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1887 & 1889 Commencement invitations |
As the result of an inquiry from Nancy Forhan of the Pioneer
Women's Association, we checked into our file of commencement invitations and announcements
from the 19th century. While
the college was still on its campus in Hudson,
the old Preparatory School did not have a ceremony of its own. Hence, someone like Henry H. Hosford
(1859-1965) of our class of 1876, did not have a commencement until he
graduated from the old college in 1880. The college moved to Cleveland in 1882,
and that year the old Prep School took on its new identity as Western Reserve Academy.
1890 Commencement invitation |
The first WRA commencement was held in the Chapel in June, 1883, with all
thirteen students participating in the ceremony either as speakers or performers
on musical instruments. This was during
the regime of Headmaster Newton B. Hobart, and for the next several years this
was the pattern of commencements held at Western Reserve Academy. Hobart’s
successor, Dr. Frederick W. Ashley, decided to change the order of business at
the annual commencement. Instead of
having the students each giving a talk or performing a musical piece, Ashley
introduced the commencement speaker as a feature of the ceremony, followed by
the awarding of diplomas. The first
outside speaker was Dr. Charles F. Thwing, President of Western Reserve
University in Cleveland who spoke in June, 1893. WRA had its first female commencement speaker
in 1895 when it welcomed to the Chapel podium Miss Mary Evans, Principal of
Lake Erie Seminary in Painesville (later to
become Lake Erie College.) In the last year of Ashley’s tenure at the
school, 1897, a student activity was introduced in the form of the “Ivy Ode”
and the “Ivy Oration,” each to be given outside the Chapel. No text remains of this sweet student tribute
to the school.
1902 Commencement invitation and commencement week calendar of events |