A handsome history

A Handsome History

John O. Hamey

The College on the Hill: A Browser's History for the Bicentennial, David Haward Bain, Middlebury College Press, 1999, $35

I'll admit it was the Middlebury public affairs office's pitch of more than 600 pictures that initially attracted me to The College on the Hill-and it is the rich images that help make David Haward Bain's 464-page history accessible to people who have no connection with Middlebury.

Following the format of "a print version of a documentary movie," Bain skillfully juxtaposes archival materials from the college's original charter through colorful 1920s covers of The Blue Baboon magazine to the oddly penetrating, black and white full-page photo of former President Olin Robison.

The only visual disappointment comes in the sections on the 1990s which settle for college catalog-style fall foliage shots and mortarboards flying heavenward.

Still, The College on the Hill, tracing Middlebury's evolution from its founding in 1800 to its upcoming bicentennial year, is more than a handsomely illustrated coffee table book.

This is the history of a campus as quirky and independent as Vermont itself. Here in 1879, President Calvin B. Hulbert forbade students to kick a football among the college buildings and issued 25 demerits to C.G. Leavenworth when he violated the rule. Here in the later 1950s, frat brothers accepted national expulsion to ensure the participation of future U.S. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, an African-American, in the white-only Sigma Phi Epsilon, then voted overwhelmingly for Richard Nixon over John F. Kennedy in a 1960 mock presidential election.

Bain, who has taught at Middlebury for nearly 15 years, writes for a variety of magazines and is the author of several books including the new Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad and 1993's Whose Woods These Are A History of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.

John O. Harney is executive editor Of CONNECTON.

Copyright New England Board of Higher Education Fall 1999
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved