Data story
Boston University or Harvard? Where Massachusetts seniors said they were headed, 1920s-1940s
The plan line in a senior's yearbook entry, counted school by school.
A senior's yearbook entry often ended with a line about what came next. We read 15,460 of those lines from 114 Massachusetts yearbooks, 1920 to 1945, and sorted them by school. The answer depended on where the senior lived: Boston University was the most-named destination at 4 of 16 schools, Harvard at 4, and at most of the rest the leader was a secretarial school, a normal school or a nearby college.
- 4 of 16schools where Boston University led
- 4 of 16schools where Harvard led
- 85.5%of Boston Latin seniors, 1940–45, named a college
- 53.1%of Springfield Commerce seniors, 1940, named office work or business school
The top three, school by school
- Boston University led in Brockton High (1940–45), Malden High (1924–31), Somerville High (1922–25), North Quincy High (1934–39).
- Harvard led in Newton High (1913–25), Cambridge High and Latin (1915–26), Brookline High (1923–31), Boston Latin (1940–45). At Boston Latin, 1940–45, Harvard (223) was followed by Boston College (164) and M.I.T. (102).
- Springfield Central, 1941–45: American International College (94) and Massachusetts State College (73) were the two most-named destinations.
- New Bedford, 1926–45: Campbell Secretarial (99), then St. Luke Hospital (47) and Boston University (37).
Three kinds of senior class
At Newton (1913–25) 69.8% of the plans named a college; at Boston Latin (1940–45), 85.5%. At Springfield's High School of Commerce (1940) it was 1.6%, and 53.1% named office work or business school. Brockton (1940–45) split three ways: 27.5% business or secretarial, 20.0% college, and 16.3% the armed forces. Cambridge (1915–26): 42.5% college and 25.5% business.
Did plans change between the 1920s and the 1940s?
Pooling every school shows college falling from 54.8% of plans in the 1920s to 33.7% in 1940–45, and the armed forces rising from 0.4% to 11.4%. Read the first with care. The books that survive for each period come from different schools: Malden, Somerville, Cambridge and Newton supply 68.3% of the 1920s plans, while Brockton and New Bedford alone supply 54.2% of the 1940–45 plans. Where the same school appears in two periods, college barely moves: Springfield Central 66.4% in the 1920s and 71.4% in 1940–45; Malden 49.7% in the 1920s and 53.1% in the 1930s. The one change that shows up inside a school is the service: Springfield Central’s military share went from 0.5% to 7.0% (see the war story).
| Plan | 1920s | 1930s | 1940–45 |
|---|---|---|---|
| College or university | 54.8% | 38.7% | 33.7% |
| Business, secretarial or office | 17.6% | 23.1% | 21.0% |
| Teacher training (normal school) | 7.7% | 4.5% | 2.0% |
| Nursing or hospital training | 1.4% | 6.2% | 8.4% |
| Military service | 0.4% | 1.7% | 11.4% |
| A job or trade | 0.4% | 3.4% | 8.2% |
| Seniors with a plan | 4,542 | 2,747 | 7,432 |
| Yearbooks | 43 | 34 | 37 |
Percentages are of seniors who printed a plan and whose plan we could sort; the rest are “another school” or unclassified and are not shown.
How we counted
Only yearbooks that print a plan for at least 30% of their seniors, and have 40 or more seniors, are used (125 of the archive’s books; 114 of them from 1920–45), so a book that never printed plans cannot make a decade look planless. Percentages are of seniors who printed a plan.
A plan is sorted into one group by keyword (military branch names, nurse or hospital, normal school or teachers college, business or secretarial words, art or music, then college or university names). Course names that landed in the plan field (“General”, “College Preparatory”) and a bare “College” are set aside. Spellings of one place are merged (“B.U.” and “Boston University”).
Only schools with 250 or more sortable plans are ranked (16). Counts are people in the yearbooks we have read, which are not every class of every school. The script is work/stories/s01_plans.py.
The scans belong to the libraries that digitised them; each person page links back to its scan. Corrections and removal requests: hello@theclassalbum.com or /rights.
Browse the schools: Boston Latin, Newton, Malden, Brockton, New Bedford, Springfield Central.
Use these charts
Reporters, librarians, teachers and society newsletters are welcome to use the charts on this page with a link back. Copy the snippet under the chart you want; it carries the credit. Every number can be recomputed from the archive’s data (see “How we counted”), and a reporter who wants a different cut, such as one school or one class year, can ask at hello@theclassalbum.com.
top-destination-by-school.png
<a href="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/senior-plans-1920s-to-1940s/"><img src="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/senior-plans-1920s-to-1940s/top-destination-by-school.png" alt="Top three named destinations by school" width="1200" height="675" style="max-width:100%;height:auto"></a> <p style="font-size:.85em">Chart: The Class Album (theclassalbum.com), from yearbooks digitised by public libraries and posted on the Internet Archive. <a href="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/senior-plans-1920s-to-1940s/">Boston University or Harvard? Where Massachusetts seniors said they were headed, 1920s-1940s</a></p>
college-business-military.png
<a href="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/senior-plans-1920s-to-1940s/"><img src="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/senior-plans-1920s-to-1940s/college-business-military.png" alt="College, business and military plans by school" width="1200" height="675" style="max-width:100%;height:auto"></a> <p style="font-size:.85em">Chart: The Class Album (theclassalbum.com), from yearbooks digitised by public libraries and posted on the Internet Archive. <a href="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/senior-plans-1920s-to-1940s/">Boston University or Harvard? Where Massachusetts seniors said they were headed, 1920s-1940s</a></p>
card-boston-university.png
<a href="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/senior-plans-1920s-to-1940s/"><img src="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/senior-plans-1920s-to-1940s/card-boston-university.png" alt="Boston University led at four schools" width="1200" height="675" style="max-width:100%;height:auto"></a> <p style="font-size:.85em">Chart: The Class Album (theclassalbum.com), from yearbooks digitised by public libraries and posted on the Internet Archive. <a href="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/senior-plans-1920s-to-1940s/">Boston University or Harvard? Where Massachusetts seniors said they were headed, 1920s-1940s</a></p>
More data stories
- The war in the senior class: Massachusetts seniors who named the service, 1939-1945
- Barbara rises, Mildred fades: first names in Massachusetts senior classes, 1920s-1940s
- Dot, Al, Bob and Red: the nicknames in Massachusetts senior classes, 1917-1945
- The streets that sent the most seniors to high school: Cambridge, Brookline, Springfield and four more cities
- The most common surnames in Massachusetts senior classes, town by town
- Girls, boys and the course of study: who took commercial, college and technical in Massachusetts high schools
- Before they were famous: 70 notable people in Massachusetts high school yearbooks
Numbers come from the archive's own records and are reproducible; see how the archive is made.