There may be no better way to explore our “Then and Now” theme than to peruse every issue of Sarah Lawrence magazine, as we recently did. Starting with the premiere issue in October 1935 and meandering through the ensuing four score, we found that the magazine has captured the zeitgeist of a community that’s always evolving—yet always faithful to the ideals of progressive education. Review a selection of our covers, they tell a remarkable story.
1935
The first issue of what was then known as Sarah Lawrence College Alumnae Magazine contained an introduction to the new publication by President Constance Warren.
1944 & 1946
The June 1944 issue listed alumnae in the service; in the November 1946 issue, Katharine Tweed Roosevelt ’36 recalled life in Iran, where she lived with her husband, a grandson of Theodore Roosevelt, during World War II.
1962
Six years before Sarah Lawrence officially went coed, the magazine trotted out a men’s issue. (“We are impressed by the numbers of discriminating men who marry Sarah Lawrence girls or who send their daughters to Sarah Lawrence.”)
1953
The spring issue contained writing by alumna Barbara Walters, who would become a pioneer in television journalism, and Mary Winternitz Cheever ’39, whose husband, John Cheever, would win the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
1974
2010
A love letter to a city on the comeback, the fall issue chronicled the synergistic relationship between Sarah Lawrence and New York City.
1991 &1999
The spring/summer 1991 issue contained news of a scholarship that Allan Gurganus ’72, author of The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, set up in honor of his Sarah Lawrence mentor, Grace Paley. Photographer Susan Meiselas ’70, humanities professor Joanne Braxton ’72, and epidemiologist W. Ian Lipkin ’74 discussed the creative process in their work in the spring 1999 issue.
2001
The fall issue contained photographs from Ground Zero by faculty photographer Joel Sternfeld.
2012
The fall issue’s cover story recounted music faculty member Sungrai Sohn’s long road to a liver transplant.