1968 Fire

On January 4, 1968, Holyoke Community College's main building was destroyed by fire. The schedule was different in 1968 so Thursday January 4, classes were in full session and it was the final week of the fall semester classes and 1 week before final exams. HCC had renovated the old Holyoke High School and moved into their new campus in the Fall of 1967. A false fire alarm had taken place a few days earlier so many did not suspect anything was wrong when the alarm sounded and left behind books, notes, coats and personal belongings. An electrical fire had begun in the attic of the 3 story building. It was bitter cold with very low water pressure and fire hoses were quickly turned to ice. No one was injured but the building was a total loss. Administrative files including student transcripts were saved and the college was up and running in temporary locations and final exams were held days later. The Spring semester began a few weeks later in temporary locations and the city and alums rallied the state to keep the college in Holyoke and re-build. A new temporary building opened Fall 1968 and construction began on the Sheehan Farm on Homestead Ave for a new campus which welcomed students Spring semester 1974.

1968 Fire photos

HCC President George Frost surveys the aftermath of the fire

Wednesday's Special

HCC Faculty

FALL POETRY READING

Featuring

Vivian Leskes
Mark Clinton
Marsha White
Michael Tillyer

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 @ 11:00 am

DON 344

Pursuing "Writers, Plumbers, and Anarchists" in Massachusetts

Saturday, November 21, 2009

2:00 pm

Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library & Museum in Forbes Library, Northampton

In conjunction with the Soul of a People: Voices from the Writer's Project, you are invited to join Christine Bold as she discusses some of the secrets, surprises, and unexpected silences which she discovered in the archives of the Massachusetts Writers' Project (1935-43) while researching her book Writers, Plumbers, and Anarchists: The WPA Writers' Project in Massachusetts (University of Massachusetts Press, 2006). The press of the day routinely disparaged Project writers as "plumbers" and branded them as anarchists and subversives after the publication of the Massachusetts state guide, with its controversial passages on Sacco and Vanzetti and labour struggles. The surviving records shed new light on these controversies and offer intriguing glimpses into life as a "worker-writer" in 1930s' Massachusetts.


Christine Bold is Professor of English at the University of Guelph in Canada and author of three books--Writers, Plumbers, and Anarchists: The WPA Writers' Project in Massachusetts (2006); The WPA Guides: Mapping America (1999); and Selling the Wild West: Popular Western Fiction, 1860-1960 (1987)--as well as numerous chapters and articles on popular culture and cultural memory. She has also coauthored the award-winning book Remembering Women Murdered by Men: Memorials across Canada (2006) by the Cultural Memory Group, a collaboration between academics and social justice workers. She is currently editing U.S. Popular Print Culture, 1860-1920 (one volume in the Oxford History of Popular Print Culture) and writing a book titled The Frontier Club: Popular Westerns and Cultural Power, 1880-1924.

Halloween Fun with staff and friends