September 22, 1893

The college opened with an enrollment of 460 students, and a few more were expected. Among the newly appointed faculty members was classicist Grace Harriet Macurdy, whose distinguished career at Vassar spanned 44 years.

Four members of the Class of 1897 were daughters of alumnae. They thus joined the informal Society of Granddaughters of the College, begun but not publicized in 1892, when Helen Bishop ’96, the daughter of Harriet Warner Bishop ’67, and Marie Champney ’96, whose mother was Elizabeth Williams Champney ’68, matriculated. The new “members” were Mary Evans Baille ’97, Elizabeth Loraine Bishop ’97, Emma Baker ’97 and Clara Tuttle ’98.

Eventually adopting the motto “The condition of your birth/Is the measure of your worth,” the society persisted for several years, raising funds and collecting college memorabilia, but it phased out as the distinction it recognized attenuated.