116 Years of Corks & Curls

The University of Virginia was 68 years old in 1887. An all-male institution, the Cavalier men functioned via an intricate network of academic and social organizations, University traditions, and community events. Students were involved with fraternities, athletic teams, literary societies, club sports, even a Temperance Union and a cribbage club. What they did not have, however, was an annual yearbook.

This deplorable state of affairs changed a year later in 1888, when J.H.C. Bagby headed the first successful yearbook staff at the University. His staff was composed of one brother from each fraternity. The fourteen editors wrote in the preface of the inaugural yearbook:

“While we hope that it will be considered a success and a credit to the college, we feel strongly that it is not worthy of the leading college in the South, nor of the genius and talent to be found among its students. Be it successful or unsuccessful, let us hope that it will at least be permanent, and serve as a foundation on which to base successful and creditable productions in years to come.”

The Name: UVA student Ernest M. Stires suggested the title Corks & Curls, and a contest was held for the best rationalization of the name. Leander Fogg (of the Medical Class) won. Fogg explained that cork described an unprepared student who was called upon in class but who remained silent, like a corked-up bottle. In contrast, curl referred to a student who performed well in class and who, when patted on his head by his professor, “curleth his tail for delight thereat.” One might cork an examination but put a curl on a quiz.

The editors of Volume I said that they placed Corks in front of Curls for modesty’s sake. “The title thus chosen was a happy one,” they suggested. “Unique, indigenous, esoteric, it is full of meaning for the elect, while at the same time it piques the curiosity of the uninitiated.”

The Early Years: The editors of the first yearbook aimed their publication at a group of a few hundred students and professors whom they knew well—a small and very different audience from the one current editors must face. The original editors could afford to take liberties in their writing, sometimes making comments that those outside their closed community might not understand. The editors obtained a surprising range of personal information about their classmates, presented in a section entitled “Statistics” that listed (among other things) the average height, weight, hair color, religion, bedtime, and expenses of Virginia students, along with superlatives such as “best looking,” and “most studious.”

The 1888 book does not provide individual mugshot photographs or even a list of names of the students enrolled at the University. The first complete catalog of student names and hometowns appears for the first time in 1892 (vol. 4), arranged over four pages. By 1894 (vol. 6), the list expanded to include place of residence while at school. Two years later, the names of fraternities and school years were added.

Sports were widely covered in early editions of Corks & Curls. Pen-and-ink sketches above a listing of athletes’ names denoted each team in early editions; 1911 (vol. 23) marked the first year that the sports section contained colored, illustrated dividers and candid black-and-white photographs. In 1912 (vol. 24), the football team was recognized by photographs of individual players; these men were the only students to have mug shots that year. Mug shots of the entire graduating class appear for the first time in 1933 (vol. 45).

Greeks: Only 365 men were enrolled in the University in 1888. Of these, 192 (more than half the student body) were members of fraternities; and the editors (who printed their fraternity affiliations above their heads in the staff photograph) devoted over half of Volume I to the different fraternal organizations at Virginia. Beginning in 1891 (vol. 3), the title page emphasized that the annual was “published by the fraternities.” Only in 1952 (vol. 63) did the title page of Corks & Curls begin to read: “published by the students of the University of Virginia.” In 1926 (vol. 38), a “Statistical Studies in Scholarship” section compared fraternity’s grades to each other as well as to the rest of the University. Beta Theta Pi ranked first among fraternities with average grades of 84.4% for the ’24-’25 year. Overall, the average fraternity grade for students in the college was 1.7% higher than the average non-fraternity grade (76%).

Minorities: Over the long history of Corks & Curls, the yearbook’s editors have had changing attitudes toward different races, genders, social classes, and events at the University. The 1890 (vol. 2) editors write, “Many odd and picturesque characters of the negro race are to be met with everywhere around the University, but that notion is now fast passing away before the superior intellectual culture and proud assertion of equal rights on the part of their descendants.” Not uncommonly, however, many pages of the early yearbooks contained caricatures of blacks.

In 1962 (vol. 73), Leroy Willis became the first African American to graduate from the University in the College of Arts and Sciences. The following year Dr Martin Luther King, Jr spoke to 900 students at Old Cabell Hall. Neither event was documented in the 1963 (vol. 74) yearbook. Nine years later, Corks & Curls did publish an article on what it meant to be black at the University. The editors wrote: “Having no Black staff members, we were in a quandary as to how we might accurately depict the Black experience here.” One thing we do know well is that unless you are Black, and are at this university, you can never really know what that combination means.”

The preface to the 2003 (vol. 115) yearbook (edited by Jennifer Kalletta) suggests the staff’s current interest in diversity: “We have broadened our areas of academic concentration from philosophy, arts and science, to include African-American Studies, Religious Studies, and Women’s Studies. We learn lessons from each other about acceptance, understanding, and honesty.”

Women: Women undergraduates were not admitted to the University until 1970, though daughters of UVA professors could attend classes as early as the 1920s. One of the most floral of the many elaborate Corks & Curls tributes to women appears in the 1895 (vol. 8) dedication: to “Southern Womanhood: ever the inspiration and support of Southern chivalry with pride in her patriotism, reverence for her purity, love for her matchless tenderness, and trust in her unfading truth.” The 1914 (vol. 26) yearbook opens with a poem dedicated to the “girls we loved, still love, and always will love”:

We loved the cardinal in thy sweet red lips
We loved thee to thy dainty finger tips
Oh girl of Albemarle!
For all thy gentle kindliness,
For all thy loving friendliness,
And all thy dear sweet wholesomeness,
We love thee still!

In 1939 (vol. 51), a poem entitled “Wahoo Week-Ends” tells a grand tale of visiting girls from different schools, including Richmond debs and made-to-order Southern belles from Sweetbriar. A year after women undergraduates appeared around Grounds in 1970 (vol. 81), Corks & Curls reported that “Virginia has a new face, new legs, a new body, but most importantly, a new mind. They are women and they are students and, thank God, wasn’t it about time!” The all-male staff of the yearbook joked: “There are ads for women’s lingerie in the Cavalier Daily, and there are 42 rejected urinals in the men’s dormitories, and there are lipsticks and powder puffs and false eyelashes and bride’s magazines in Newcomb Hall, and there are painted fingernails waving in the faces of professors.” In 1975 (vol. 86), Ann E. Burlin was elected the first female editor-in-chief of the Corks & Curls. Since then, twenty women have served as head of the organization.