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VINTAGRAPH • WPA • WWII • YOU MEAN A WOMAN CAN OPEN IT?

The Belles of Belcourt: 1918

Vermont wedding? Not quite. "Belcourt Seminary graduating class." The Washington, D.C., girls' finishing school circa 1918. View full size.

Vermont wedding? Not quite. "Belcourt Seminary graduating class." The Washington, D.C., girls' finishing school circa 1918. View full size.

 

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In Five Years

They will have bobbed their hair and be showing their rouged knees. Shocking!

Career Move

The next time we see the fifth girl from the left, she is dressed in black and yelling "I'll get you my pretty!"

Lily of the Valley

Beautiful bouquets of Lily of the Valley.
Brings back sweet memories of growing up back East.
Sadly, they will not grow here in California as they need a cold winter and a layer of snow.

Women's School Capital

Washington, DC had several schools of this sort. I'm guessing this was because wealthy families of the era felt it was necessary to have a home in the nation's capital. Sending a daughter to a finishing school there was not only convenient, but introduced her to the city's society -- a big plus for a family with social aspirations.

The Depression closed many of them, but the final blow came with World War II when women's schools were taken over by the military. A good example is Forest Glen Seminary, which was an annex to Walter Reed Hospital for several decades before being rehabbed as apartments and condos.

Hello Gorgeous!

The young miss the second from the right strongly resembles the young Barbra Streisand. Just an observation.

Bigger and better things

William and Mary Somervell opened Belcourt Seminary in 1909. Their son Brehon was in charge of building something rather larger and more enduring: the Pentagon.

Relatively little information about Belcourt Seminary exists online. It was located at 13th and Girard NW, but I wasn't able to find a specific address. Google Street View shows older apartment buildings on three of the corners of that intersection and a newer building on the fourth. As most of the online references are within a few years of the school's founding, I suspect it wasn't around for much longer after the date of this picture.

Finished?

Does anyone know what kind of education young ladies like these received at a finishing school? What exactly was "finished?"

[Amazing what a few keystrokes and mouse-clicks will find. -tterrace]

I hope they kept those dresses!

Each dress is so unique and beautiful, I hope they are still tucked away in an attic somewhere -- the "unique" comment also applies to the hairdos in this picture too (but I wouldn't go so far as to say "beautiful" on this one, although I do like the Gibson-look of the girl on the far right).

The Young Lady On The Right

Granted, this is strictly an anecdotal comment. But the young lady on the right seems to have escaped the generalization I've noticed regarding photos of young women back in the day.

Tradition

A wonderful thing. Hope each young lady had a Fancy Dress Ball of her own to attend.

History repeats

Looks surprisingly like my mother's graduating class in 1970. Similar long white dresses, large bouquets of flowers, and the same perfect 10.

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