A recent account  on Instagram has made it its duty to record Hill’s past through pictures from old Dials. Titled ‘20th Century Hill,’ the account has over a hundred followers and is steadily growing.  Eli Perry ‘18 founded the account on September 19.

“I originally started the account to post outrageous old photos of Hill, of students smoking and drinking. Those photos are everywhere,” Perry said, in reference to the school policies that have changed over the years. “But I’ve spent hours going through these Dials. It’s crazy to get sucked into this book, and thinking about what this school used to be like. Then I go outside and seeing how unchanged everything is, it’s a really strange feeling.”

What strikes Perry the most about his experiences so far isn’t how much Hill has changed, but how it hasn’t.

“One thing you realize after looking through decades worth of photos is that Hill today isn’t all that different from the ‘old’ Hill. In fact, it is remarkably similar in most ways,” Perry said. “And surely, we will become part of this ‘old’ Hill category soon enough…which is an odd thought.”

Perry is a bit of a Hill history buff, having read Chancellor’s History of the Hill School and familiarizing himself with the school’s past.

He decided to start the account after picking up one of the Dials after school one day. All of the photos from 20th Century Hill are from old yearbooks, with some occasionally coming from the archives.

Currently, Perry has no long term goals  except to continue creating quality posts. However, he does have one thing that he hopes students take away.

“I made this account because I feel as if the student body isn’t connected enough with the history of the school,” Perry said. “One person came up to me and said that it made her more proud to be a Hill student. That is one thing that is really important to me.”

True to the account’s name, Perry  only uses photos from  1899 to 1999. The Dial was first published in 1899, and he refuses to take any photos from the 2000s.

“But who knows, in a hundred years, maybe people will be making 21st century Hill,” Perry said.