The Salmagundis

     The Sanford High School Collection has the school yearbooks from 1910, 1912, and 1914-1926. All of these yearbooks, with the exception of the 1918 yearbook, were named and referred to as "Salmagundis." The word Salmagundi is an old Indian word meaning, "a general mixture," and since the yearbooks were a general mixture of things pertaining to the school and the student's lives, the name stuck and the tradition began.
      As the years went on, the Salmagundis became larger, as did each class. The first Salmagundi (1910) is 42 pages long, and cost only 15 cents. They are similar to yearbooks that we have in modern times. They have a senior section in the front of the yearbook, picturing each senior individually and listing their names. Next, they have a section about the juniors, sophomores, then freshman, and each class shows a picture of all the students together. They also include sports, superlatives, and writings from the students.
      And then there are things that we don’t see in our yearbooks. The 1919 Salmagundi features a tribute to a student, Arthur Lossing, who died in battle in France, during World War I. It talks about a memorial service that the school held in his honor. The next page is a drawing of a flag with 24 stars (representing the classmates who are in active service or training), and a 25^th gold star on the border of the flag, representing Arthur Lossing. A third page features a poem dedicated to their “gold star,” Arthur Lossing.
      Another sign of the war is the entire 1918 Sanford High School yearbook. That year, the yearbook committee broke tradition and named the yearbook “Pandora,” for only one year. The historical significance of this yearbook is that it was shortened into a pamphlet, in order to save materials for the war effort. It is so interesting to see evidence of such a big, international, historical event in the yearbooks of a school in the middle of Florida.
     There are things that I wish were not a part of history that can be seen in these yearbooks. There is some unfortunate evidence of racist attitudes to be found in the 1934 Salmagundi. In the Salmagundi, there is a pullout map of Sanford that was hand-drawn (most likely by a student). Toward the bottom of the map is an arrow pointing in the direction of Goldsborough, a historically black neighborhood. A comment written by the arrow reads, “Blacksborough, better known as Goldsborough, they mixed their colors up.” This may be an example of the attitude of white people toward black people during this time period. It’s a shame that this was the way of thinking for many people. I don’t understand how some communities could co-exist with ease, while others could not. 1934 was in the middle of the Great Depression, and tensions could have risen between the groups due to competition for the same jobs. It also occurred to me that Sanford High School was an all-white school. It’s not something that we think about now, since we have been desegregated for over 50 years.
      It does, however, show how far we have come. Until next time,
                                                                                                       Samantha