Blasts from the Past: November 16, 2018
Servo Thanksgiving may be a new tradition, but students have long celebrated Thanksgiving at Gettysburg College (Photo Jamie Welch/The Gettysburgian)
By Shannon Zeltmann, Staff Writer
This week, we are looking at some Thanksgiving activities students have been doing on campus and during their break. We hope everyone has a good break and can spend some time away from their textbooks!
This week in 1898, The Gettysburgian announced what some students will be doing on Thanksgiving. Two students would be representing the college’s literary societies of the time in an Inter Collegiate Oratorical Union convention in Philadelphia on Thanksgiving Day, while five students would be going home and one to his sister’s. Two would be in Washington, and the Senior Mustache Club would be meeting right before the holiday.
This week in 1938, the college put in place a one-day vacation for Thanksgiving. Students in 1938 only received Thanksgiving Day off, instead of the three-day vacation that the college traditionally had for 13 years. Between 1915 and 1925, the vacation was one day. The college decided to change it because the over the break the students had “shown a definite laxity,” so they wanted to decrease this. At least we have three days off today!
This week in 1988, The Gettysburgian had a list of things called, “Wouldn’t it be nice if…” The list had five different things in total, ranging from work not piling up to do over Thanksgiving Break to the semester being over now to getting midterms back before Thanksgiving. While these might not apply to all, I am sure everyone still feels a few of these things before Thanksgiving break!
This week in 2008, the annual Servo Thanksgiving took place for two hours and 1,900 students were served. Servo prepared 224 turkeys, over 1,500 pounds of potatoes, over 1,300 pounds of stuffing, and of course, 240 pumpkin pies. With how popular Servo Thanksgiving is, preparations for the dinner start several weeks in advance.
These archived “blasts from the past” were compiled by Shannon Zeltmann using Special Collections in Musselman Library.
