1922
The Lincoln Memorial was completed in Washington. The Nineteenth Amendment, establishing
Woman's Suffrage, became effective. Russia became the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Mussolini became premier of Italy. Taylor and Young conducted the first successful research
on radar. Dr. Alexis Carrel discovered leucocytes or white corpuscles. In Manhattan, the
telephone company installed the first mechanical switchboard exchange. DeWitt Wallace began
The Reader's Digest. Eleven percent of the US population spoke no English. Lee De Forest
invented a motion picture device to record photoplay and voice on the same film. Harvard
astronomers discovered two new stellar outposts which widened the universe by two quintillion
miles. King Tut's tomb was found in Egypt. Commercially sponsored radio broadcasts began.
Popular songs of the year were April Showers, My Man, and Say It With Music. Sinclair Lewis
published Babbitt, and Eugene O'Neill wrote The Hairy Ape. Abie's Irish Rose opened in New
York.
• Faculty Salaries • SLU Defeated
• Reunion Trophy • Farrisee Joined Faculty
• Athletic Field • Square & Compass Fraternity
• Scholarship Cup • Chemistry Goat
• Fund Raiser
Faculty Salaries.
A fund-raising pamphlet entitled A Better Clarkson, A Richer Potsdam
described Clarkson's pitiable financial situation. It stated that before 1919, full professors
received only $2,000 per year, and instructors only half that much. It sought a $300,000
endowment fund which would produce an annual income of approximately $15,000 from which
$7,500 was to go to faculty increases, and the rest toward hiring new faculty. This brochure also
stated that each of Clarkson's 215 undergraduates spent $600 annually in Potsdam, an aggregate
of $129,000 per year. Sixteen faculty spent a greater part of their salaries in town, and the more
than $5,000 spent by the College upon repairs and replacements helped the gross income of
Potsdam merchants and contractors.
Reunion Trophy.
Trustee Bertrand Snell donated a Reunion Trophy to be awarded annually to
the class with the biggest attendance at reunion time. Presented to the Clarkson Tech Alumni
Association in 1922, the trophy was engraved with the following inscription:
REUNION TROPHY
presented by Bertrand Hollis Snell to all classes now and hereafter to be graduated from Clarkson College, as a
perpetual trophy of class loyalty and class spirit.
It was to be engraved with the year of every class that won the Cup, and also the year of every
such class establishing a record for percentage attendance. The Class of 1902 won it in 1952.
The Class of 1928 won it in 1953 with 13 of its 57 living members at Potsdam for its 25th
reunion.
