Multiculturalism and Curriculum Reform at Dartmouth

Multiculturalism was one of the hottest cultural flashpoints in the United States during the late 1980s and early 1990s, especially in higher education. Across American universities, debates erupted over what constituted a core curriculum and whose voices belonged in it. These were the so-called "canon wars." Works like E.D. Hirsch’s Cultural Literacy (1987) and Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind (1987) sparked fierce controversy over essential knowledge, with conservative critics warning that diversifying syllabi would dilute academic rigor and displace the Western intellectual tradition. At Stanford, student-led protests demanding a more inclusive curriculum prompted the university to replace its required Western Civilization course with a multicultural alternative, an institutional change that became a lightning rod in the canon wars.

Yet for all the attention on these college campuses, Dartmouth College rarely appeared in national accounts of these disputes. When it did, it was usually cited as a campus that had already "solved" the problem: Dartmouth, after all, had implemented a "non-Western" requirement starting with the Class of 1985. Even in Illiberal Education (1991)—a widely read book by Dinesh D'Souza '83 critiquing multiculturalism in academia written by a Dartmouth alum—the College is mentioned only briefly as an institution that paradoxically required a "non-Western" course for graduation, but not a "Western" one. This raises the question: what was actually happening at Dartmouth during this tumultuous era?

An answer can be found in the November 8, 1991 issue of The Fortnightly, a news magazine published by The Dartmouth, which offers a remarkable snapshot of a campus at a curricular crossroads. The entire issue was dedicated to the theme of multiculturalism, reflecting how seriously the topic was being discussed on campus. Each article opens with a variation of the same line: "Multiculturalism, a catchphrase of the '90s," "Multiculturalism has become the hip new watchword," "Multiculturalism has hit the ground running in Hanover." This repetition suggests both trendiness and urgency, a topic that has arrived and demands collective attention.

The following year, the College undertook a major curriculum overhaul under new president James O. Freedman. A strong advocate for liberal arts education and global learning, Freedman pushed Dartmouth to align itself with broader educational trends. A faculty-led Ad Hoc Curriculum Review Committee convened in February 1991 and recommended a new "World Cultures" requirement to "prepare its students for participation in and concern for the life of the entire planet." According to The Dartmouth, the proposal aimed to widen the curriculum's focus and incorporate more non-Western perspectives.

This shift, however, was not as novel as it may have appeared. Despite the language of curricular expansion, Dartmouth had already instituted a "non-Western" requirement about a decade earlier. The real change in 1991 was not the inclusion of non-Western content, but the addition of two new categories: Europe and the United States. The resulting "World Cultures" requirement obligated students to take one course in each of these three areas.

This structural change was subtle but strategic. By giving Western cultures their own dedicated categories, the new curriculum both expanded and rebalanced the distribution requirements. It repositioned U.S. and European traditions not as assumed defaults but as specific cultural domains to be studied alongside non-Western ones. In effect, it reframed the curriculum to deflect conservative critiques. As President Freedman told The Boston Globe, "We’re trying to preserve an emphasis on Western culture as we respond to concerns about multiculturalism."

Still, the shift was not without controversy. Critics raised concerns about the cost of curricular change. In the same issue of The Fortnightly, English professor Jeffrey Hart warned that "an undue stress on the study of non-Western cultures unavoidably leads to an undue de-emphasis of Western cultures." He also called multiculturalism a "passing fad." Another article, titled "Significant Anglo Exhibits Lost to Multiculturalism," echoed this concern, extending the critique beyond university curricula to museums. It lamented that "with our quest for racial equality and recognition of others' cultures, the past, as we and the previous generations know it, is facing destruction." These pieces revealed a common anxiety about the perceived erosion of Anglo-American traditions.

But were these fears supported by evidence? One article in the issue examined data from Dartmouth’s Organizations, Regulations, and Courses (ORC) catalogs over the past decade. Contrary to claims of a "multicultural surge," the number of courses had remained relatively unchanged since 1981. In fact, the article reported that only four new courses had been added to African and Afro-American Studies, while six had been cut in related fields. "What we can learn from the statistics," the article concluded, "is that the number of courses offered to Dartmouth students has remained relatively unchanged." Still, the author acknowledged that statistics alone cannot account for changes in student interest, intellectual engagement, or campus climate.

One of the most fascinating elements of the November 8 issue is how The Fortnightly positioned itself in the debate. Through strikingly uniform headlines and editorial framing, the magazine mirrored the national discourse while also signaling an acute awareness of the College’s place within it. Some pieces celebrated the expansion of literary canons, while others offered more cautious meditations on cultural literacy and the very purpose of a college curriculum, together reflecting a student body in the midst of its own cultural reckoning.

In hindsight, the 1991 debates about multiculturalism at Dartmouth were about far more than course requirements. They were debates about identity, institutional values, and the politics of knowledge. The "World Cultures" requirement didn’t abolish the non-Western category: it embedded it within a comparative framework that redefined what "multiculturalism" could mean on Dartmouth's terms. Whether this marked a genuine de-centering of the West or a strategic repackaging of it remains a matter of interpretation. As contemporary conversations about decolonizing education, inclusive syllabi, and global knowledge continue, this issue of The Fortnightly reminds us that the struggle over whose knowledge counts is not new.

Posted for Alice Kim '27, recipient of a Historical Accountability Student Research Fellowship for the 2025 spring term. The Historical Accountability Student Research Program provides funding for Dartmouth students to conduct research with primary sources on a topic related to issues of inclusivity and diversity in the college's past. For more information, visit the program's website.

To Those Who See

We're all terrifically glad that spring is here for real, and so we would like to share a lovely book that celebrates the signs of the season. Michigan artist Gwen Frostic's To Those Who See (1965) is our pick this week, a little volume of poetry and linocut prints highlighting scenes familiar in the Upper Valley like uncurling fiddleheads and red-winged blackbirds.

Frostic (1906-2001) is known for her nature-inspired printing, but she worked primarily in the metal arts during the early part of her career, running her own shop. That changed with the onset of World War II as metal became too precious to manufacturing to be used for art. With the closure of her shop, she joined the war effort by working in a factory that produced military aircrafts. But in search of a new medium, she landed on linoleum.

In addition to creating block prints on linoleum, Frostic bought and learned to operate a letterpress. Her own shop, Presscraft Papers, was born. It's the same press that produced our copy of To Those Who See some twenty years later. If you're as excited about the spring as we are, we recommend coming in to look at this little piece of a decades-long artistic career.

To see To Those Who See (ha), request Presses P925fto online and then pay us a visit.

Mitten: It's a Verb Too!

One of the great joys of working at Rauner is the pleasure of unexpected discoveries. You're looking into a person or event when you stumble across something entirely unrelated that proves fascinating in its own right. That's what happened not long ago as our staff researched Thomas Flint, Jr., Dartmouth Class of 1880, whose notebook Rauner recently added to our collections. Our archivist, intending to learn more about Flint, instead found herself delving into an entirely unfamiliar practice: "mittening."

Wait, how'd that happen? Well, Rauner maintains a collection of the class reports, class histories, and reunion books of each graduating class. It was while thumbing through the "Freshman History" of Flint's Class of 1880 that our intrepid archivist came across the following: "A certain young lady of Hanover was heard to remark, 'I have mittened Service, Jake, the Quarter, and in fact I have mittened nearly half the Freshman class.' That is hard on Balaam, for they do say that next to studying he hates women above all things. She didn't mitten Jake the night he walked her home away from the Senior." 

Having never seen "mitten" used as a verb, our archivist was intrigued. "Mittening" seemed to relate to courting practices, but its exact meaning remained unclear. Luckily, another source at Rauner provided a useful clue. In the poem "To Phyllis" (from the volume Echoes from the Sabine Farm), Eugene Field wrote the following:

"Hoc docet (as you must agree)
‘Tis meet that Phyllis should discover
A wisdom in preferring me,
And mittening every other lover."

Mittening, then, meant the opposite of desiring a lover–it meant rejecting them. So the "certain young lady of Hanover" who bragged about mittening half the freshmen in the Class of 1880 was trumpeting the number of men whose overtures she had denied.

But why did mittens, of all things, signify rejection? The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia (1897) enlightens us: "To get the mitten, to receive only the mitten, instead of the hand; be refused as a lover" (p. 3805).

Thoroughly delighted by this unexpected etymological excursion, our archivist returned to the original subject of her research.

If you're interested in Thomas Flint's notebook, which has rules relating to senior societies at Dartmouth, request Codex 003539 online and then stop by!

Oh, the Glory of it All!

When the second edition of The American Gazetteer came out in London in 1762, it was a pretty quiet event. There was nothing really new, just a three-volume compendium of statistics, descriptions of fortifications, notes on natural and political history, some nice maps, and other factual tidbits concerning the new world. But somehow it inspired an Italian printer who decided it was worth translating and embellishing. Suddenly it was a lavish production perfect for the arm-chair colonialist. From the comfort of a nice Italian villa, a gentleman could tour the Americas in all of their glory.

It is worth your time to stop by and take a look--and then think about how the Italians were thinking about the English thinking about the Americas! Ask for Il Gazzettiere Americano, Rare E14 .A54 1763. 

Flypaper

One day in France in 1905, a tiny tragedy occurred. A small fly, attracted to a delicious pool of water, got too close to the surface, fell in, and drowned. Like the proverbial tree in the forest, the death of this insect made no sound and would have likely escaped all human attention if not for one thing: this was no ordinary pool of water. This was a papermaker's vat. Following its untimely death, the fly's body was mixed into the slurry of water and paper fibers in the vat, a thin layer of which was then left to dry on a wire screen, becoming a piece of handmade paper.

We discovered this poor creature on the title page of a book of printer's ornaments, titled Flosculi Sententiarum: Printers Flowers Moralised. At first, it wasn't clear how it met its demise. Did it get squished during the printing process? Did a reader close the book on it? Or was it part of the paper? Using a cheap pocket microscope and phone camera attachment, we examined the page and were able to see paper fibers clearly lying over the corpse of the fly, indicating that it had fallen in during the paper-making process. A second fly appears to have met the same fate later in the book.

According to the colophon, Flosculi Sententiarum was produced in 1967 by the Gehenna Press, a well-known fine press, using paper made in 1905 and bought by a dealer in 1959. Fine press bookmakers like Leonard Baskin at Gehenna are known for their fastidiousness and high aesthetic standards, so it is somewhat of a mystery why they would have used paper with a dead bug in it, and on the title page no less. Perhaps they felt it added character.

                                    

To view the book, bugs and all, request Presses G274basf online and then come to our reading room.

Crossing Lines

John Martin Mecklin, Class of 1939, traveled a lot. A few years after graduating from Dartmouth, he became a correspondent for the Chicago Sun in Europe, sending regular eyewitness accounts of developments in the war. After World War II, he continued as a reporter in Italy. Later he would have posts in Paris and in Saigon but today we're looking at one very specific achievement in world travel. On May 31st 1955, while flying from Singapore to Jakarta, Mecklin crossed the equator.

We know Mecklin did this because there's a certificate in his papers to that effect, reading "KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS THAT John Martin Mecklin borne on the wings of the PH-LDG, a Flying Dutchman of KLM, Royal Dutch Airlines, has had the distinction of crossing the Equator." The certificate is illustrated with Aeolus, the ruler of winds in Greek mythology, sending an airplane and a ship on their way.

Documented as early as the 17th century, line-crossing ceremonies are a variety of folk practice surrounding the first time someone, typically a sailor, crosses the equator. They can range from entirely anodyne to outright hazing and assault. This is a funny commercial example from the '50s -- one imagines there couldn't have been much of a ceremony onboard the plane itself, but the airline clearly found it worthwhile to produce and distribute personalized certificates for its eligible passengers.

To see this and other travel souvenirs, request ML-28 Box 2 Folder 10.

16 Pages of Revolution

Well, we just managed to acquire something we always thought would be out of reach, but here it is, joining the collections, shaming everything around it for being too weak and mealy-mouthed. Despite its humble printing and ephemeral appearance, this is a document of revolution--a document not afraid to call out the oppressors and fight for rights. It is the 1848 Report of the Woman's Rights Convention held at Seneca Falls, N.Y., July 19th and 20th, 1848 printed by the local printer in Rochester. Who knew how important this little pamphlet would become?

We have a great edition of the first American printing of Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. It lays out the principles, but it was Seneca Falls that turned women's rights in American into a political movement with structure and purpose. We can't wait to set them side by side in a classroom and see what happens! Added bonus, it appears to be a presentation copy from Elizabeth Cady Stanton!

You don't have to have a big fancy book to change the world--come see by asking for Rare JK1885 1848d no. 1.