University of Delaware
Office of Public Relations
The Messenger
Vol. 5, No. 4/1996
Reflections on 100-plus years

     Our main object in publishing The Review is to labor in the
interest of our beloved college. Delaware College is a worthy
institution, and none know it better than the students, who have
felt her training hand."
     These were the sentiments expressed by Horace Greeley
Knowles, Delaware 1884, the first editor-in-chief of The Delaware
College Review, in Vol. 1, No. 1, in September 1882. At the time,
few women were still enrolled in the predominantly men's
college-the vestiges of an experiment in coeducation begun by
President William Henry Purnell. And, the college was small, so
small that the faculty consisted of five professors, one of whom
was the president.
     The evolution of The Review, one of the nation's oldest,
continuously published collegiate newspapers, mirrors both a
changing world and an expanding University. That run is a tribute
to the energy and enthusiasm of its student staffs and to the
tolerance and support of University administrators who, in the
eyes of student journalists for more than a century, have seldom
done anything right.
     One major difference between today's Review and its
predecessors is that early Review content was more literary than
news-oriented. Pre-1900 issues contain essays on such diverse
subjects as Oliver Cromwell, author George Eliot and Sweden's
Queen Christina. Biographies of professors and prominent alumni
were featured regularly and advertising consumed much of the
paper's space. Alumni were encouraged to subscribe at a cost of
$1 per year.
     When Delaware College and the Women's College merged to form
the University of Delaware in 1921, The Review's editor-in-chief
was supported by a male editor at Delaware College and a female
counterpart enrolled in the Women's College. In 1945, Anne
Stonemetz Little, Delaware '46, became the first female editor-in-
chief.
     Since the 1970s, The Review has gained increasing stature
among its peers, frequently receiving All-American honors in
national evaluations. The top editorial and business staffers are
paid.
     The current Review is published twice weekly. Its content is
varied, with important state and national issues as well as
campus news covered by a staff of 45 to 50 students.
     It was the second editor of The Review, Louis L. Curtis,
Delaware 1884, who summarized the paper's progress after its
first year of publication, noting: "...Today it lives, a strong
and healthy child, which, by proper care from alma mater, and
those into whose hands it may chance to fall, will grow to such
an extent, as to make itself an indispensable factor of the
College."
                                    -Elbert Chance '52 '59M