A Look Inside Student Rooms
During Mount Holyoke’s earliest years, all students lived in the Seminary building. Two students would share an 18×10 foot room, which was heated by an open Franklin stove and illuminated with oil lamps and gas lights. Student often decorated their rooms with carpets, curtains, and tablecloths, taking these items with them every month when they were required to change rooms and roommates. After a fire in 1896 destroyed the Seminary Building, student housing moved to dormitories.
Dorm living continues to be a hallmark of the Mount Holyoke experience. There are currently eighteen residences that house Mount Holyoke students. Brigham Hall was the first dorm completed after the fire in 1897. The newest dorm, Creighton Hall, opened in 2008. Student rooms vary in size, and dorm options range from singles, doubles, triples, to apartments and suites.
Here’s a peek inside dorm life throughout the history of Mount Holyoke.
Torrey Hall 1950s: Students from the class of 1951 relaxing in a room in Lakeside Hall, later renamed Torrey Hall. In the foreground is Lynn DeCesare Flanagan and Lavinia True Plough. In the background from the left are Carol Nearing Lehmann, Mary Gay Gaines Ryan, and Marjorie Parke Felton.
Read about past and current dorm life.
Have a photo of your old dorm room?
Email your submission to us at quarterly@mtholyoke.edu and we’ll add it here!
April 13, 2016
Hi! Does anyone have a photo of 604 in ham?? It looks like both dressers are on one side of the room and I find that really weird, so I’m very anxious to see the room before I move in.