Silver Bay in 1928 — Inspiring Barnard scholars

The spirt of Silver Bay Association spilled over to the campus of Barnard College in Manhattan in 1928.

“The Conference Room was the scene on last Friday of the first tea of Barnard’s newly organized club, the Silver Bay Club,” the Barnard Bulletin, college newspaper, reported on Nov. 13, 1928.

Several students who had attended annual Young Women’s Christian Association summer conferences for college students at Silver Bay, a Y.M.C.A. conference center at Hague on Lake George, organized the new club.

The club expected to meet every two weeks for philosophical discussion, going forward.

“They felt that there were many girls in the college who would be interested in the problems which Silver Bay helps you settle and who could derive much of its influence and help through the club, without actually going to the conference.”

Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr, a frequent Silver Bay speaker, was one of the speakers at the group’s first meeting.

He suggested philosophical questions that could be topics at future meetings.

“One of his suggestions was, ‘Where can we fix a happy medium between extreme religious tolerance and the bigotry of thinking our own creed the only justifiable one?’” the college newspaper reported. “Dr. Niebuhr also gave some useful advice about how to make the discussions worthwhile, by urging members to read books on the subjects they are doubtful about.”

The other speaker was Dr. Gulielma Alsop, founder and long-time director of the Barnard College medical school.

“She suggested that we can discover by thinking and talking it over and studying the subject how to be a success with our friends, our families, and the world in general.”

Click here to read the most recent previous Silver Bay history post.