CARLI Digitized Book of the Month – July 2016

Millidek (1945)

Serious business or practical joke? That is the question that comes to mind when we examine this photograph in the 1945 edition of the Millidek yearbook.

At first glance, this photo looks as though it depicts an ordinary college class in session. A man in a three-piece suit and tie sits facing the camera and could be a professor, while students gather close around him. They seem to be engaged in some discussion. Meanwhile, several students stand at the chalkboard doing…wait a second. What are they doing? And is that young woman really wearing a dunce cap?

Then, we start noticing the details in this photo that poke holes in the idea that this is a photo of a typical class at Millikin. Perhaps we can accept the young woman wearing the dunce cap. But, then we examine the three students at the chalkboard. They are not solving tricky equations or diagramming sentences. The two ladies appear to be playing a game of tic-tac-toe, and a third student with his back to camera is sketching a drawing. The male student seated on the far left is not studying a textbook, but is absorbed in reading a comic book. Finally, and maybe strangest of all, the woman seated in a high chair immediately to the right of the professor appears to be polishing an apple. A second apple sits perching in the desk in front of the professor.

The title over the page in the yearbook simply reads, “In the classroom,” and the page facing the photo contains only a quote from Emily Dickinson, which provides no additional clues as to the meaning of the photo. But, flip through the pages of this yearbook and one finds evidence of this sly, tongue-in-cheek humor throughout the book. Well played, Millikin students. Well played.

Written by Alice Creason, Head of Library Technology and Technical Services, Lewis University

This volume was contributed by Millikin University. You can find this volume others from CARLI participant libraries in the Internet Archive.