Digital Collections: WMC Literary Societies Newspapers

To search any of the newspapers, open the catalog you wish to view. Press CTRL+F on the keyboard at the same time to open a search box. Type in the word you are looking for in the box, and it will navigate to each instance of that word in the newspaper.

Western Maryland College's first socio-cultural organizations were literary societies: groups of students interested in publishing newsletters, reading literature, and promoting research. All of the societies would hold weekly meetings and host many of the campus events. The first of the three literary societies that would come to exist on The Hill was the co-ed Irving Literary Society (ILS) in 1868. The students filled between four to eight pages with essays, poems, jokes, advertisements, and upcoming events in the Irving Literary Gazette. Monthly issues from 1868 and between the years of 1880-1888 are available. After one year together, the women had other goals in mind. They would split from the ILS to form the Browning Literary Society in 1869. The women had looser, entertainment-focused meetings including music and literary readings on and off campus. Other men would separate from the ILS and create the Webster Literary Society in 1871. The Browning and Webster Literary Societies would later collaborate in 1887 alongside the Philomathean Literary Society (a second female lit. society on campus) to develop The College Portfolio of around twenty pages. Monthly issues from the first half of 1887 are available. One issue of College Week, their commencement exclusive is also available. During the commencement weeks of 1880 and 1881, daily four-page papers were published about the daily activities of what is now considered senior week, edited by Lynn R. Meekins, president of the Alumni Association. In 1887, all of the literary societies discontinued their individual papers and collaborated to create WMC Monthly.

The literary society papers were digitized by Zoe Shelby, Class of 2025. Original copies of the papers are available in the McDaniel College Archives.