Mortarboard

The first Barnard College Annual was released in 1894 by a group of students eager to give the public "an illustration of the life at [Barnard]" highlighting aspects of both academic and social life. It was also intended as a keepsake for members of the graduating class to remember their time at Barnard. The yearbook name later changed to Mortarboard from 1898 onwards. Mortarboards were produced by a group of students overseen by a faculty member; they were known as the Mortarboard Staff and had a dedicated page at the start of each volume. Each Mortarboard was put together when the class was in their junior year, and released at the end of their senior year—this is why the Mortarboards are often referred to as Junior Class Mortarboards. Mortarboards also include histories of the college and, occasionally, histories of certain departments. Mortarboards are dedicated to prominent members of the faculty and administration, or to members of the Barnard community who have recently passed away. The Mortarboards are currently produced by the Office of Student Life.

The first Annual established the Mortarboard tradition of listing members of the Board of Trustees, Committees, faculty members, and graduate students. It also marked the introduction of each class having a representational symbol. Initial classes were represented by various flowers and colors. In the 1910s, classes adopted mascots (a dragon, a bulldog, and a lion), including problematic appropriation of Native American imagery depicting an "Indian" mascot—the incoming freshman class would have the same mascot of the senior class which had left the year previous.

Finally, classes were represented by the colors blue, yellow, red, or green. Early Mortarboards contained delicate pen drawings, poems, and satirical works which placed the subject matter of life at Barnard within the scope of a well-known literary tract. In 1914, the Mortarboard for the 25th Anniversary of Barnard was built around an "Alice in Wonderland" theme, depicting Alice as an incoming freshman attempting to make sense of the confusion of undergraduate life. The Mortarboards first incorporated photographs in 1903, and photographs came to replace the drawings in the early publications. As the Mortarboard became a more established tradition at Barnard and was given more funding, content and scope expanded. The volumes were divided into further sections, offering detailed information about dramatics, clubs, field day/special events, and athletics teams.