Saturday, February 23, 2013

Coe Daily Life - The Great Sadie Finkelstein Hoax

"Her arrival, tinged with gossip, was recorded on the calendar of the 1922 Acorn: "Friday, the 17th: 'Sadie' makes her first appearance on the campus for the coming year. Understand that she wears a rock on her left hand." Perhaps the most surprising part of learning of this engagement is the fact that Sadie was not a real person at all."


Created as a joke by students in Professor Leroy Coffin's freshman mathematics class, "Sadie's" name was secretly placed onto the roll sheet, and a female student would quietly say "Here!" to continue the charade. Students went so far as to complete an exam for Sadie after finishing their own, and both the professor and registrar were impressed by the excellent grades Sadie managed to pull in.

And so begins the tale of "The Great Sadie Finkelstein Hoax" dreamed up and perpetrated by the class of 1922.  To hear tell of Sadie's time at Coe, as reported by the Cosmos, check out her article on the site "Coe College: The First Hundred years".

~Sara Pitcher, Archives Assistant

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