Object Lesson: For the Last of Your Childhood

Posted on April 30, 2018

In the University’s 225th year, the Review is presenting a series of snapshots of the treasured objects that impart Carolina’s history.

Here’s what William S. Powell ’40 wrote in his classic The First State University about the senior class jacket: “Senior Week in the 1930s and 1940s was a time when seniors might be recognized on campus and perhaps even envied by lower classmen. There were extra cuts from class, picnics, beer parties in Battle Park, and other carefree occasions including Barefoot Day, when seniors were invited to go barefooted, perhaps symbolic of a last retreat to childhood before assuming a serious role in the world of adults. Senior jackets … were an important part of the ‘uniform’ of the week.”

Powell, who also earned two graduate degrees from Carolina before spending many years as a prominent member of the history faculty, should know about the jacket. This was his own. It now resides in the North Carolina Collection, of which Powell was the second curator, in Wilson Library.

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