by Josephine Johnson & Mason Godek
It really just looked like some boring old paper rotting in the bottom of a filing cabinet, meant to be thrown away a long time ago. At first glance, the layout seems less like a newspaper and more like an old play no one ever took interest in reading. However, that boring old document represents a beginning, the first of many exciting, scary and downright ridiculous chapters in the story of the University of Mary Washington.
Mary Washington College’s ‘The Bullet’ was first published in 1921. Look at her: so bland, not a drop of color on that page, and photographs are nowhere to be found.
This is the third edition of The Bullet, and the first recorded by the UMW Archives.
Now, this is really where Facetune comes in, colorizing her ink, brightening up her pages and giving her that fresh “we’ve really come a long way” glow.
This is the first edition of The Blue & Gray Press found in the archive.
The 1920s
This is a Jan. 1, 1929, edition of The Bullet with the majority of the front page welcoming the new University President.
“The Bullet: Published every month during college year by the students of Fredericksburg State Normal School.”
For whatever reason, the first two editions of the paper published in 1921 cannot be located; there’s either a vault Special Collections isn’t telling us about, or they just got lost in the shuffle with the Roaring 20’s .
Back then, a subscription to the college newspaper was 50 cents per year, which in today’s money would be just under $7, which isn’t even the cost of some menu items at Panera.
The average monthly–not weekly– edition of the paper would consist of Alumni news, Student Government Association’s constitution, advertisements for local businesses, news, style and athletics. In 1922, by the second year of publication, we up our game a little bit: The Bullet began publishing pictures in some articles.
The paper also covered a lot of smaller Mary Washington College happenings.
Here’s where we get lost again: UMW’s archive does not have issues of The Bullet from most of the years 1923 - 1928. According to the UMW Archives, The Bullet ceased publication at the end of the 1923-1924 academic year and did not publish again until 1927.
The archive has not located any copies from 1921, 1924 or 1927.
This is a copy of a front page not present in the archives from 1923 that was used to represent The Bullet in the school’s yearbook, The Battlefield. The women pictured were the staff members of The Bullet.
The 1930s
This is the first edition from the 1930s found in the archive.
Finally: satanic-esque images. For whatever reason, The Bullet really got into the Devil-Goat dichotomy (students graduating in an odd-numbered were devils, and those graduating in an even-numbered year were goats)
Publication was changed from monthly to biweekly in 1930, at the same time the subscription price changed to $1 a year–it was the Great Depression; people had to make their money somehow
This issue had quite the interesting joke column, with gems such as “Loudspeakers should be bought, not married.” “‘Gentlemen prefer blondes.’” “It is said the ‘flu’ is more likely to attack brunettes than blondes.” Writers seemed to begin to find their voices–at least their satirical voices, that is.
This is a comic printed on the front page of a 1931 edition.
The yearly April Fools edition of the newspaper has been a staple since very early on in publication.
The April Fools edition of 1938 includes a section called “Sputter Bits” dedicated to roasting people.
The April Fools edition of the paper further cemented humor into The Bullet’s history, with roasts, jokes and satire throughout.
The 1940s
Jan. 12, 1940 edition of the paper featured a ‘Slang Department.’ “Campus glamor boy–male with $5; campus glamor girl–co-ed with a late model car.”
During World War II, The Bullet has some references to the global news, but the top stories typically don’t mention the war–maybe because most of the student body didn’t fight.
A comic alluding to the war in a May 1, 1944, edition.
An advertisement for war bonds in a May 1, 1944, edition.
However, in May of 1945, The Bullet published the story “Friedlind Wagner Tells Experiences in Nazi Germany.” Wagner had spoken at Mary Washington College about her life and growing up with Adolf Hitler.
“Miss Wagner knew Hitler from the time that she was five years old until her outspoken opposition to Nazi doctrines forced her to in 1937 flee her home in Bayreuth, where for many years her family had supervised the great Wagner music festivals.”
The 1950s
The 1950’s: what a decade– cigarette ads and the Cold War.
Most, if not all issues of The Bullet around the late 1940s to 1950s feature multiple cigarette advertisements, something that is frowned upon in the modern day.
The 1960s
A Jan. 1960 edition of The Bullet.
The Bullet published student opinions as well as some global news during the Vietnam war as well, with one letter written by students making its way to the Oval Office.
Two articles were published in the same Jan. 9, 1967, edition of The Bullet directly relating to the Vietnam War. One was less centric to Mary Washington College regarding a letter sent to President Johnson protesting the Vietnam War. The other covers a poll of Mary Washington College students and concludes that the majority are in favor of the war.
1970’s
Bullet during the mid 70’s.
As seen above The Bullet in the 70’s kept its older look using title font that would make a calligraphy enthusiast blush. This era of the paper saw the addition of male writers to the newspaper as Mary Washington College changed to a co-educational school.
The 70’s featured its fair share of local advertisements as well as the beginning to what I dub as “The Keg Era” where mentions of Mary Washington student-sponsored events called Keggers provided students with the latest in keg (full of alcohol I’m sure) technology with a clothing twist (much like Hawaiian night or formal clothing).
The Newspaper was in a similar format to most issues of older papers with news, viewpoints, sports and life sections with even a crossword here and there.
As far as controversy goes for the 70’s the Bullet had it’s shortage of such. Except for one story that took up a majority of the Bullet’s pages. This incident, known as the “Westmoreland Four” was an incident in which four male students who resided in the dorm known as Westmoreland Hall were subjected to unfair treatment by school administration and building presidents alike. The men were assumed guilty on counts of vandalism (to be discovered that it was not actual them) and excessive noise in the dorm. The incident offered questioning of the judicial process carried out by the school as the four men were given a hearing rather than a judicial trial as stated in the student hand book at the time.
This is an interview with President Woodard regarding the incident. He seemed to be rather annoyed during the interview, however, text can only reflect so much emotion.
Rather the administration saw it fit to have President Woodard address it directly other than the student council as the process would be quicker with students on council were away at the time.
The Student Government was called into question by its electors as students felt no effort was put into assisting the students' rights and petitioned for a new president as a result but never resulted in anything.
The four men felt as though they were guilty before the trial even began.
1980’s
January 29, 1985, this was the regular front page format The Bullet followed throughout the 80’s.
Throughout the 80’s, many Bullet writers became political once again, commenting on the communist conflict America was facing at the time.
April 1st, 1980, The Bullet uses satire to, I believe, attack the government in some way. Yet, the article just kind of comes off as racist and not comedic.
However, the 80’s was prime for “The Keg Era” as around the end of each semester throughout the decade brought upon new drunken foolishness that was posted in the paper.
David Greer writes an article about his drunken experience at Mary Washington, thoroughly describing his hungover state of well-being. January 28, 1986.
1990’s
According to The Blue & Grey Press style handbook, the paper began to change around 1990 when it came into new leadership. The goal was to bring forth more serious journalism throughout the rest of the paper’s tenure.
The Bullet layout for most of the 90’s. January 19, 1995.
The 1990’s yielded an interesting time for the college. Crime rose, and so did the number of stories on more serious issues, like crime reports and people’s stances on social issues.
‘Negative News’ article, shows serious tone The Bullet changed to as Steve Watkins took over. One student was concerned with the serious tone. February 11, 1999.
Sections in the paper for the 90’s include front page news, opinions, entertainment, sports and features.
Keyonia Yeats is charged with petty larceny, credit card fraud and credit card theft. February 16, 1995.
2000’s to Name Change
According to The Blue & Gray Press style book, the paper garnered a more positive reputation in terms of article quality, and it gave other papers a run for their money The paper won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and Virginia Press association in the early 2000’s.
Oh! They still include crosswords at this point as well (RIP to the crosswords).
October 2, 2009. Layout for The Bullet towards the end of the decade. Already on the front page one can see in the increasingly serious tone of the paper.
Now having the full picture, would someone know where the next chapter in this saga will lead? Definitely not. I’ll give you a hint: someone takes the satire readers seemed to love a little too far.