“Hartwick College is no longer an experiment. Three-fourths of a scholastic year have proved this.”
These were words from an editorial seen in The Oneonta Herald of April 18, 1929. True, the college was in a temporary headquarters at the former Walling mansion at the corner of Main Street and Walling Avenue. But the academic experience would move to Oyaron Hill later that year.
The spring months of 1929 saw a lot of momentum to become further established in the city and beyond.
Earlier this week, Daily Star readers learned about a new fundraising campaign, compared to the one conducted in 1927, where many local residents donated funds and land for the new college in the city. Undoubtedly it went well in 1927, and the momentum took hold in 1929.
As readers of The Herald of March 7 found out, upon the death of Willard E. Yager, a well-known businessman in Oneonta, he donated a large collection of American Indian artifacts and lore to the new college.
On March 13, The Herald then reported, “Though no will has been found, the late Willard E. Yager, the famed author and Indian archaeologist, had well defined intentions relative to the disposition of relics and data housed in his Long House at the rear of his Ford Avenue residence with which his sister and sole heir, Miss Marion Yager, is thoroughly conversant, she having been his confidant throughout the years.” This long house is still partially visible on the northern end of the Dietz Street Parking lot, now home to several small storefronts.
“Fortunate indeed for the city of Oneonta, to which he made substantial contributions in many ways during his active years, and for Hartwick college, in the establishment of which in his home city he all along manifested deep and abiding interest, is her familiarity with his plans.” Through the years, the Yager family had strongly supported the new college, and in the 1960s, Yager Hall was built as the college’s library and gallery.
Also in 1929, a new $200,000 campaign was launched. As The Herald reported on April 4, “The students of Hartwick college got behind the …campaign Tuesday with all the fire and enthusiasm that always marks a student movement of any public character. The campaign project was launched in chapel on Thursday morning.” Presenters outlined the plan, why the money was needed and ways which Hartwick students could get involved.
What resulted was an outreach program by the students, all over the region.
The Herald of April 11 reported, “If the Hartwick college campaign…is not one great big hip, hip, hoorah movement it will not be the fault of the day student body, because from the plans made at yesterday’s committee meeting…the young men and women of Hartwick are going to demonstrate the college spirit so forcibly in the four counties adjacent to Oneonta that no man or woman approached in the campaign will have the least desire to refuse a subscription.
“The Hartwick band has volunteered for overtime work and will be in evidence upon every occasion. There will be parades with red fire and college pennants and all the usual features of this type of demonstration.”
Plans were to go to many communities across the region. “A brief band concert will precede a forceful, live-wire talk on the reasons of giving to the $200,000 fund and the future of Hartwick and what it will mean to all young men and women and boys and girls of this section.”
As The Herald editorial of April 18 added, “Hartwick is not merely our college, meaning the city, but our college is in widest sense for all the territory from the eastern New York state line to Ithaca, from the Mohawk valley to the borders of Pennsylvania.”
No doubt, that campaign was successful.
On Wednesday, public safety issues dealt with in 1979.