Silver Bay in 1906–700 attend YWCA conference

Caroline E. Libby, French instructor and dean of the girl’s dormitory at Bates College, resigned in the wake of an eye brow-raising fund-raiser to send student delegates to the upcoming summer Y.W.C.A. conference at Silver Bay Association in the Adirondacks.

Cigar-smoking Alice Roosevelt, daughter of Theodore, no doubt would have approved of the re-enactment of her celebrity wedding to Ohio Sen. Nick Longworth.

But college officials, and some students, were offended.

“Considerable scandal and gossip has been caused by the mock Roosevelt-Longworth wedding of Bates College girl seniors a few days ago, when some of the students, dressed in men’s clothes and with a mock bride and groom, went through an imitation of the ceremony which took place at the White House today,” the Evening Star of Washington, D.C. reported on Feb. 18, 1906.

Cross dressing wasn’t the only objection.

“In addition a student complained that the affair was sacrilegious, in as much as the entertainment included dancing,” the Evening Star reported. “An order has been issued by the faculty prohibiting dancing by the girls after all future entertainments.”

About 700 delegates attended the Y.W.C.A. conference at Silver Bay in June 1906, the Lake George Mirror reported on June 23, 1906.

“The grounds about the hotel are alive with the young women,” the Mirror reported on June 30. “The front of the hotel with its banners floating from every window present somewhat of a gigantic patchwork quilt.”

Alice M. Grandey of Glens Falls, a Syracuse University student, was among the delegates, The Morning Star of Glens Falls reported.

Decades later Grandey was president of the Glens Falls Club of College Women.

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