HISTORICAL COMMENTS BY GEORGE CHEVALLIER

The 1904 Tatler

(The first high school yearbook in Salisbury)



The Tatler is the name of the first attempt at a yearbook for Wicomico High School. This was in 1904. The name continued until a break in publication came about after the 1928 edition. When it resumed in 1941, it was called the Tom-Tom, the name used to this day. In 1904, however, it was still known as Salisbury High School. When a new school opened in September, 1905, they had decided to name it Wicomico High School to show that it included the entire county. The addition of the students throughout the county helped pay for the new high school on Upton Street.

The 1904 Tatler shows not only the styles of the time, but how much things have changed in 106 years. The graduating class had only 15 students. Of these, nine were girls and six were boys. To graduate in those days, a student had to go only ten years, a practice that had only been in effect since 1902 when nine years would qualify a student for graduation.

The pictures of the Physical Labratory (sic) and the Manual Training Exhibit look like something out of an old Frankenstein movie.

They included some of the previous graduates such as Ernest A. Toadvine, Captain Albert Laws, U.S.A., Samuel R. Douglas, James O. Adams, Grace W. Allen, George Handy Wailes, George William Todd, Vaughn S. Gordy, the Hon. Robert P. Graham, Lacy Thoroughgood, N. Price Turner, Harry Ruark, Marion Tabitha Veasey and Edna U. Adkins (daughter of E. S. Adkins). While not many of these names are familiar now, they were known to the students at the time and showed that a good education was essential to success.

Several other entries in the yearbook remind us of a time when the simple things of life were a source of merriment, such was “The Giggling Club”. It was comprised of 21 girls and had officers and by-laws. Their motto was “Giggle and Be Happy”. Apparently, they took giggling quite seriously.

The boys had baseball and football. There were no girls’ sports.

A listing in the latter pages of the yearbook shows the “Personal Characteristics of the Graduates”. One of the more humorous categories besides height and weight is “shoe size”. All together, there are 14 categories listed: nickname, age, height, weight, shoe size, favorite song, favorite expression, favorite author or book, favorite study, vocation, favorite pastime, color eyes, color hair and denomination. There is also a page in the Tatler dedicated to “a few facts”: longest tongue, laziest boy, doomed old bachelor, doomed old maid, fattest boy, fattest girl, posiest (?) girl and greatest street walker are just some of the categories. I think that some of these questions would be challenged by the ACLU today as not being politically correct.

Things have really changed in the last hundred years, haven’t they?