The Atlantic Monthly online features a
collection of photographs from 1965, summarized as follows:
"A half-century ago, the war in Vietnam was escalating, the space race was in full swing, the Rolling Stones were on world tour, the bravery of those who marched to Selma led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act, and the St. Louis Arch was completed. The United States occupied the Dominican Republic, Malcolm X was assassinated, NASA's Mariner 4 flew by Mars, race riots erupted in Watts, California, and Muhammed Ali defeated Sonny Liston. Let me take you back 50 years into the past now, for a photographic look back at the year 1965."
Most of these photographs are familiar, if not iconic. And then there's this photo of the Mount Hermon School (my alma mater 10 years later) Silliman Hall science building fire that raged during the annual football game against archrival Deerfield Academy on November 24, 1965.
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| Robert S. Van Fleet ~ Silliman Hall ~ Mount Hermon, Massachusetts |
P.S. A more detailed story about the fire and photograph was reported on May 5 in
The New York Times.
1 comment:
This photo was posted online earlier this week as a possible writing prompt on a blog I follow.
What a surprise to be reminded of the fire! I was at Northfield at the time & remember the event, but never realized that there had been a famous picture of it seen around the world (that may be how isolated we were, or it may be how oblivious I was).
I did a search, hoping to refresh my memory about what had happened, and have come across quite a few comments along the line of "Ooooh, they can't even be bothered to stop their game when their school is burning down!" Seems to me that emergency personnel would want them to keep playing and stay out of the way!
Glad to see another alum posting the photo.
I ended up taking 1 of the first coed classes at Mt. Hermon in the new science building 3 years later.
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