Cole Porter in Worcester

Contrary to popular opinion, Cole Porter didn't actually spring fully-formed from his Yale education, but spent the four years before that getting ready at Worcester Academy, a Massachusetts prep school.  He arrived on campus in the fall of 1905 from Indiana as a fourteen-year-old freshman, moving into the dorm room that his mother had thoughtfully arranged to have furnished with an upright piano and oriental rugs!

While he was small, and not athletically inclined, he was, by all accounts, a popular student, attracting friends at the Academy with his winning personality and his often comic and risque piano compositions and performances.  According to the Worcester Academy website, he graduated in 1909 second in his class, and was valedictorian, class historian, and author of the Class of 1909 Song, which, unfortunately has not survived.

Illustration Credits and References

Photograph courtesy of the Worcester Academy website.