"Sit lux"-let there be light-becomes the college motto.
Professor Emily Brown finds a score of an arrangement of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" by Frederick Austin in a little bookstore in Oxford, England. It is performed at a trustee dinner in December 1910, its debut in the United States.
An Equal Suffrage League is established at Milwaukee-Downer, which, in 1921, gives way to the League of Women Voters. The organization sponsors debates and organizes the campus for political campaigns and mock elections, regularly electing Republican candidates even when the nation goes Democratic.
Downer students support the war effort by presenting a flag to Troop A of the 1st Wisconsin Cavalry as it sets off for France, supplying baked bread and volunteering to the Red Cross. Professor Amelie Serafon is decorated by the French government for services during the war. She goes on to direct an atelier for relief work.
Milwaukee-Downer's first Color Day is marked by the transfer of a red, green, yellow, or purple banner to the incoming freshman class. These colors provide a means through which class identity is achieved and link Downer women of all generations.
Classmates reward a senior for her participation in athletics,
including team sports, throughout her M-D career by voting her the
"Blue Blazer Girl."
The Department of Occupational Therapy opens in response to a call from the Surgeon General of the United States for trained reconstruction aides. The first degree course in the country, Downer's O.T. curriculum is used as a model by the American Medical Association in setting the standards for acceptable O.T. departments throughout the nation.