A century ago: illustrated idioms in a Mount Holyoke yearbook
THE 1919 LLAMARADA showcases two pages of illustrated idioms, including this one: Her pen ran out in the middle of class.
The uncredited images are shared as part of the “Random Memories” section of the nearly 300-page yearbook. Other drawings appear throughout the book, but there is no reference to the artist or to the names of the editorial staff who assembled an impressive volume.
In a preface titled “Frame” the presumed editor shares, “We want you to realize that these reminiscences of our combined efforts have been subjected to outward influences totally different from those which affected the older canvases in former years. We hope you will view it from every angle and try to understand its lights and shadows, its deeper as well as lighter tones.”
Indeed these idioms and much of the rest of the content reads with a kind of tongue-in-cheek sense of humor during a time on campus and beyond the gates that was more often defined by the current war.
—By Jennifer Grow ’94
This article appeared as “Illustrated Idioms” in the spring 2019 issue of the Alumnae Quarterly.
May 14, 2019
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