Archives West Finding Aid

The majority of Series 1 is comprised of meeting minutes, dating from the month and year the cooperative was established – September 1956 – all the way to its closure in 1984. The meeting minutes are particularly rich in content, and document everything from the procedures and rules of the house, to the social issues that arise from communal living. The overwhelming majority of the minutes are hand-written, except for the minutes from January 1980 to January 17, 1983, which are typed.

The majority of the meetings were roughly organized into three parts: a closing out of old business, bringing forward of new business, and officer reports. Documented topics of discussion at the meeting include: payment of house fees (e.g. for shared baking supplies or toiletries); upcoming social events and ideas for social events, such as dances and house “exchanges;” fines and demerits (e.g. see October 8, 1956); nominations for, and election of officers; and reminders regarding the observation of house rules (e.g. quiet hours, when and where male visitors could be entertained).

The first meeting ledger - September 24, 1956 - March 8, 1959 - is significant in that it documents the first house meeting of the Co-ed Cottage, and election of its first group of officers. Of additional note are the two meetings regarding the closure of the house, held May 20 and May 21, 1984. The minutes for the meeting on May 20 close with the incredulous exclamation “Closing of the house??!” At the subsequent meeting on May 21, then-Vice President for Student Affairs Jo Anne Trow let residents know that other uses for the Cottage were being considered, explaining that an increasing need for space – and concurrent steady decline in interest in cooperative living – was forcing the University’s hand. The students countered, arguing that Coed was a “good place for students to live,” and that the coop had become a home for many of them, not “just a place to stay.” The University had not yet made the final decision to close the Coed Cottage, Trow cautioned, but would wait to see the numbers from the 1984 application cycle. This is the last house meeting recorded in the collection, and the Cottage was closed shortly thereafter. The College of Oceanography which, at the time, had been 25,000 square feet short of administrative and lab space, moved into the space in late 1984.

Series 1 also includes a flyer for an Open House event at the cooperative, a membership ledger (1956 to1984), a constitution, and materials documenting house rules and procedures. Correspondence includes an undated cooperative newsletter, and a letter requesting more information regarding the facilities available at the house and the responsibilities of the residents. House rules and procedures outlined in the General House Procedures and Rules document visitation hours and procedures, quiet hours, house duties, fines and fees, and the “general courtesies” to be observed while living in the house. The membership ledger lists house residents’ names, by term, presumably beginning in Fall 1956. Most residents have a series of checks or x’s next to their name, but no key is provided to explain their meaning (it could indicate the timely payment of house fees).

The scrapbooks, which comprise the bulk of the collection material, are themselves comprised of news clippings, photographs, and ephemera. The news clippings in the scrapbooks primarily serve to document the activities of Coed Cottage residents, and residents’ names are often underlined or otherwise called out in the clippings. The degree to which captions are included in the scrapbooks is variable. The scrapbooks from the late 1970s and early 1980s tend to have fewer captions, while several of the scrapbooks in the late 1960s and early 1970s have very informative captions, complete with names and event titles.

Common news clipping topics include the Pins and Rings section from the Barometer; clippings relating to student GPAs (honor roll lists, etc.); social events on campus (e.g. concerts, Homecoming); and sports. Of special note in the news clippings is an article in the 1961/1962 scrapbook regarding the adoption of a foster child from China by that year’s Junior class; an article in the 1964/1965 scrapbook regarding the approval by the Oregon State Board of Education of two new cooperative on campus, Dixon and Avery; an article from the 1978/1979 scrapbook about Volleyball player, and Coed Cottage resident, Gail Yamamoto; and an article in the 1968/1969 scrapbook regarding a “survey of coop life at OSU.” By 1969, fewer and fewer news clippings are included in the scrapbooks; the scrapbooks for 1978 through 1985 include one or no clippings.

The majority of the photographs in the scrapbooks document: social events such as Christmas and other holiday parties, house dances (including “Nickel hops”), and “firesides” and serenades; traditions such as officer and new member initiations (both “formal” and “informal”), pins and rings, and candle passing ceremonies, and “ponding,” which may have been part of the pinning or candle passing ceremony; campus-wide events such as Mom’s and Dad’s Weekends and IFC Sings; and candid shots of residents – including the house cat, Bobby (1983/1984) – going about their daily lives. Group photographs of cottage residents are included in some of the scrapbooks, but not for every year and/or term.

Photographs of particular interest include an image of several house residents in “brown face” for the Halloween dance (1962/1963), images from the “Sophomore Skip” trip to Cape Lookout (1965/1966). Several students – Florence Endo, a Home Economics major from Hawaii (1957/1958), and Cathy Wangui, a foreign exchange student from Kenya (1964/1965) – have individual portraits included.

Ephemera included in the scrapbooks primarily documents the activities of house residents, and events that took place inside the house. Ephemeral materials include dance cards, holiday cards and thank you notes, campus theater and music programs, wedding invitations and announcements, blank postcards, event flyers (e.g. Mom’s Weekend, Turtle Derby), poems and songs / chants (e.g. the Coed Cottage Theme Song in 1983/1984), and guest lists for house dances.

There are several additional items of note in the scrapbooks. The scrapbook for 1958/1959 includes a list of Coed Cottage charter members. The 1961/1962 scrapbook includes a copy of the Fall 1961 issue of Spindrift, a journal published by OSU to “encourage and recognize the literary and artistic effort among the students of Oregon State University.” Both the 1968/1969 and the 1970/1971 scrapbooks begin each term with a brief narrative of the events of the quarter, and include a list of residents in the house and their room numbers. The 1968/1969 scrapbook is particularly noteworthy for the quality of its captions, which often include names, and irreverent rejoinders. Also of note, particularly in the 1968/1969 scrapbook, is the shift in attitude towards the tradition of pinning. Pinning can be thought of as a sort of engagement to be engaged; traditionally, a man gives his partner his college or fraternity pin as a symbol of his intent to remain in a long-term relationship leading to marriage). Though pinning ceremonies were still being conducted in the late 1960s, it was clearly being taken less seriously, as some girls had begun to poke fun at the tradition by ‘faking’ part of the ceremony (e.g. offering a candle to another girl in the house, or refusing to drink from the pinning bowl).

A survey of the 24 scrapbooks contained in the collection is included in Box 02.