipers celebrate the Thanksgiving season. They also attend church services, do volunteer work, and show their appreciation to the many faculty, staff, and friends who have helped them during their time at Hamline.
Pipers past also enjoyed a number of Thanksgiving festivities, creating a rich history for all of us to look back on. We hope you enjoy the photos and stories on this page, and we urge you to submit your own photos and memories of this special holiday at Hamline.
Email your Hamline Thanksgiving photos and memories to Alumni Relations by clicking here.
The Oracle
November 1891, p. 33
"Thanksgiving Brevities"
The independent American declares that no custom shall receive observance from him because it is merely time-honored. But the manifest fitness, the religious significance and the recuperative value of Thanksgiving have reserved this day inviolate from the iconoclastic spirit with which the active and enterprising American is popularly endowed. To the student this day comes as a welcome vacation breaking the pleasant monotony of college life. He then returns home to look after the long expected remittance, to complete the family circle, to display his acquisitions or to relate college incidents, while memory and hope are both busy, the one, perhaps inspiring with pictures of a future day when senate halls shall ring with the voice of a new champion; the other, alluring with its panorama of regretted days and with exquisite grace omitting all trace of bitterness that, to every child, at times has seems to obscure the whole heaven. This indulgence of fancy and hope which everyone knows is incident to a visit home is conducive to more earnest work, and we hope that every young lady received further reprieve from homesickness as well as new vigor of purpose, while we know that the your man returned with a clean handkerchief and new buttons on the back of his coast as well as with a resolution to finish the term’s work in a conscientious manner.
There has been considerable dissatisfaction among some of our students that the library was not open during Thanksgiving vacation.
The most enjoyable parts of Thanksgiving day were the evening parties given to those of the students who did not go home. Miss Rosa Johnson entertained Misses Morgan, Maxwell, Little, Raymond, Walker, Carrick, Foss, Door, Underwood, Chase, Webb, Mary Phelps, Warner, Phelps and Messrs. McCann, Kemerer, Lewis, Rossman, Johnson, Snow, Montgomery and Miller. The evening was spent in social games, music, declamations, "candy-pulling" and will long be remembered by those present. Just before it was time to say "good-night," Mr. Johnson photographed the merry group.
In spite of the cold weather on Thanksgiving Day, a large number of the students were out visiting. Some went home, others to visit friends in the cities, and the few who took dinner in the hall went to Central Park in the afternoon to help make the ice smooth by abrasion. While quite a number of the young ladies took dinner at the Young Men’s Barding Club, and then, accompanied by the young men, went out for a sleigh-ride in the afternoon. It is needless to say that all had a delightful time and the young men wish to express their heartfelt thanks to President Harrison, Governor Merriam, the faculty, and, last but not least, to the young ladies that Thanksgiving day was set apart for such jollification.
Pipers celebrate the day with some musical entertainment.
Partygoers enter the Thanksgiving festivities.
Students clown around with the Thanksgiving turkey.
A student serenades the party guests with a song on the piano.
