CARLI Digitized Book of the Month – December 2016

Vol 2002: Ravelings

Since I purposely set out to use clothing as a means for choosing and discussing a yearbook of the month, I'm mildly amused by my unintentional selection of a title that's related to fabric.

Actually, the first time I saw the title of Monmouth College's yearbook, I pronounced it in my head like Rave-lings, as if it were the name of some garage punk band, instead of Ravel-ings. Chalk it up to one of those cases where I'm better acquainted with a prefixed form of the root word. I caught on to my mistake when scrolling through the archive, noticing first the tartan (emblematic of the college’s Scottish Presbyterian heritage) and then the illustrations of yarn or string on the title page and half title of earlier volumes. Further assumptions dispelled: Raveling is not the opposite of unraveling, and the name was not chosen on the basis of how easily tartan material frays. (See the editorial preface from the Class of 1900 for an eloquent explanation of the title’s significance.)

With the holidays looming in mind, I had hoped to find a shining example of an ugly sweater--partly because the unstylish garment is currently experiencing a bizarre commercial popularity, but more so because today happens to be National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day. I utterly failed on that score (best I could find). But yearbooks make good time capsules, and so my attention was repeatedly drawn to the distinctive fashions of the day. Even discounting style shows and yearbook features on trends from tattoos to shoes, changing tastes in everyday wear can often be hard to ignore.

Modeled after the lookbooks in newsstand lifestyle magazines, the coed style pictured in this guide from the 2002 Monmouth Ravelings yearbook doesn’t seem all that different from today’s typical student attire. After nearly a decade and a half, collegiate fashion has not yet cycled through. Perhaps in a few more years….The timespan between this early-aughts look and the Valley Girl fad that spawned a student organization at SIUC in the early-mid 1980s is only slightly longer, yet the fashion chasm is much wider.

Written by Ellen Corrigan, Associate Professor, Cataloging Services, Booth Library, Eastern Illinois University

This volume was contributed by the Hewes Library, Monmouth College. You can find this volume and others from CARLI participant libraries in the Internet Archive.