FROM THE ARCHIVES
Cabinet Photographs - the Class of 1919 BY DAVE STONEBRAKER
Hebron History teacher Steve Middleton, an avid EBay watcher for Hebron memorabilia, speaks enthusiastically of ‘Cabinet Portraits,’ the formal posed portraits of people from a time when photography methods and equipment did not allow the spontaneous ‘snapshots’ or ‘selfies’ so familiar today.
A
ugustus Phillips graduated from Hebron with the Class of 1919 and shared senior photos with his classmates. These photos, signed to ‘Gus,’ were a recent gift to the Bell-Lipman Archives; they offer a glimpse into the activities that surrounded graduation from Hebron a century ago and allow us to connect the names and record cards of these former students with their faces. We can now know for sure who many of the young women and men were who are pictured in photographs of individuals and groups that survive from a time before yearbooks became the formal record of each school year. Like the Class of 2021, the Class of 1919 also graduated in a year disrupted by a global pandemic, yet their time at the Academy and graduation was no less a stepping stone to a bright and promising future. The inscriptions themselves are equally charming. A dorm friend, Joe St. Germaine of Greenville, Maine, offered advice: “Gus, when you go west look out for the ‘Bushwackers.’ Stick to your books and go to college. . . it’s the only way now-a-days. Good luck to you through life and remember me. Saint.” Marguerite Millikan of Portland wrote, “My, but you’re such a lady killer ‘Gus,’ perhaps that’s why you have such good luck fishing. . . Good luck to you always, Marguerite.”
FALL/WINTER 2021
29
