On this date seventy-five years ago, Bates Fabrics, Incorporated, ran this ad in the August 18, 1941, issue of Life Magazine to answer the question that was undoubtedly on everyone’s mind: How were college students decorating their dorm rooms? The company put together a College Board consisting of students from the outstanding universities, and they conducted a survey of over 8000 students.

97% of the respondents believed that an attractive room helped any freshman get off on the right foot. Apparently, 3% believed that a dingy room was the way to go. 86% of the students said that they preferred bedspreads with matching draperies, and a third of them already had them. Fortunately, Bates just happened to sell exactly that: matching bedspreads and draperies, and the Life ad highlighted some of their popular designs.

The Yale men shown above preferred the “Cattle Brands” design, which, according to the ad, proved an overwhelming favorite in men’s colleges. And as you can see, these Yale men also had a radio in their dorm room. The radio sitting on the desk appears to be a Zenith model 5-G-401.

This radio was Zenith’s very first portable, sporting a lineup of 1A7, 1N5, 1H5, and 1A5, in addition to a 117Z6 rectifier. The set retailed for $44.95, and could operate off either AC power, as it probably did in the Yale dorm room, or with batteries.

On the Left Coast, the co-eds shown here preferred a “gay, sun-country pattern on homespun ground” for their bedspread and drapes. They apparently preferred to listen to phonograph records on what appears to be a wind-up non-electronic phonograph.

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