Elizabeth Gavett Hancock papers

The Elizabeth Gavett Hancock Papers contain correspondence, transcripts of correspondence, a scrapbook, biographical information, and photographs. Her correspondence and scrapbook date from 1939-1942 and reflect her social and academic activities as a student at Mount Holyoke College. The letters were written by Hancock to her parents. They discuss her music lessons and her participation in choirs, her zoology studies, Eleanor Roosevelt's visit to Mount Holyoke in 1941, Mount Holyoke President Roswell Ham, the food, dating, dances, and the influenza epidemic on campus in 1941. Hancock also describes air raid drills, rationing, British War Relief work, and other topics that reflect the impact of World War II on the College. Also of note in the correspondence is a reference to an African-American student in a letter dated September 17, 1941. Transcripts of the letters, compiled by Hancock in 1997-1998, are part of the collection. Both the correspondence and the scrapbook document Mount Holyoke traditions such as freshman hazing, Mountain Day, Junior Show, freshman rings, Founder's Day, Faculty Show, Junior Prom, May Queens, and Commencement. The scrapbook contains articles, programs, photographs of Hancock and her friends, notes from friends, and other memorabilia. The biographical information includes a newspaper photograph of Hancock with the Mount Holyoke Junior Prom leaders from 1942 and newspaper announcements of Hancock's 1956 marriage. The photographs are of Hancock and her friends on the Mount Holyoke campus as well as on a Mountain Day picnic.