An Abbreviated List of Women’s League Rules Found in the Archives

• Always sign out on your Out-Of-Town card when leaving campus.
• Men are not allowed at the Women’s League Cabin at any time. Dates may not escort you to the cabin.
• Drinking beer, wine, or hard liquor is not allowed in the cabin.
• If you smoke inside or outside the cabin, be sure your cigarettes are entirely out. Don’t smoke in bed!
• All freshmen, sophomores, and juniors must return to their dorms before 10 pm each night – senior women may return at 11:15 pm. After 11:15 pm, dorms will be locked.
• Permission to stay at a hotel while a student at Carleton must be obtained from the Dean of Women’s Office. 
• Male students may be in Women’s dormitories except during meals. 
• Women are only allowed into Men’s dormitories for special occasions. 
• Alcoholic beverages in any form shall not be possessed or permitted on the college campus or at college-sponsored events. 
• No delivery of food or other items may be accepted into dorms.
• Only at an appropriate time of day, and upon securing permission from her RA, a student may escort male family members to her room.
• Slacks, shorts, or jeans are not to be worn downtown, to classes, to the library, or in dormitory dining rooms. 
• Warm slacks or ski pants may only be worn when temperatures are below zero.
• Pantyhose and dress shoes with a dress or suit will be worn to dinner on Sunday and Wednesday.

The Women’s League rules changed several times over the decades. Women in the league began their term with ten points, and each infraction incurred a loss of one or more points depending on its severity. If a student lost all of their points, they would be “campused,” meaning that for a period of up to three weeks, they would be sequestered in their dorm beginning at 7:00 pm. During this time, there would be no phone calls and no visitors and the “campused” women were required to submit a list of extracurricular activities to the house president. In addition, they were prohibited from participating in these extracurricular activities for the duration of the “campusing.” The rules do stipulate, however, that a senior who was “campused” during the last month of school may appeal to the Women’s League Court for permission to attend senior functions. 

In the Women’s League Court, the offending student’s peers would settle issues regarding the campusing system. This “women-against-women” atmosphere eventually led to the downfall of the Women’s League, as students began to protest the restrictive rules enforced by their peers.

One example of the Women’s Court’s role in a campusing dispute is the case of Sherry Nelson in 1968. These Women’s League minutes, transcribed below, give details about her appeal hearing.

Transcription:

Sherry Nelson Jan 9, 1968

Lost her last point. Wants to appeal previous points. One for not signing a sheet in the dorm sheet booth and another for lateness due to an incorrect clock. (slow).

Point 1: the sheet was paid for – all was legal – except she didn’t sign in at the proper time

Point 2: called in Friday to sign out with plenty of time to Willis clock. Time was busy and by the time she got connected it was late by Gridley clock. Mary Fiebiger however was seeing complaints that Gridley clock was fast that night.

Neither point was her last. Someone had warned her that appeals of any points should be made when all are lost.

Appeal: Campused. 7 days.”

Interpretation:

This example shows the severity of the Women’s Leagues rules and regulations. Nelson’s excuse seems reasonable enough: a slow clock could make anybody late. The presentation of testimony from other students who claimed that the Gridley clock was fast, however, undermines Nelson’s claim while showing just how seriously these rules were taken within the strict, peer-governed environment.

By Dani Reynoso, Sara Negasi and Bladimir Contreras

Our final project is focused on the Olin Farm during the period it functioned as a farm for Carleton College. We created a story map, here’s the link to it: https://arcg.is/0u4ee

Like many other Midwestern colleges at the time, Carleton took part in the purchase of farmlands in order to help provide for their student body. Carleton itself purchased multiple other farms in the immediate area to the Northwest of campus. Some of these include the Parr Farm, Peterson Farm, and Arnold Farm.

Our project is focused specifically on the Olin Farm area, which is the area labeled under ‘Hog Farm Buildings’.

The map below depicts the layout and dimensions of the Olin Farm with the farmhouse on the right and the hog barn, granary and chicken house on the left.

Our research question was guiding by the fact that so much is unknown about the Olin Farm separate from the Carleton Farm and so our goal was to try and learn what life was like on the farm for students and workers as well as to understand the purpose for Carleton’s purchase of the 100 acre farmland.

Our timeline begins with the purchase of the Olin property by Carleton in 1916. It was bought with the intention of being able to feed more students who were enrolling into Carleton and it was a very common purchase for the school.

The above article clipping is from the school’s newspaper that stated Carleton students were able to work on the farm to pay off their room and board. Other archived fiscal reports detail how the house was also rented out to people who would come to work on the farm. The last record of the house being rented out was in 1963 when a man named Norman Johnson paid $660 to rent the Olin residence for a year.

The above note addressed to President Cowling describes how the farm was becoming difficult to maintain thanks to crop failures and a decrease in income from the property. The 1964 letter below is from the Treasurer’s Office and it shows the decline of the Carleton Farms (including Olin) and the college wanting to rent the property.

The last financial record of the farm is from 1964 so we assume that the land was maintained by the school as a former professor currently occupies the house. It is also now part of the area that is known as the Cowling Arboretum, and so the land surrounding the house consists of a nature path.

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Overall, he hope that our project is able to present and explain in an engaging way the history of the Olin farm from 1916-1960(ish). All the information above including texts, images and documents, can be used to explain possible functions of the Olin/Kelley Farm. Lastly, thank you for reading this far, we truly appreciate it. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, input, etc. regarding the entry above, feel free to reach out to us via email contreasb@carleton.edu, negasis@carleton.edu, reynosod@carleton.edu. We’ll be more than happy to connect with you 🙂

A fragment of a bowl, with blue and yellow stripes not visible in the scan, found in excavation unit seven.

A fragment of a cow femur, found in excavation unit six.

Can, with church key indentations visible in top, found in test unit 11.

By Kyra Landry

During this week’s lab block, students in the Wednesday lab group were granted a third and final day of fieldwork, since last week’s rain had cost them one last week. We were fortunate enough to have good weather, but evidence of earlier rain could be seen in the fungal growth, wet soil, and speed at which the Cannon river flowed past the mill site. As in previous lab periods, students split up into working groups focused on DGPS mapping, locating and recording information about archaeological features, and continuing excavation in the two trenches. As this was the last day that either lab section would be working at the Waterford mill site, extra steps were taken at the end of the lab period to clean up the site. Particularly, all the metal stakes and bright pink tape that had been placed throughout the site during initial surveys were removed. Trenches were not backfilled, as we had not penetrated enough layers of soil for that to be necessary. Additionally, the state of the trenches after recent storms illustrated the speed at which they would soon be naturally filled.

Over the previous excavation days, several features were identified but only on the last day of lab were they fully mapped. This was both on paper, with sketches of each of the sites, and using the GIS mapping equipment. One of these features was the back wall of the second mill building, which was connected to another wall closer to the original site. In the process of following each of these formations, a pile of cans and various pieces of colored glass were found along one of the walls. The GIS team mapped each of these locations in order to get a more complete picture of the site. Another group was in charge of drawing some of the features and locations around the mill, such as the lower section of the main mill building closer to the water. Because of its proximity to the river and a rainy spring, we were not able to excavate there, nor were we able to excavate near the wall further along the river by the campfire. However, the GIS group mapped each of these locations as well, meaning future iterations of this class have a head start if they choose to do more excavations at the mill site.

The final day of excavation was quite productive, with both excavation groups getting through a good amount of depth, and putting several buckets worth of dirt through the sifter. Both excavation groups contended with the dampness of the soil as a result of recent rains, in addition to coming to the end of the high artifact density that near-surface excavation at this site yielded.The four students working in the first trench worked in subgroups of two, so that while one subgroup was sifting a bucket, the other was proceeding with the excavation and working on filling another bucket. The group working in the trash pit trench found, as in previous weeks, copious amount of charcoal and metal scraps, in addition to several pieces of glass, plastic and ceramic. Of particular note were a large metal item, which may have been an automobile component, a ceramic sherd that bore the name of the company that manufactured it, and a hollow, bulbous item that could have been either ceramic or rusted metal. Less was found in the second trench, as was consistent with the other excavation periods. Students excavating in the wall trench found a smattering of nails and metal shards, in addition to a large piece of a ceramic artifact. By the end of the excavation period, both groups ensured that they flattened the floors of their trenches, as well as removed the corner stakes and the perimeter tape surrounding their trenches. Trenches were left in such a state that nature could take its course in refilling them.

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Week 7 Summary by: Emily Moses and Sam Wege

Beautiful Weather, Drone Failure, a Deadly Tick, and a Fired .22 Casing

Sun!

“Under the Scorching Sun” – Maanya

Attempted Drone:

Though we tried to get drone data, due to restrictions around telephone lines and railroad tracks and general tree cover it wasn’t possible. Hopefully in coming weeks we can obtain drone footage.

Mapping: 

Findings:

Pictured below are some of the findings from trench 2, which are explained in the trench 2 section.

Trench 2: Context 3

Annie, Aaron, Clara, Hank, Emily and Sam excavated in Context 3. This was the first time excavating for all of us (Aaron was our mentor as he was an experienced trowler from his previous work in Israel and Jordan with Barbara). As Sam mentions in his fieldnotes, previous groups had mislabeled contexts which made it confusing to identify the context Wednesday’s lab was working in.

After establishing context 3, they began excavating working as flat as possible to evenly excavate the site. This was challenging, as it was tempting to dig in areas where there were clearly artifacts protruding. Additionally, as Clara mentions, there were possibly too many cooks in the very dirty kitchen which made communication very important–making sure that everyone was still troweling and clearing at about the same level. Each excavator used a trowel and dust tray–holding the trowel at 90 degrees in order to disturb the stratigraphic layers as little as possible–and swept thin layers of dirt into the pan. Dirt was emptied into large buckets. This process was time-intensive and exhaustive, but rewarding. A few ticks were found crawling, which caused for a minor panic, but they continued work. After buckets were filled, each bucket was brought to the sifter so that hidden artifacts could be uncovered.

As excavation was happening, Annie and Emily took turns drawing a sketch of the various artifacts and rocks as they were being uncovered on the Excavation form.

For bucket one, Sam poured the contents of the bucket onto the sifter as Hank moved the sifting device back and forth; this process surfaced items such as nails and bullet casings, letting the rest of the dirt fall to the ground. This process uncovered charcoal, nails, plastic, bone marrow, shells, and a .22 bullet casing.

Trench 1: Context 4

Arya, Maanya, Miyuki, Price, and Sam worked to excavate trench 1, specifically context 4. This group had a similar process to that of those working in trench 2, and followed the same excavation techniques. This group, however, was working much deeper than that of trench 2. As Maanya discusses in her fieldnotes, they conducted trail trenching–digging the site solely for its archaeological findings and potential.

Following the sifting process, this group separated findings by material, bagged findings, and labeled the bags appropriately. Some interesting finds from this group included metallic springs, a (potentially) glass coaster, some pottery pieces, and a few nails.

Interpretation:

The abundance of charcoal found could be indicative of the mill’s original time in use. In our research about mills, we have learned that they catch fire quite often because the powder released during the milling process is extremely flammable. One local mill that burned down multiple times as a result of this is the Archibald Mill – we hypothesize that the same thing could have occurred here. One further question we could pursue to seek out an answer to whether or not this is the cause of the charcoal would to be to do some sort of analysis on the walls that remain in the mill to see if they have remnants of ash on them. Another possibility is that the charcoal is not the result of a mill fire, but rather from site usage after the end of the mill’s functioning.

Additionally, we found many nails (pictured above), which were greatly rusted. Perhaps these came from the mill’s construction or mechanisms which existed within it. Furthermore, many of the nails are bent or broken, indicating that they were used for something heavy or as support. It is difficult to tell without further analysis, but given the layer at which they are buried and the damage they underwent, we are hopeful that they prove to be from the time of the mill’s use. One potential next step might be to analyze the different nails used and the construction practices of the time. We could compare this research to the nails we found to get a better idea of whether our nails come from the mill’s initial occupation or not.

As far as more contemporary occupation, we found a .22 casing, which is potentially from a more recent time than the mill’s use. With more research regarding the hunting and firearm practices throughout the last couple centuries, we may be able to figure out approximately when the bullet was fired. Depending upon the time at which the bullet was fired, it could raise a few different questions. If it is from the time of the mill’s use, then we should search the Waterford records to see if there was any news of something being fired, intentionally or unintentionally, at the mill. Alternatively, if it is more contemporary we could try to find more bullets or casings to see if we can piece together a pattern of why/when they were fired.

[wpvideo M6DTOPlg]

Vid 1. Aaron demonstrating wonderful brushing technique to excavate trench 2, while Annie ponders the realities of the earth.

 

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