This is the first in a three-part series about the effects of the Great Depression and World War II on SCU. Follow the tag SCU_WWII to read all three posts.

Universities across the world have shifted to virtual instruction this past Spring, ushering in a huge shift in the way curriculum is designed and the pedagogy that goes into its delivery. Now, as spring fades to summer, all eyes are on institutions of higher ed for instruction plans this fall, and administrators are weighing the options of online, in-person (and all the testing and contact tracing that entails), hybrid, and other models with some institutions going so far as to announce a compressed term this fall. This was an approach SCU took during World War II. In this context, it is interesting to see what factors led SCU to change the curriculum, and how that turned out.

Indeed World War II posed even more intense financial hardship than we are currently experiencing, and brought similar feelings of despair, fear, loss, and loneliness. Yet many of us may think of the Depression years when we look for an analogy to the economic troubles we are currently facing. In order to tell the whole story, let’s go back to the 1930s to illuminate the time period leading to the extreme pivots in curriculum and desperate land sales that enabled SCU to survive the war, and later boom as a successful school.

The Great Depression

This infamous time period, starting with the stock market crash of 1929, ushered in much poverty across the nation. However, higher ed did OK as a whole industry. Additionally, Santa Clara’s enrollments and finances fared better than those of other institutions in the California Jesuit Province, a fact that led to power struggles between Santa Clara’s president at the time, Father Lyons, and the provincial leader, Father Maher (former president of Santa Clara), which ultimately led to the unseating of Fr. Lyons as president in 1935. Also during this time we see the rise of unrest in the fields, the arrival of new religious movements, the local San Jose lynching, and of course the four letter word communism seeped into much frantic discourse.

But at Santa Clara, the popularity of sports and other distractions of entertainment created a type of fortress against the doldrums of the outside world, in no small part thanks to Father Lyons, who “had a penchant for fanfare, bunting-wrapped buildings, and grand opera, of which he was an avid devotee” (McKevitt 243). Special visitors were invited on campus, pageants were arranged, and philanthropic groups organized to support the students. Father Hubbard—the Glacier Priest—pulled many a student into his adventures or tales of his adventures. But above all, the popularity of football and basketball got Santa Clara’s students through the 1930s.

1936 Sugar Bowl Team. Image courtesy of SCU Digital Collections.

1937 Sugar Bowl Team. Image courtesy of SCU Digital Collections.

Not only did Santa Clara receive nearly 250,000 spectators during the 1933 football season, that number surpassed the amount of spectators it brought the year before by securing a gain of close to 100,000 individuals (McKevitt 250). All those people at the games equaled profits, good morale, and lots of school spirit to go around. Then, the Broncos won back-to-back Sugar Bowl championships at the end of the 1936 and 1937 seasons, partly as a result of going undefeated two seasons in a row. In both cases, the Broncos faced off against Louisiana State University, beating them 21 to 14 on New Years Day 1937 and 6 to 0 on New Years Day 1938.

On both trips to New Orleans for the game, the team rode “the Sugar Bowl special,” packing fans and prunes—the latter for sharing the sweetness of the Valley of the Heart’s Delight to folks at stops along the way—for the three day train trip. For the second game, in 1937/1938, they also brought along prune juice to share. Locals and other students were encouraged to come along; in 1936, for as little as $122 an individual could secure a standard birth on the “Sugar Bowl special,” and for $102 one could add tourist accommodations including a hotel in New Orleans and a ticket to the game (“Information on Trip to Sugar Bowl Is Given“). That year the Broncos also got spruced up with some news threads: they donned “specially-designed leather and wool traveling jackets with a Bronco emblem on the left chest and a small block SC on the left arm” which gave a “very presentable appearance” in addition to the new “golden-silk pants and brilliant cardinal jerseys” they also received for the game (“Broncos Don New Suits In New Orleans“).

Above image from the Dec. 16, 1937 issue of the Santa Clara (page 3) referring to the New Years Day 1938 Sugar Bowl Game.

On Jan. 6, 1938, the Santa Clara proclaimed, “Great Jubilation Greets Victors: Band, Fireworks, Whistles Salute Buck Shaw and Team Thursday Night.” The author went on to describe the fanfare as compared to the usual decorous celebrations of the town of Santa Clara: “They don’t have much of a celebration in Santa Clara on the Fourth of July; very little noise heralds in the new year each January first and even a Portuguese wedding scarcely stirs the natives to long and sustained cheering. But when the University football team climaxed a season of no defeats and no ties with an upset victory over a highly-favored Louisiana State squad in the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day, for the second consecutive year, even the ordinarily restrained and sedate populace of Santa Clara felt it was high time to make its presence known—or as the French say, ‘faire de bruit.'” Santa Clara wasn’t the only town that got in on the celebrations. The year before, there were banquets in San Francisco and San Jose to celebrate the victory; the Santa Clara claimed the whole state of California was celebrating the Bronco win as a win for the West Coast (Clark 1).

What did all this football success translate to? In short, money: football—and all its spectators—were profitable, and helped SCU get through the depression in a way regular citizens did not experience. All those cheering fans welcoming back the Broncos in January of 1938? They were sources of morale and money secured for the upcoming year of football. Locals were proud of the hometown team and couldn’t wait to show it.

That’s one crisis averted. But what about World War II and its effects?

“…most Santa Clara students dwelled in a world apart, distracted by football games and dances and protected from the worries that troubled the sleep of their elders. World War II would shatter that isolation and break into a thousand pieces a pattern of campus life that could never be put back together again” (McKevitt 257)

Meet us back here later this week for more of the story.

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Header image: Santa Clara University in 1933 courtesy of SCU Digital Collections.

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Works Cited

Beaumont, Bob. “Great Jubilation Greets Victors.” The Santa Clara, Jan 6, 1938, p. 1. Web. May 20, 2020 <https://content.scu.edu/digital/collection/broncoseg/id/3162>.

“Broncos Don New Suits in New Orleans.” The Santa Clara, Dec 17, 1936, p. 3. Web. May 20, 2020 <https://content.scu.edu/digital/collection/broncoseg/id/1952>.

Clark, George C. “Banquets Continue For Team.” The Santa Clara, Jan 7, 1937, p. 1. Web. May 20, 2020 <https://content.scu.edu/digital/collection/broncoseg/id/1991>.

“Information on Trip to Sugar Bowl is Given.” The Santa Clara, Dec 17, 1936, p. 4. Web. May 20, 2020 <https://content.scu.edu/digital/collection/broncoseg/id/1952>.

McKevitt, Gerald. The University of Santa Clara: A History, 1851-1977. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1979.