Vassar Students and the Watershed, 1930-1943 and 1970.
July 8, 2011 by admin
New archive footage unearthed for the sesquicentennial highlights Vassar students’ relationship with the Casperkill Watershed.
For Vassar’s 150th anniversary, three videos shot between 1930 and 1943 have been uploaded onto the Vassar YouTube channel. In each video from each period, students can be seen enjoying the Watershed through Sunset Lake and Vassar Lake in many ways. The footage shows the importance the bodies of water have historically had in the lives of Vassar students and the Vassar experience.
“Scenes of Early Vassar,” 1930-1936
0:28 – 0:35 — Students look out over Sunset Lake.
3:23 – 3:30 — Students ice skate over Sunset or Vassar Lake.*
5:46 – 5:53 — A look over Vassar Lake.
7:16 – 7:18 — Students cross a bridge that goes over the Casperkill, near Skinner.
“Vassar College,” 1939
0:12 – 0:14 — Cars drive over the bridge by Sunset Lake
2:04 – 2:34 — Students ice skate on Vassar Lake
8:58 – 9:03 — A shot of the daffodils on Sunset Hill, referenced in the earlier blog post, “Sunset Lake: Daffodils and Goldfish.”
11:22 – 11:40 — Students explore the banks of one of the lakes. *
12:13 – 12:37 — Students play and relax around Sunset Lake.
15:53 – 17:17 — A group of students swimming and picnicking in a creek.*
21:44 – 23:47 – Graduation on Graduation Hill, overlooking Sunset Lake.
“Life at Vassar,” 1943
While the previous two videos are compliations of various pieces of footage, this video is a cohesive film which sets out to explore the daily life of Vassar students. In this film, the Capserkill Watershed is used by students less for recreation than it is for academic pursuits, although there is, of course, a scene of students ice skating.
11:19 – 11:57 — “Field work in geology includes surveying for a topographic map of the Sunset Lake area of campus.”
13:43 – 13:59 — “Zoology students often collect their own specimens.”
19:43 – 20:00 — Ice skating on Sunset Lake.
“A Vassar Notebook,” 1970
This film, made by professor and founder of the film department, James Steerman, is composed of a series of vignettes about life at Vassar. Compared to the three earlier collages, this film has far fewer glimpses at any of the elements of the watershed on campus. This could have to do with the elevating levels of pollutions in the three preceding decades, drastically lowering students’ recreational use of the lakes.
27:07 – 27:22 — A man walks along the banks of Sunset Lake while a younger woman (probably a student) examines the waters. The famous Sunset Hill daffodils are also seen.
*If you have a correction or can better identify which lake/creek this is, please email me at thdernbach@vassar.edu. Thanks!