Postcard Collector, October 2003

The Underwood & Underwood Real Photo Postcards of Mount Holyoke College

[Unfortunately, Postcard Collector doesn't archive their back issues on the web, but this is the text of the article, and the pictures displayed.]

Thank you for running my article on Underwood & Underwood real photo postcards of Mount Holyoke College. I had several people e-mail me and ask me about Shattuck Hall, and my claim that I have only one postcard in my collection that features the building.

They were showing me postcards that they had of the Physical Chemical Science Building, thinking that it was the Shattuck Hall that I had mentioned.

It's an easy mistake to make, because the Physical Science Building was erected right next to Shattuck Hall in the 1930s, and when Shattuck Hall was torn down in the 1950s to build a more modern building, the Physical Science Building was renamed Shattuck Hall.

Lydia Shattuck, class of 1851, was a much beloved professor of botany in her day, and I suppose they did not want her memory lost with the razing of the building that bore her name.

I'm enclosing a scan of the Shattuck Hall postcard that I have, and one of the Physical Chemical Science Building that later became Shattuck Hall, so that your readers can see the difference.

I also wanted to correct a typo in the article; the Observatory was built in 1881, not 1981.