Activities Beyond Campus
Despite tensions, several well-meaning and philanthropic neighbors to the campus sought to invite students from the Summer School over for dinner. At the first of such invitations, several students were worried about not having the proper attire or manners for the event, but were assured by Smith that their presence did not rely on formality. In attending the dinner party, students were disappointed to find the meal consisted of hot dogs and other ‘simple foods’ that the hosts thought befitting working class women. The students of the Summer School were furious at the fact that they were being belittled, and Smith became more discerning in accepting dinner invitations, making sure that the hosts from then on would respect the workers as they would any other student on Bryn Mawr’s campus.
The School, hosting students of a greater median age than the young women of the undergraduate college, provided greater freedom and leniency in seeing men from outside the College community. Early on in the history of the School, according to Smith, three students asked permission to meet up with suitors from town, and the School hesitantly agreed. The three men, after returning with their dates to campus and being introduced to the warden of the dorm, were met with the approval of the administration, and the three were a common sight on campus for the rest of the summer, participating in some activities and reading groups alongside the women they accompanied.
Visitors on campus were a common occurrence, with friends and family of students visiting for an afternoon, instructors from other labor schools across the globe studying what made Bryn Mawr’s Summer School effective, alumni of the program returning to see how the Summer School had grown and changed in their absence, donors hoping to witness what they were financially contributing to, and press hoping to put together an expansive profile on the ongoings of the School. While interaction with the world beyond the walls of campus was encouraged, the administration of the Summer School worried about a constant stream of visitors as a source of distraction and disruption in the classroom. A publicity office was developed by the School as a means of attempting to limit the flow of interested parties hoping to have a look into the School’s ongoings, providing statements and descriptions of the program to reporters, dignitaries, and aspiring labor educators. In this way, the School gained a robust public presence, both through its alumni network’s publications, and those published directly by the Summer School.
Prior to 1935, students were permitted to leave campus to attend protests and participate in activist work. This was a deeply important freedom for students hoping to attend strikes in support of their industries, especially with several workers coming to the School from the same Philadelphia factories which were striking. Students felt that any attempt to limit this freedom was a clear anti-union action on the part of the administration. The School required that students attend only as individuals, rather than as classes or as delegates from the Bryn Mawr Summer School, for fear of outcry from the press that the School was promoting a pro-union agenda at the height of the Red Scare.
One of the most significant of these outings during the run of the Bryn Mawr Summer School was during the 1927 season, after the executions of Sacco and Vanzetti—two working-class Italian immigrants wrongfully accused of murder and robbery in a highly publicized and politicized trial that had spanned years. Students were moved by the story of two figures failed by the judicial system, facing xenophobia and prejudice rather than receiving a fair trial, and the ways in which this ordeal echoed sentiments they had seen within their own communities and lives. The issue is outlined comprehensively in Rita Heller's documentary Women of Summer, where firsthand accounts of the fallout of the executions are recalled by alumni. Students petitioned for the ability to attend marches in Philadelphia, and the School ultimately agreed. Attending these public protests was a means for these students to grieve and acknowledge the pain workers were feeling across the nation, something they felt could not be given up in exchange for security of public image. In this way, students again found comfort and community both on and off campus, reminding them that their experiences at the Summer School were not isolated to those in academia.