Letters From Sarah Lawrence: Growing Up in the 1940s

Who could resist the 1942-45 college letters of 16 year old Betta McCarthy … on her first encounter with the privileged daughters of upper East Side New York at Sarah Lawrence during the Depression and World War II? Nothing gets past Betta. She was adept, conscientious and mischievous. Between courses in economics, poetry and philosophy she took advantage of what the rich thought their daughters needed to know: how America’s other half lived.… She kept track of every dollar from the price of stockings ($1 a pair) … to the costs of tuition at Yale Law School ($225 a term)… Anybody who wants to know what college life was then will be struck with wonder—and delight—at how different yet how familiar were the attitudes of youth long before the cyber age. Betta was cool before cool was ever invented. Daphne Athas, author of Chapel Hill in Plain Sight and Entering Ephesus