Friday / Weekend Open Lines


Tomorrow marks the anniversary of the opening in 1837 of the first American college for women — Mount Holyoke Seminary in South Hadley, Massachusetts. The new institution began instruction with 80 students, who paid annual tuition and boarding fees of $64. Receiving a collegiate charter in 1888, the school became Mount Holyoke College in 1893, and remains a prestigious liberal arts college for women. Among its prominent alumni are poet Emily Dickinson, and former Secretaries of Labor Frances Perkins and Elaine Chao. Today, there are 11.3 million women attending college, almost 2,200 off them at Mount Holyoke College. In comparison, male higher education enrollment stands at 8.6 million students. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at <www.census.gov>.

Saturday, November 8th. On this date in 1966, Edward Brooke became the nation’s first African-American to win election to the U.S. Senate by popular vote, and only the third to serve in that house. During Reconstruction in the 1870s, two blacks chosen by Mississippi’s legislature briefly represented the state as senators. Brooke’s election ended an 85-year drought of black senators. Since his defeat in a bid for a third term in 1978, the chamber has seated six more African-Americans, one of whom cut his term short to become President. In the 2012 election, 56.5 percent of registered Americans voted. Massachusetts, with 65.4 percent participation, trailed very few states. One of them was Mississippi, with the nation’s highest state voting rate of 73.3 percent. Profile America is in its 18th year as a public service of the U.S. Census Bureau.

Sunday, November 9th. A key part of daily telecommunications is 63 years old this week, as direct-dial telephone area codes for transcontinental calling were introduced in 1951. The mayor of Englewood, New Jersey, made the first official call, picking up the phone and directly called his counterpart in Alameda, California. At the time, all previous long distance calls went through an operator. To begin with, there were 86 exchanges, but the vast expansion in cell phone usage means the U.S. is fast running out of 10-digit phone numbers. American residential customers on average pay $434 annually for their home telephone service and over $700 for cell phones. Despite our familiarity with do-it-yourself calling, there are still some 28,000 telephone operators serving us. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at www.census.gov