House of

A Thousand Treasures

house is not a home until it is furnished. Well aware of this, the two sisters who provided the funds to begin construction on Alumnae House put out the call to fellow alumnae for help outfitting the new building. And help they did: Gifts large and small began pouring in, ranging from grand items to small necessities. This began a tradition of gifting items and funds to the House that continues to this day. In fact, the vast majority of furnishings and artwork that have graced Alumnae House over time have been donated or purchased by alums, not the College.

Alums donated trees and other plant materials for the grounds. They sent books they had written for the Alumnae House Library. Queen Ferry Coonley, one of the original benefactors, provided curtains and weaving for eight bedrooms.

Two silver vases and a dress belonging to Princess Ōyama (Sutematsu Yamakawa), class of 1892, were displayed in a room dedicated in her memory by the class. A watercolor of Matthew Vassar’s brewery, originally displayed in the pub, is a gift of Martha H. MacLeish, class of 1878; it was painted by her daughter, Ishbel, class of 1920. As part of the house’s 75th anniversary celebration in 1999, Martha Lingua-Wheless ’78 coordinated an Anniversary Quilt with over a dozen alums, which is still displayed on the second floor. And the list goes on!

The most iconic gift to the House, of course, is The Great Wonder: A Vision of the Apocalypse by Violet Oakley, a triptych painted by an artist personally connected to Vassar that was unveiled amidst great fanfare at the house’s formal dedication on June 8, 1924.

The triptych grew out of a visit made by alum Louise Meigs, class of 1891, to the studio of Violet Oakley—then America’s only successful woman mural painter. Meigs, the former roommate of Oakley’s late sister, Hester Oakley Ward, sought to commission a work for the College that would “express a noble idea of womanhood and be an inspiration to everyone who came [there]”; she was captivated by studies Oakley had made related to a passage from the Book of Revelation known as “The Woman Clothed with the Sun.” The passage describes a vision of the apostle John, who sees “a great and wondrous sign” appearing in heaven: “a woman clothed with the sun” who lifts the child she has just borne up to God, saving him from an evil dragon below. The triptych eventually was designated as a gift to Alumnae House from the class of 1891 as a memorial to Hester, who had died of scarlet fever in 1905.

In a pamphlet handed out at the dedication ceremony, Oakley explained the message of empowerment she wanted women to take from the artwork’s central image:

In the triptych The Great Wonder … the central [composition] unveils the high idea of Woman and the offspring of her own labours. … May it serve to lift up Every-Woman who contemplates it with inner vision and ponders its message with profound judgement; nerving her to bring to light—without fear—the child of her inmost yearning …; letting it be caught up from her own strong hands to even higher planes of truth …

But Oakley’s vision for Alumnae House did not stop with the massive artwork that still serves as the living room’s focal point; she created an entire setting for the triptych, from the Italian Trecento-style furniture that surrounded it to the hand-painted, beamed ceiling above it—finished at noon on the day before the house was dedicated. With funds from the Alumnae House Furnishing Committee, Oakley went on a European shopping spree—buying three carved choir stalls in England, an iron lectern in Spain, and a set of candlesticks in Italy, among other items.

Oakley’s original furnishings can still be found throughout the house. However, much of it has been moved to other rooms, as successive house decorators prioritized creature comfort over artistic statement.

Also still visible on two floors of Alumnae House are a series of murals illustrator Anne Cleveland ’37 painted for the house’s Pub in 1946. Depicting scenes of Vassar life with wit and whimsy, Cleveland’s art is as down to earth as Oakley’s is lofty. In perhaps the best loved of these, grinning students in the Daisy Chain file past frowning graduates, who clearly don’t want to leave their beloved alma mater.

As they were being painted, Liz DeLong ’47 offered a perfect tongue-in-cheek description in the June 5, 1946, issue of the
Miscellany:

Two walls preserve for posterity and the anthropologists the unique posture of the female student at study. … On the other end of the wall, the secret, “behind the door” habits of bookworms are revealed to the public eye. The cross-legged style, upheld by the trustworthy floor, is the current vogue, with the “keep-your feet-above-your-head-so-the-blood-will-stay-in-your cerebrum” theory as a close second.

As finals approach, these poses can still be observed on campus!

More recently, gifts have taken care of enhancements to the building. In 1972, the classes of 1907 and 1912 provided seed money to install the first electric elevator. In 1999, a group of alums known as the Triptych Society contributed gifts of $10,000 or greater toward the $5 million renovation of Alumnae House, which included central air conditioning and ADA compliance. Most recently two sisters—one an alum and the other a Vassar parent—donated funds to renovate and update all 13 private guest rooms in Alumnae House. [See here.]

These gifts all help to maintain the feeling so many have when visiting: that Alumnae House truly is a home away from home.