centennial spotlight

Top majors, timely courses

Art, English, and business are the most popular majors at Skidmore today. In fact, those fields—in varied shapes and styles to suit the changing times—have been at the heart of the educational enterprise ever since Lucy Skidmore Scribner opened her “industrial club” in 1903. Below is a 100-year summary of top majors and a selection of timely course titles.

1903
Young Women's Industrial Club

Classes: “Embroidery,” “Dressmaking,” “Cooking,” “Typewriting,” “Choral Union,” “Piano Lessons”
Clubs: Literary Evenings, Manual Work, Social Events

1913
Skidmore School of Arts

Music: “Public School Music,” “Organ”
Domestic Science and Art: “Fancy Cookery,” “Plain Sewing,” “Household Economics and Accounts,” “Laundry Work,” “Home Sanitation”
Trades: “Dressmaking: Cutting and Fitting,” “Millinery: Fine Sewing and Embroidery,” “Serving”

1923
Skidmore College

Home Economics: “Modeling and Dress Design,” “Home Nursing,” “Nutrition,” “Advanced Household Management”
Fine and Applied Art: “Mechanical Drawing and Lettering,” “Illustration,” “House Decoration”
Secretarial Science: “Principles of Advertising and Salesmanship,” “Typewriting,” “Commercial Law,” “Business Arithmetic”

1933

Fine and Applied Art: “Lettering,” “Interior Decoration,” “Advertising”
Liberal Arts: “Political Philosophy from Plato to Franklin D. Roosevelt,” “Chemistry Applied to Home and Industry,” “Floriculture,” “The Labor Movement,” “Newspaper Writing,” “Race and Nationality”
Secretarial Science: “Advertising Copy,” “Advanced Dictation and Transcription,” “Business Methods and Office Practice”

1943

Liberal Arts: “Economic Problems of the Post-War World,” “The Latin American Peoples Since Independence,” “Electronics,” “Vocational, Educational, and Personality Testing”

Business and Commercial Science: “Labor Problems,” “Thomas Shorthand,” “Merchandising and Salesmanship,” “Office Machines”
Art: “Industrial Design,” “Mechanical Perspective,” “Appreciation of Graphic Arts”

1953

Liberal Arts: “Minority Groups in America,” “Genetics,” “Introduction to the Chemistry of Radioactive Isotopes,” “Socialism, Communism, Fascism”
Art: “Industrial Design,” “Advanced Interior Design,” “Oriental Art”

Nursing: “Tuberculosis Nursing,” “Operating Room Management,” “Psychiatric Nursing,” “Family Health Service in an Official Agency”

1963

Liberal Arts: “Peoples of India,” “The Politics of Developing Nations,” “Theory of Numbers,” “The Living Religions of the World”
Art: “Book and Advertising Graphics,” “Serigraphy,” “American Architecture”
Nursing: “Pharmacology,” “Epidemiology and Biostatistics,” “Nursing of Mothers, Infants, and Children”

1973

Art: “Graphic Design,” “Advanced Photography and Film-Making,” “Abstract Painting since 1940,” “Introduction to the Art of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas”
English: “Introduction to Black Literature,” “Theories of Literary Criticism,” “The Nature of Language,” “Contemporary European Drama”
Elementary Education: “Education and Culture,” “Methods and Materials of Teaching Social Studies”

1983

Business: “Fashion Coordination,” “Dynamics of Leadership,” “Consumer Behavior,” “Accounting for Not-for-Profit Organizations,”“Taxation of Corporations and Partnerships”

English: “Film,” “Women in Literature,” “The Bible as Literature,” “Folklore”

Art: “Photo-Silkscreen Graphics,” “Advanced Photography,” “Islamic Art,” “Problems in American Arts since World War II”

1993

Business: “Business, Ethics, and Society,” “Entrepreneurship and Small Business,” “International Financial Management and Banking,” “Advertising and Promotion”
English: “Introduction to African-American Literature,” “Language and Gender,” “Non-Western Literature: The Classical World”
Government: “Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics,” “Interest Groups and Public Policy,” “International Diplomatic Negotiations,” “Comparative Politics and Culture: India and Japan”

2003

Business: “Management Information Systems and E-Commerce,” “Foundations of Business in the International Environment,” “Global Financial Institutions,” “Business Strategy”
English: “Evolving Canon,” “Non-Fiction Writing: The Arts Review,” “Non-Western English Literature”
Studio Art: “Computer Imaging,” “Visual Concepts,” “Communication Design”

—compiled by Kathryn Gallien

What do the Wright Brothers share with Lucy Skidmore Scribner?

Both made history in 1903.

Lucy’s Young Women’s Industrial Club also shares a centennial birthday with Ford Motor Co., baseball’s World Series, The Story of My Life by Helen Keller, the teddy bear, and George Orwell, Bob Hope, Clare Boothe Luce, and Dr. Spock.

For more fun facts about the world of 1903, and about Skidmore’svaried and fascinating history right up to the present, visit www.skidmore.edu/centennial and start clicking. Don’t miss the highlighted, cross-referenced map of the downtown campus.