September 2008

Cherry Tree Chronicles 100 Years of University History in Anniversary Edition

BY JULIA PARMLEY

Large black and white formal student portraits fill the pages of the 1908 Cherry Tree yearbook. Athletic teams and fraternities are recorded in posed group photos with minimal narrative. It is a far cry from the colorful graphics and social commentary of today’s yearbooks—and this year, GW’s Cherry Tree yearbook is celebrating the many changes, both on campus and on the page, with a centennial publication.

The 2008 yearbook covers GW events from the past year along with a special anniversary edition, which includes a photo spread with pictures from each decade and a retrospective of the past century.

Editor-in-Chief Joseph Ward III, B.A. ’08, and Executive Editor Beth Furtwangler, B.A. ’08, say the anniversary edition has been a two-year project. The staff has reviewed more than 300 images and worked closely with University Archivist David Anderson to research GW’s past. “The final product is a historical book we can leave with the university,” says Ward.

Furtwangler says the retrospective aims to highlight the events that best reflect the university atmosphere in each decade. Topics range from the evolution of GW Greek life to “Cherry Tree Queen” contests, which featured celebrity judges like Hugh Hefner and Perry Como in the 1950s and 1960s. Additions and renovations to the campus are also chronicled in photos.

The university’s first yearbook, The Columbiad, was created in 1891 and renamed The Mall following the university’s purchase of land on the National Mall in 1905. A faculty member suggested the Cherry Tree name in 1908 after the University’s move to Foggy Bottom.

Hints of the social context of the decades first emerged in the yearbook in the 1920s and 1930s, and slowly posed photos and short descriptions were replaced with more creative and candid content. With the invention of design software in the 1990s, Furtwangler says the yearbook began to feature different fonts, colors, and paper for the first time. The 2008 cover of the yearbook is a drawing of a cherry tree that was featured on the cover of the 1949 yearbook. Ward says this year’s book is also unique because it was made entirely out of “green” materials.

Yearbook adviser Deborah Snelgrove, senior executive director and chief creative officer for student and academic support services, calls the Cherry Tree “monumentally important” for GW. “It’s definitely a content and creative challenge,” she says. “The staff worked very hard to capture the story of the university with photos.”

Snelgrove and members of the Cherry Tree Centennial Celebration Committee have planned events across campus to commemorate the publication, which will be distributed free to 2008 graduates during Alumni Weekend, Sept. 26-28. On Sept. 27, past yearbook editors will join President Steven Knapp and committee members at a reception in the Marvin Center to mark the yearbook’s official debut.

Exhibits exploring aspects of the yearbook will be on display during the academic year at the Media and Public Affairs Building and Gelman Library. To kick off the celebration, 10 cherry blossom trees were planted around the Foggy Bottom and Mount Vernon campuses. Each tree will be named for a passing decade and will receive a plaque during Alumni Weekend. President Knapp helped plant the first tree, dubbed the “Namesake Tree,” in front of Duquès Hall as part of GW’s Earth Day celebration last April.

Ward says the biggest challenge in creating the anniversary edition was blending the decades together into one cohesive book, but the staff enjoyed the process. “It was a good balance between work and fun,” he says. “With what we put in the book, we’re literally making history.”

Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu