The Experience of Women at the University of British

THE EXPERIENCE OF WOMEN AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA, 1906-1956. By LEE JEAN STEWART A., The University of British Columbia, 1982 THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (History) We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA October 1986 © Lee Jean Stewart, 1986. In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of The University of British Columbia 1956 Main Mall Vancouver, Canada V6T 1Y3 DE-6 (3/81) ABSTRACT This study of the coeducational experience of women at the University of British Columbia from 1916 to 1956 is threefold. It examines how the institution adapted to the female presence, the ways women assimilated or accommodated themselves to their environment, and the relationship of the changing climate of social expectations of women to the purposes of women's education and their experience at university. The study is placed in both a thematic and a regional context. The thematic framework is suggested by the historiography concerned with women's admission to universities in the nineteenth century. This literature establishes the role of the "uncompromising" and "separatist" feminists, partisan politics, public opinion, social definitions of femininity, and institutional structures in determining the form and content of women's education. The social, economic and political factors that account for the development of higher education in the province define the regional context. This study finds that separatist feminists exerted a significant influence in defining women's education in the early part of the twentieth century. However, social, political and economic considerations guided the establishing of Nursing and Home Economics Departments at UBC. Institutional modifications such as the appointment of a Dean of Women and the building of women's residences, similarly depended on practical economic solutions to appease feminist agitation. iii Irrespective of the equality that is implied by coeducation, social expectations of women continued to act as obstacles to women's participation in higher education and ensured their secondary status. Female students devised strategies to ease the contradictory expectations of the academic and the social community. They chose nonconformity to gender expectations, conformity to standards of femininity, the precarious balance of double conformity to academic and feminine standards, and separatist feminism to redress the inequity of women's secondary status within higher education. iv CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS V ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vi INTRODUCTION . ...... ........ ... 1 CHAPTER I THE THEMATIC FRAMEWORK 5 II THE REGIONAL CONTEXT . 22 III THE ACCOMMODATION OF THE UNIVERSITY TO WOMEN: THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE DEPARTMENTS OF NURSING AND HOME ECONOMICS 63 Nursing ........... ..... 63 Home Economics 75 IV THE ACCOMMODATION OF THE UNIVERSITY TO WOMEN: THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE DEAN OF WOMEN AND WOMEN'S RESIDENCES 125 Dean of Women 125 Women's Residences 139 V THE FEMININE IMAGE AND THE FEMALE REALITY: THE ACCOMMODATION OF WOMEN TO CONTRADICTORY EXPECTATIONS 161 CONCLUSION .......... 203 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SOURCES CONSULTED . , . 207 Part A Primary Sources ...... .... 207 Part B Secondary Sources 210 APPENDIX 220 V LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page Figure 1. UBC Enrollment: 1914-15 to 1950-51 163 Tables 1. Residence of Female Students While Attending McGill University College of British Columbia 1907-14, and the University of British Columbiar 1919-20, 1929-30, 1939-40, 1949-50 143 2. Parental Occupations of Female Students Enrolled at McGill College of British Columbia, 1907-14, and the University of British Columbia, 1919-20, 1929-30, 1939-40, 1949-50 169 3. Religious Affiliations of Female Students Enrolled at McGill University College of British Columbia, 1907-14, and the University of British Columbia, 1919-20, 1929-30, 1939-40, 1949-50 .... 170 4. Religious Affiliations by Sex and Quinquennial Age Groups for Vancouver in 1931 172 5. Nationalities of Parents of Female Students Attending the University of British Columbia 1929-30, 1939-40 173 6. Birth Place of Female Students Enrolled at McGill University College of British Columbia, 1907-14, and the University of British Columbia, 1919-20, 1929-30, 1939-40 173 ACKNOWLEDG EMENTS My supervisor Dr. Margaret Prang and UBC Archivist Laurenda Daniells were instrumental in directing my general research interests to the focus of this inquiry. Throughout the research and writing of this thesis, Dr. Prang's comments, questions, suggestions, and criticisms were always incisive and challenging. Mrs. Daniells' enthusiasm for the study and her expertise at retrieving institutional records helped to reduce the frustration I often felt in attempting to research the diffuse subject of the female experience. The index to sources pertaining to women at UBC, began by Frances Wasserlein and Penny Washington in the summer of 1979, complemented my own research. It is my hope that Wasserlein and Washington (whom I have never met) will find this thesis a satisfying conclusion to the project they must have envisioned several years ago. I am appreciative, too, of Dr. Robert A.J. McDonald's forebearance in our discussions about social class; of Dr. W. Peter Ward's recommendations regarding the sorting of occupational categories; and of Jay Handel's assistance with the computer graphics. My friend and fellow student, Donna Lomas, whose interests and areas of expertise are very different from my own, was most supportive and sympathetic to this project. I wish, here, to express my gratitude for her unflagging encouragement, her positive thinking, and helpful criticism. Finally, I could not have invested so much time and energy in my academic interests without the cooperation, understanding and love of my family. I dedicate this thesis to my mainstay, John Levin, who helped me in every way to become a full-time student; to my sons D'Arcy and Simon Rideout, who never held it against me that I was not a full-time homemaker; and to my daughter, Tracy Rideout, who left in search of her "roots" and now begins her own experience in higher education at the University of Toronto. 1 INTRODUCTION Prior to the mid-nineteenth century, higher education in Great Britain and North America was an exclusively male prerogative. Indeed, the argument that higher education had been articulated by and for men and that women were neither physically nor mentally equipped to participate proved to be one of the obstacles that exponents of women's education had to overcome. In their efforts to establish that female capabilities were equal to male, the early pioneers of women's education would settle for nothing less than the admission of women to academic courses identical to those offered to male students.1 Previously, women's education was confined to the 'parlour arts' but the feminist reformers envisioned higher learning that would enable women to fulfil functions more useful than decorative. The admission of women to universities often hinged on the provision of separate learning and living space for female students. In the nineteenth century the residential Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge constituted an integral part of higher education for men. The lack of accommodation for women, therefore, was an obvious obstacle to their admission while residential requirements were instrumental in determining admission policy. Generally, North American institutions did not establish residential Colleges in the Oxbridge model, but where women had to win access to male institutions, numerous regulations governed women's activity and mobility on the 2 2 ... campus. Some universities required female students to attend separate classes in their own affiliated College and to live in the campus residence.3 Undoubtedly, these arrangements were intended to preserve the traditionally male domain as much as to protect female virtue. When segregated conditions were insisted upon, women's participation in universities was often delayed until endowments provided suitable facilities.^ In the eastern United States, the "imitative colleges" resolved some of the controversy surrounding women's education. Vassar, Wellesley and Smith Colleges for women were all permanent institutions with high academic standards and considerable prestige. These Colleges proved that higher education with rigid standards was appropriate for women.^ Separate education in either an independent or coordinate college required generous endowments which were not readily available to newly settled populations. The newer universities in the western states and provinces failed to establish separate institutions for women, but accepted them in the same classrooms as men with little or no controversy. By the turn of the century, the justice of educating women was no longer a subject for debate and in the years before World War I, coeducation gained respectibility. Increasingly, universities introduced courses aimed at women

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