1790s

• Jan 1792

  Matthew Vassar, founder of the college, born on April 29 in Norfolk County, England, the son of Ann Bennett and James Vassar, farmers and dissenters.

• 1796

  James Vassar, with wife and children, emigrates to the United States.

1810s

• 1811

  James Vassar’s elder son dies when the brewery is destroyed by fire; Matthew Vassar assumes responsibility for the family’s recovery.

1840s

• 1844

  Vassar’s niece, Lydia Booth, suggests founding a woman’s college to her uncle.

1850s

• 1855

  Walt Whitman publishes Leaves of Grass.

• 1855

  Milo P. Jewett, succeeding Lydia Booth at Cottage Hill Seminary, convinces Vassar to found a women’s college.

• 1859

  James Renwick, Jr., architect of the Smithsonian Institution Building and Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York City, becomes architect of Vassar’s Main Building.

1860s

• 1860

  Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species published in America

• 1860

  Matthew Vassar buys land for his college, at the site of a former fairground.

• 1860

  Abraham Lincoln elected president of the United States

• 1861

  Vassar chartered

• 1861

  Civil War begins

• 1864

  Vassar Observatory completed

• 1864

  Milo P. Jewett, first president of Vassar, resigns at the Founder’s request; trustee Rev. John Howard Raymond becomes Vassar’s second president.

• 1864

  Lincoln re-elected president

• 1865

  Main Building and Gate Lodge completed

• 1865

  Lincoln assassinated

• 1865

  353 students enter Vassar’s first class; comprehensive fee is $350.

• 1867

  Vassar’s college colors chosen: the rose of sunrise breaking through the grey of women’s previous intellectual life

• 1868

  Matthew Vassar dies as he addresses the Board of Trustees.

• 1869

  Maria Mitchell and students travel to Iowa to observe solar eclipse.

1870s

• 1870

  First bequest to the college of $30,000 from Jacob P. Giraud, Jr. to found the Natural History Museum

• 1871

  Great Chicago Fire ravages the city

• 1871

  Associate Alumnae of Vassar College is formed.

• 1873

  Western Union telegraph line extended to Vassar

• 1876

  Elevator installed in Main Building

• 1878

  President Raymond dies suddenly; Rev. Samuel Caldwell becomes Vassar’s third president.

1880s

• 1880

  Thomas Edison patents the incandescent lamp.

• 1880

  Telephone service established at Vassar

• 1884

  Under pressure from alumnae, President Caldwell resigns; James Monroe Taylor becomes Vassar’s fourth president.

• 1886

  Statue of Liberty unveiled in New York Harbor

• 1888

  Hors d’Oeuvre, the first student yearbook, published by the Class of 1888 (changed the following year to The Vassarion)

1890s

• 1890

  Battle of Wounded Knee

• 1892

  Princeton professor Woodrow Wilson visits campus, lectures on “Democracy”

• 1893

  Strong Hall, Vassar’s first dormitory, completed

• 1893

  Thompson Annex to the front of Main Building completed (called “Uncle Fred’s Nose,” it was razed in 1960)

• 1894

  Electric trolley cars replace horse-drawn cars, running from Poughkeepsie to Vassar.

• 1895

  First women’s field day in America held at Vassar

1900s

• 1902

  First automobile appeared at Commencement, reported to be a Ford.

• 1903

  Wright Brothers fly first airplane.

• 1903

  Ground broken for Thompson Memorial Library

• 1904

  Commencement is held for the first time in the new Chapel, 176 students receive degrees.

• 1905

  Tuition and residence increases to $400 per annum.

• 1906

  Three huge crates of stained glass cross the Atlantic aboard a steamer and thence by train to Vassar—the Cornaro window.

1910s

• 1911

  Electric lighting installed in Main Building, replacing gaslights

• 1912

  Titanic sinks on maiden voyage.

• 1913

  Students’ Building dedicated

• 1914

  World War I begins.

• 1914

  President Taylor retires; Taylor Gate and Taylor Hall are built in his honor.

• 1914

  First Fall Convocation held, at suggestion of Lucy M. Salmon, professor of history.

• 1915

  Vassar’s 50th Anniversary, at that time, counted from 1865 when Main opened.

• 1915

  Henry Noble MacCracken becomes Vassar’s fifth president

• 1916

  Shakespeare Garden planned by English and botany students.

• 1916

  Students are allowed to see their grades for the first time.

• 1918

  World War I ends.

1920s

• 1920

  19th Amendment grants women right to vote.

• 1923

  Trustees vote to limit registration to 1,150.

• 1925

  Tuition and residence raised to $1,000.

• 1927

  Edna St. Vincent Millay ’17 wins Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

• 1927

  First Vassar students participate in junior year abroad.

• 1929

  Stock market crashes; Great Depression begins

1930s

• 1931

  Franklin Delano Roosevelt speaks at Commencement.

• 1931

  Tuition and residence raised to $1200.

• 1932

  Smoking permitted anywhere on campus except Library steps

• 1933

  Franklin Roosevelt speaks from the porch of the President’s House to a crowd of 6,000 as part of “Neighbors Day”.

• 1935

  Buses replace trolley cars, running from Poughkeepsie to Vassar.

• 1939

  Faculty request a plan to invite refugee scholars to the college; between 1939-1943 twenty scholars take part in this program.

• 1939

  Enrollment increases to 1,200.

1940s

• 1940

  Vassar’s 75th Anniversary, at that time, counted from 1865 when Main opened.

• 1941

  Pearl Harbor attacked

• 1943

  Three-year program approved during national emergency.

• 1943

  Tuition and residence increases to $1,250.

• 1945

  Class of 1945-4, first class to graduate on three-year plan

• 1945

  World War II ends with V-E Day and V-J Day

• 1946

  Forty veterans, Vassar’s first male students, attend C-term.

• 1946

  President MacCracken retires, and Sarah Gibson Blanding takes office, the first woman to be chosen as president of Vassar and its sixth president.

• 1947

  Tuition and residence increases to $1,600.

1950s

• 1950

  McCarthy hearings on Un-American Activities begin.

• 1951

  Ferry House co-op, designed by Marcel Breuer, opens.

• 1951

  Picasso paintings, lent by the artist, exhibited in Taylor Hall

• 1952

  Dining room service in residence halls replaced by cafeteria

• 1956

  Elizabeth Bishop ’34 wins the Pulitzer Prize in poetry.

• 1957

  Sputnik I launched by Soviets

• 1958

  Tuition and residence increases to $2,500.

• 1958

  Noyes House, designed by Eero Saarinen, is dedicated.

1960s

• 1960

  “Uncle Fred’s Nose,” the 1893 addition to the front of Main Building is demolished.

• 1961

  Vassar celebrates its 100th anniversary.

• 1961

  Former Vassar student Jacqueline Kennedy sends engraving of White House for the Centennial.

• 1963

  President John F. Kennedy assassinated

• 1964

  Civil Rights Act passes.

• 1964

  President Blanding retires, and Alan Simpson becomes Vassar’s seventh president.

• 1965

  The Oysters of Locmariaquer (1965) by Eleanor Clark ’34 wins the National Book Award for arts and letters.

• 1966

  Vassar and Yale undertake joint study on feasibility of relocating Vassar to New Haven.

• 1967

  Trustees decide against merger with Yale.

• 1968

  Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinated

• 1968

  Robert F. Kennedy assassinated

• 1968

  Twenty men enroll in Vassar courses on a trial basis, first male students since veterans of World War II

• 1968

  Trustees approve admission of freshman men in fall of 1970.

• 1969

  African-American students take over parts of Main Building protesting administration’s response to the nine demands in their proposal.

1970s

• 1971

  Record 2,000-student enrollment

• 1971

  Marian Gray Secundy ’60 elected as Vassar’s first African-American trustee

• 1971

  Lucinda Franks ’68 and her New York Times colleague Thomas Powers share the Pulitzer Prize in journalism.

• 1972

  Five men are arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate complex.

• 1972

  Vassar Gay Liberation Front founded

• 1972

  WVKR begins full operation.

• 1974

  First coed class graduates.

• 1975

  Vietnam War ends

• 1976

  Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs introduce the Apple computer.

• 1976

  275 acres of the Vassar Farm are designated an ecological preserve.

• 1977

  President Simpson retires, and Virginia B. Smith becomes Vassar’s eighth president.

1980s

• 1980

  Commencement speaker William F. Buckley, Jr., withdraws over campus protests about his being invited; retiring Professor of Biology Francis Ranzoni substitutes.

• 1981

  American hostages in Iran freed

• 1981

  Tuition and residence increases to $9360.

• 1982

  “Computing as a Resource” enters the Vassar curriculum.

• 1983

  Meryl Streep ’71 wins second Academy Award and is the speaker at Vassar’s Commencement.

• 1983

  The Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre presents its first Bardavon Gala performance.

• 1984

  Exploring Transfer, Vassar’s summer program for community college students, begins.

• 1986

  President Smith retires, and Frances Daly Fergusson becomes the ninth president of Vassar.

• 1986

  Undergraduate Research Summer Institute (URSI) started

• 1989

  The Berlin Wall falls.

1990s

• 1991

  African-American seniors form a Black Commencement Committee to integrate elements of black culture into the annual event.

• 1992

  Jane Smiley ’71 wins the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for her novel, A Thousand Acres.

• 1993

  Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center opens.

• 1993

  The general public gains access to the World Wide Web.

• 1998

  Intercultural Center renamed ALANA (African American/Black, Latino, Asian/Asian American, Native American)

• 1999

  Vassar is named “College of the Year” by Time Magazine and the Princeton Review.

2000s

• 2001

  Community Works, Vassar’s charitable giving campaign, is launched.

• 2001

  U.S. attacked by Al Qaeda.

• 2003

  Learning and Teaching Center opens (now the Learning, Teaching, and Research Center).

• 2005

  Hurricane Katrina devastates New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

• 2006

  Frances Fergusson retires, and Catharine Bond Hill becomes Vassar’s tenth president

• 2006

  Vassar goes wireless.

• 2007

  Need-blind admissions policy reinstituted