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Historic Documents Collection
Alma Maters
The Lycoming College Alma Mater that we sing today was written by Helen Weidman who joined the Williamsport Dickinson Junior College's history department in 1944. In 1957, music faculty member William Maxson challenged his colleagues to write lyrics for a new alma mater to be sung to music from Brahms' First Symphony. Weidman rose to the challenge and, a few months later, her contribution became the official alma mater.
The search for an alma mater had been a long one that began in 1948, when the junior college transitioned into Lycoming College. During the interim period, Lycoming, Fair Alma Mater became the unofficial alma mater. Dick Wolf, a member of the class of 1950 and a Williamsport native, had written a school musical that included this song that was very popular with the student body. During the Dickinson Seminary days, the alma mater was Fair Dickinson. Its composer, Dr. Will George Butler, was on the music faculty of the school from 1904-1914, and the alma mater was written in 1911.
History of Lycoming College and its Predecessor Institutions
The late Judge Charles Scott Williams researched and wrote this history spanning the institution's origin as the Williamsport Academy, chartered in 1811 through its formation and early years as a four-year college in the 1940s and 1950s. View a searchable flip book on the Internet Archives' Web site by clicking the link below. Use the arrows and search box at the far right of the page to turn the flip book pages or search for names or topics of interest.
Internet Archives History of Lycoming College
Lycoming College 1812-2012: On the Frontiers of American Education
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Student Record Books
The student ledgers offer a glimpse back in the history of our college; to a time devoid of today's technology. Methodically documented in leather-bound books, these handwritten ledgers were the means by which the institution kept track of enrollment. Newly digitized, these valuable artifacts are yet another example of the Lycoming College Archives- Snowden Library's commitment to preserving the past for the explorations of the future.
Record of Dickinson Seminary of Williamsport, 1848-1887
This volume contains students' names, ages, their home residence, parents or guardians' names, and religious denomination. Specific to this book is the fact that students are entered by the date they enrolled. In the earlier entries space was reserved in the columns for remarks, but by 1854 this space was eliminated. Religious denomination followed the same path, no longer being noted after 1878.
Records of Student/Reports/ Williamsport Dickinson Seminary, 1883-1892
In this ledger there are students' names, which terms (fall, spring, or winter) they were present, and their year of study. Noted here are the students' conduct and demerits, attendance for chapel and recreational activities, and whether or not they were town students or boarders. Additionally there was a small population of Special Students (adult learners) and a category for Day Students appeared in 1884. Cumulative averages were documented for the 1886 winter term along with a class rank, both were gone by 1891.
Record of Students 1886/87-1951
Being the most expansive of the three books in the collection; the records of the school contained in this ledger span the years of its transformation from Williamsport Dickinson Seminary to Dickinson Seminary and Junior College up until its present day incarnation as Lycoming College. Here students are alphabetically listed by year of study; there are new categories for veterans and summer session attendance and beginning in 1914 the faculty are listed after the students.