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Coming Home to Newberry
The Newberry Museum shines a light on the early years of Newberry College and its first Homecoming.
Newberry College Homecomings have been a beloved campus tradition since 1922. Over the last century, Homecoming has become one of the best perks of alumni life — a chance to return home, reunite, and celebrate the people and the place that brought them together.
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Coinciding with the centennial celebration of Homecoming, the Newberry Museum hosted a special exhibit titled “Coming Home to Newberry.” The exhibit was an addition to the permanent exhibit housed at the Museum and ran from September 15, 2022 through January 15, 2023.
“The museum is deeply tied in with the College,” said Steven Knapp, executive director of the Newberry Museum. “It’s one of the three places that we really try to represent, being the County, the City and the College. And so particularly with the fact that 2022 is the centennial of Newberry College Homecomings, we thought trying to recognize that was just a vital thing to do.”
“Coming Home to Newberry” covered the College’s beginnings through the first modern Homecoming in 1922. In the first of the two-part exhibit, visitors could trace Newberry College from its infancy in Pomaria in the 1820s and 1830s through a series of transitions and displacements before finally coming to its current home. This section of the exhibit showcased key early figures in the College’s history, such as the Rev. John Bachman, the Rev. John G. Schwartz, and the Rev. Josiah Smeltzer.
The second part of the exhibit focused on the year 1922 and the significance of the College’s first Homecoming, especially in the historical context of the First World War. This section featured a diorama of the 1922 campus; three of the buildings from that era are still standing – Holland Hall, Keller Hall, and Smeltzer Hallwhile others were razed for newer construction. It also spotlighted Coach “Dutch” MacLean and several members of the Class of 1922, which was the first graduating alumni class to celebrate Homecoming on Setzler Field.
