Shady Side Academy - Academian Yearbook (Pittsburgh, PA)

Page 10 text:

6 I

Page 9 text:

N-. I 1 C ' ON Q 'f T f ENT S 5. A l :I If! FACULTY and ADMINISTRATION SIXTH FORM SENIOR FEATURES UNDERGRADS INFORMALS ORGANIZATIONS ATHLETICS HOUSES FEATURES JUNIOR SCHOOL ADVERTISEMENTS

Page 11 text:

-10' .tt ss' 1'0 iMV'-- ls A BP-if' 'Q-iw 1:5 212- SHIXUV , f The editors of the Academian have chosen this mid-cen- tury year of 1950 to look back over the nearly seventy years of Shady Side's past, hoping that a study of the fascinating story of the Academy's founding and growth will stimulate an interest in the past and provide inspiration for the future. O ir if K fl X It was an era of prosperity, of growth, of wealth-Big Business was beginning to boom. The panic of 1873-1878 was only a bad memory. Newly built railroads, more highly- developed mines, oil wells, coke ovens, and steel mills using the new Bessemer Converter were bringing more and more prosperity to wealthy Pittsburghers. Men built lavish new homes in the increasingly-fashionable East End section - homes with electricity and telephones, and homes with sons to be given a formal education. No longer was the future mill owner to learn everything in his father's shop, for Shady Side Academy was founded ing1885-to pro- vide this new education for some. V' A Professor William Ralston Crabbe had been tutoring a small group of boys in a stable in Allepheny City, now the Northside, a section fast losing its distinction as the home of Pittsburgh's elite. Thousands of Polish and Slavic laborers, who had come to work in the mills, made it un- desirable for the homes of the men whose pockets they filled. Professor Crabbe's boys were receiving instruction in Latin and Greek in preparation for college when he was approached by a few East End men and asked to found a preparatory school in the Shadyside district. This he did in 1883, in a small brick building off Aiken Avenue. The hrst senior class, containing two boys, was graduated in 1885. The next fifteen years saw the growth of the new school into a strong and permanent institution with a faculty, by 1900, numbering 14 men. The firsLAmdie122i411,l1ppearing in 1897, pictures football, basketball, hockey, track, and baseball teams. Incidentally, the average age of the grid- ders that year was 19 years, 7 months, the average weight, 144 pounds. They won four out of six games, losing only to Kiski. Every track meet featured a bicycle race, while the basketball team cavorted in knickers. September 23, 1895, marked the firggssue of the Shady Side Newifwith Mr. Southard I-lay as editor. Musical groups included a glee club and banjo and mandolin ensembles. There were, in fact, some banjo and mandolin players around the school until late in the 1920's. Two secret fraternities functioned, one of whicn gave the first school dance on December 30, 1895. Moving in 1885 from the original site on Aiken Avenue to the building which still stands, the school occupied from that time until 1922 the block bounded by Ellsworth, More- wood, Amberson, and Bayard. An addition doubled the size of the building in 1897. 'll if Ill After twenty-five years of steady growth, Shady Side Academy went into pf decline. In 1915 Dr. Crabbe r ' ne as principal, to be succeeded 'Luther B. Adams. Although there seems to have been at that time an excellent faculty, the school fared badly in the competi- tion offered by the large new free high schools, Schenley and Peabody. Movies, and other forms of entertainment, in the nearby metropolis of Eag,Libet.ng were. blamed f6r the lack of study. It seerr,15,Lha.LoLunior didn't study as well at Shady ,Side as head in the Eastern prep schools. Not onljcdid the School fallin local esteem, but it seems also to have been decaying from within. The plant was hardly adequate to the needs. The playing field was too small for regulation football or baseball, and the gymnasium was in such a condition that some visiting teams even re- fused to play in it. An athletic director resigned in 1916 to go into the chicken raising business. The New: ceased publication, giving way in 1911 to Knick Knackr, a collec- tion of stilted products of the faculty pen and unfunny at- tempts at student humor, plus a few respectable jokes taken from exchange publications. No Academiam can be found from this same period. In more ways than one Shady Side was coming apart, for from about 1907 on the name was written in two words as it still is. Plans were undertaken in 1916 to pump new life into the Academy and to move it to a more intellectually stimulating location in Fox Chapel. The World War C in which 297 Shady Siders servedl delayed further action until 1919. At that time Mrs. Wallace Rowe consented to donate 125 acres of land if at least 3500,000 was raised to carry out the project of building a new school plant. A campaign among alumni and prominent citizens raised 31,000,000 Armed with a noble-sounding prospectus of which the first item was, Pure air, fresh milk, vegetables from fthe school'sJ own garden, the trustees drew up plans calling for a layout similar to that of the present campus.