Clapp Construction – Cornelia and concrete

Sketch of building plans of the side of Clapp Laboratory, drawn in white pencil against a dark blue background. — ^{_{“South Elevation” blueprints, 1922}}

Construction

Ground broke beginning construction the summer of 1922, long before funding for the $600,000 building was completed. President Wolley commented on this, “Not to build, however, was to endanger the future of the departments concerned, and cripple the teaching of biological sciences at a time when there is increasing demand for women trained in these lines.” (Report of the President, 1920-1923) The blueprints included plans for a museum wing, which the Board of Trustees agreed not to build due to costs.

A side view of Clapp Building, with leafless trees and Mary Lyon's grave sitting in front of it. There is scaffolding on the bottom right of Clapp Building. — _{^{Photo of Cornelia Clapp construction, circa 1923-24}}

Scaffolding put up as Clapp Building is built. Trees obstruct a full view. Text below reads "CORNELIA CLAPP SCIENCE BUILDING. Picture by Florence Holroyd, 1927." — _{^{Photo of Cornelia Clapp Laboratory by Florence Holroyd ‘27, 1924}}

Article titled "THE SCIENCE BUILDING." Articles reads "It seemed incongruous for those gaunt black girders to rise out of the new grass, and for the spring countryside and peaceful Christmas-card farmhouse on the hill to be seen in a frame of heavy steel. Men tramped about and yelled where habitually scholastic calm presided; little trucks clattered over rocks; a bundle of lead piping rolled to the ground with a thud and a clang as it hit against a stone; there was the metallic hiccough of the riveter, and the heaving of the donkey engine. If it were not for these things, if the men were not in blue "Union-mades," you might imagine it the framework of Noah's ark, with the narrow, emptily airy spaces between the beams to be boarded in for double stalls. After all, the ark must have been as huge as this to accommodate all that catalogue of terrestrial fauna. It seemed incongruous again, that anything so ponderous could yet be so intricate, so light, so suggestive of motion. For if it was from one angle a ship, from another it was an airplane, wide-winged, just ready to take off. It was a mighty machine, with tier on tier of wings; it could bear a duplicate of the patriarch's boating party; yet it was easy to imagine it in flight, such was its perfection of form, of symmetry, and of construction, the impression of a great and far-lying body resting easily upon the earth. My potential airplane lay upon a foundation of red brick, the arched holes already outlined by window casings. There was a good earthy smell---perhaps from the bricks---and lumber, piled in heaps near the piping, was fragrantly fresh, as if sap were still running in it. Suddenly, the long shaft of the derrick swung around above the grinders, like a long, stiff neck stretching out, the long neck of a gorged dinosaur rising above the bare black bones of its mammoth victim, casting sluggishly around the other prey. Not a pretty picture---I turned to go away, looking back only once. Again there was something fanciful about the scene: I saw the great steel beams as a warp through which would be woven woof of masonry, of brick and wood, until the whole fabric should be complete, the pattern plain and fine, a building wrought by the shuttle of the engineer. KATHERINE HENRY, '26." — ^{_{“The Science Building”, Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly, July 1923}}

“Men tramped about and yelled where habitually scholastic calm presided; little trucked clattered over rocks; a bundle of lead piping rolled to the ground with a thud and a clang as it hit against a stone; there was the metallic hiccough of the riveter, and the heaving of the donkey engine.”

“There was a good earthly smell – perhaps from the bricks and lumber, piled in heaps near the piping, was fragrantly fresh, as if sap were still running it in.”

I saw the great steel beams as a warp through which would be woven woof of masonry, of brick and wood, until the whole fabric should be complete, the pattern plain and fine, a building wrought by the shuttle of the engineer.”

Dedication

A view of the front of Clapp Building from a slight angle. The building is surrounded by trees without leaves. The scanned photograph has damages on the middle left side and the bottom left corner. — ^{_{Photo of Cornelia Clapp Laboratory, circa 1920s}}

Cornelia Clapp Laboratory was completed in the summer of 1924, and was opened in the fall for student use. On Founder’s Day, November 7, the building was dedicated. Attended by Dr. Cornelia Clapp, the dedication was held after the Founder’s Day exercises. Speeches were given by Dr. Clapp, Mr. Skinner, and Professor E.G. Conklin of Princeton University. Two laboratories on the first floor were named the “Alumnae Laboratories”, dedicated for the alumnae whose contributions paid for the laboratories’ equipment.

_{^{Photo of Dr. Cornelia Clapp in front of Cornelia Clapp Laboratory, circa 1920s}}

Four students work at wooden desks in a chemistry classroom. The classroom has large, sunlit windows. — Photo of students in Cornelia Clapp Laboratory, circa 1924,

Three young female students sit at a lab table, studying small plants. They're writing notes and not looking at the camera. The classroom has large windows, with lots of sunlight shining in. — Photo of students in Cornelia Clapp Laboratory, circa 1924,

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