#ThrowbackThursday: Dorm Living, 1890 to 1930

In PAW’s July 2, 1929, issue Frederick Pleasants ’30 penned an enthusiastic essay about dorm-room décor, highlighting a Patton Hall suite “done over in the Colonial manner,” below, as a signal that students were putting aside “the rah-rah collegiate stuff of yesteryear,” above, and “growing up.”

Pleasants’ declaration may have been a bit premature: Today’s students certainly have their share of collegiate touches on their dorm-room walls, along with flat-screen TVs. But the author’s attention to aesthetics paid off after graduation. He served as one of the U.S. Army’s “Monuments Men” in World War II, worked as a curator at the Brooklyn Museum, and lectured in the art departments of several colleges.

An 1890s room in East College, which was razed to make way for East Pyne. (PAW Archives)

Pleasants described this view as "a corner in a modern Patton Hall suite, done over in the Colonial manner." (PAW Archives)