[Three documents from the Hume Polytechnic Institute Registrar's 1920 admissions file for "Vasko, Anna (admitted Sept. 1920, Chemistry, Class of 1924)." File reference: HUPL-REG-1920-158.]

Document I. Application essay, 12 July 1920.

APPLICATION FOR ADMISSION Hume Polytechnic Institute, Port Hume Candidate: Miss Anya Marya Vasko, of Little Warsaw.

I am nineteen years old and I wish to study chemistry at the Hume Polytechnic Institute. I have passed the entrance examinations in mathematics (fourth in my section), in general science (second), in English (sixth), and in Latin (third). I am the first woman candidate for admission to the program in chemistry.

I was born in Port Hume. My parents are Polish immigrants. My father is a foreman at the Blackwell Iron Works; my mother keeps our household and sews vestments for St. Casimir's. Both of my parents attended three years of primary school in Poland before coming to America. I have had, in consequence, the advantage of parents who understand that education is a thing they did not receive and wish very much that their daughter should.

I have chosen chemistry because I understood, at fifteen, upon reading a popular article in a magazine, that what looks to the eye like a single unified substance — a drop of water, a lump of coal, the blood of a wounded bird I once tried to save on our front step — is, at a scale below the eye, a society of smaller parts arranged in a pattern. The pattern is in some cases known; in others it is the subject of continuing study. I should like to be the kind of person who undertakes the continuing study. I do not propose to be the person who discovers what has not yet been discovered. I propose to be the person who is prepared, by training, to do the work that produces such discoveries when the work of another person shall one day build upon mine.

I recognize that the Institute has until the present session admitted only men to its programs in chemistry. I have been told by Professor Ingersoll, whom I have met on two occasions in the offices of Mrs. Blaine's suffrage organization, that the matter of my admission will be considered on its own particulars by the committee. I submit this application with my gratitude for the consideration.

— Miss Anya Vasko, 23 Korcza Street, Little Warsaw, Port Hume. 12 July 1920.

Document II. Letter of Recommendation, 4 August 1920.

On Hume Polytechnic Chemistry Department letterhead.

To the Admissions Committee.

I have been asked by Mrs. Adaline Blaine to write in support of Miss Anya Vasko's application to our program in chemistry.

I have examined Miss Vasko's results in the entrance examinations. I have reviewed, with her, the problem-set of the general science examination — in the course of which she solved, without my assistance, a problem in stoichiometry that I have seen three of our admitted male candidates fail to solve this year. I have spoken with her about her reading, which is more extensive than I had expected of a candidate from the Port Hume public schools. I have satisfied myself that she is an able candidate of a quality equal to the upper quartile of the present year's admitted class.

I will not, in this letter, address the question of her sex. The question has been addressed by the Registrar's published admission requirements, which do not exclude women from the program in chemistry in language. I commend to the Committee's attention the fact that the program's not excluding women in language has, until the present application, been a convenient abstraction. The abstraction is now a concrete matter. I recommend the admission.

I will further note, as the Chair of the Department, that I personally will accept the responsibility of Miss Vasko's mentorship through her first two years of study.

Yours faithfully, Martin J. Ingersoll, Ph.D. Professor of Chemistry; Chair, Department of Chemistry.

Document III. Admissions Notification, 28 August 1920.

Hume Polytechnic Institute Registrar's letterhead.

Miss Anya Vasko 23 Korcza Street, Little Warsaw, Port Hume.

Dear Miss Vasko,

I am pleased to inform you that, upon the unanimous recommendation of the Admissions Committee and with the concurrence of the President of the Institute and the Chair of the Department of Chemistry, you have been admitted to the Class of 1924 at the Hume Polytechnic Institute, program in chemistry, to begin on the 14th of September next.

You are the first woman admitted to the program in chemistry in the Institute's history. Arrangements have been made for your access to the laboratory facilities adjacent to the men's laboratories; Professor Ingersoll, who has accepted responsibility for your mentorship, has arranged a specific corner of the second-floor laboratory for your use.

Tuition for the year, $120, is payable in two installments (September and February); you have been awarded, upon Professor Ingersoll's recommendation and with the concurrence of the Women's Suffrage League (Mrs. Blaine, secretary), a scholarship that covers the tuition in full.

The Institute welcomes you. Your admission will be noted in the Beacon and in the Clarion in due course; we have, as a courtesy, consulted you through your mother about the publicity, and she has expressed the family's preference that the announcement be brief and without further comment beyond the fact.

We look forward to your arrival on the 14th of September.

With our best wishes,

T. R. Prescott Registrar, Hume Polytechnic Institute.