HISTORY OF WOMEN
AT THE UNIVERSITY
OF DELAWARE
1D1483 H64x 1994 A HISTORY OF WoMEN
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE
CA ROL E. HOFFECKE R
RICHARDS PROFESSOR OF HISTORY & AssociATE PRovosT FOR GRADUATE STUDIES g T~TIYOF C(i;abteoj crgontents ~ 't}ffi\WARE �
Copyright ©1994 . by University of Delaware Ded zcatzon...... ltt Newark, Delaware Forewor,d ...... v
. Intrad uctzon . · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ...... Xt
Printed Chapter One in the United States of America TH E BEGINNINGS ...... 1
Chapter Two
REFORM...... 11
Chapter Three TH E CoLLEGE ...... 31 Chapter Four
1\tlERGER...... 57 Chapter Five
Co-EDUCATION ...... 73
c;::;:::�...... Frontispiece: 95 U'larner Hall, the first women's residence hall, is named in Chapter Seven honor of Emalea Pusey W'tzrner (1853-1948), who championed ...... ································· ····· cause ofhigher the UNFINISHED BusiNEss 121 education for women in Delaware. End notes ...... 139
2D07o2.8 This book is dedicated to the memOJy of three women who IJdped build the University of Delmum·e:
AMY EuzABETH ou PoNT WINIFRED JosEPHINE RoBINSON EMALEA PusEY WARNER
A.vrY ELIZABETH ou PoNT (1876-1 962) served on the University of Delaware Board ofTrusrees' Advisory Committee on the Wo men's College from 1939 through 1944 and was among the University's most generous benefactors. During the 1930s, she paid the salary of a fa culty member of the Wo men's College and purchased a house adjacent to the campus to serve as the residence of the dean of the Wo men's College. In 1939, she established the Unidel Foundation to enhance rhe work of the Universityof Delaware. Income fr om that fo undation has since become the University's most significant, ongoing benefaction.
WINIFREDJosE PHINE RoBINSON (1867-1962) was dean of the Wo men's College from irs fo unding in 1914 until 1938. The fo rce of her character breathed life into the new and untried institution. Dean Robinson shaped every aspect of the college-from irs admissions policies and curricula to the selection of its fa culty to the structure of its residential life. In the course of her long career, she earned the respect and admiration of Delawareans and made higher education fo r women a reality in the First State.
EMALEA PusEY WARNER (1853-1948), as president of the stare's Federation of Wo men's Clubs, championed the creation of the Wo men's College and thereafter made its success the central goal of a life dedicated to work on behalf of Delawareans. In 1938, she was the firstwo man selected to serve on the Board of Tr ustees of the University of Delaware. If higher education fo r women in Delaware had a fo unding mother, it was she.
ltt This book should come with a warning: Once you have read it, the southwest corner of campus will never look the same to you again. That area was the site of the Wo men's College, whose original buildings were Residence Hall (now Wa rner Hall) and Science Hall (now Robinson Hall). When the Wo men's College opened in 1914, it represented hope, promise, and opportunity. Almost thirty years had passed since the end of the University's first attempt at "female education" (1872-1885), and women were looking fo rward to being able to earn college degrees in the State of Delaware once again. Unlike the Victorian-era experiment with co-education, the establishment of the Women's College led to the appointment of a substantial number of women administrators and faculty members. Its strongest advocate, Emalea Pusey Wa rner, later became the first woman member of the Board of Tr ustees. That is the good news. The bad news is that the opportunities presented by the Wo men's College were tempered by the imposition of fierce restrictions. The only academic programs available to women were Arts and Science, Education, and Home Economics. Virtually all women students who were not living with their fa milies were required to reside on campus, where Dean Winifred Robinson and her faculty enforced strict curfews and proper fe male behavior. In the early years of the Wo men's College, the dean and fa culty, like most of the students, lived in the residence hall and remained unmarried. They were also expected to
----= Beneath Thy Guiding Hand FoREwoRD acr as chaperones and to participate in group a the numerous cere ctivities rhar char monial w . e mployees w h o have been here fo r t\:venty or thirty acterized college and senwr era. Dela life for women ware College, the in rhar f r I1e c ontent o f r h'rs book is nor "h'rsto ry. "I r parr of the Un Years much o faculty tau iversity in which ' . ght male male o students, affor represents rhe persona. 1 expenences of livincr women and men w h o to ded much greate both students a r personallibe � nd staff. r� recall a rime rhar was nor, a re� all so terribly long ago. \Y/e cannot Ir _ ' wo uld, of cour w r l1e Jntensit y with which some members se, be possible to hope un d erstand e1rher thinkin respond ro the . . . g, "Well, se facts by ' that's the the University c ommunrty promote chancreso in womens' ro1 es, or way the world w of . as some of tho as in those days. . se arrang Bad . . I wtt 1 whrch or hers rests. t those chancres,o unless we ements may soun the passron probably d to us, they wer . better than any e h ow ver. y recent 1y t h'11 1gs w ere so very diffe rent. thing women h remember things ha ad known bef . ve improved ore, and f the ear 1 Y pres! 'dents were supportive o f certatn steadily since the One or two o linear n." Unfortunate notion of straig ly, rhis fo r woJnen- Wi lliam Purnell (1870-85) ft ot· htforward progre ki.nds of progress accurat ss, though app . ' e. One ealing, ' of the most imp is not example, strong I y favo red co-e d ucatton-bur like the culture as a ortant themes . . . Guiding Ha of Beneath t . 111 nd is the pe Thy . · a dmii1Jstrat!On. d'rd not even begll 1 to IHn I< . ndular motion whole, the UmversJty women with which the . has swung, fo status of untJ'I nel late 1960s and early 197 0 s. rward and back terms of fu II gend er equality at the U ward, in society . . . niversity of Del at large and d s 0 f t1I 1s peHo. d were made under t I 1e aware. For exa The firs� maJOr a vance ninete mple, although . enth-century the E. Arthur. . Trabant, who, among other period of co-educ leadershtp of President wome ation did little . n as to est � ' administrators an ablish things, estab I.ts h e d t h Comm1ssron on the Status ofWomen 11 1 d faculty, it did more parity give female . with their male students response to stron. g actJvtsm on t h e par t of women students, facuI ty, counterparts tha . Women's Coll n members of . . ege later enjoy the and staff. More recentl y President D avJ'd Ros elle and hrs a d mii1JS-. ed. Similarly, whe , dissolved its sep n the Universit arate college for y rrarion have ad e a concerte d e ·t to improve the climate fo r beg women after Wo � an educating rld War II and women and men women, pamcuhrly w ith re g ard to campus safety, job opporru- on its together-a decis . face, like a mo ion that looks, working ve toward greater nities, and cond'Jt IOJ�s. These initiatives have no t gone women equality- the sta . . actually worsene tus of unrecognrzed outs! de th e UmversJ'ty communit y; fo r example, fo r d because many remained gender-specifi . in effect, while c practices rhe last two years, representatives o f the University have been the number of traditio women in non nal fields and in - . al the annua I nanon. al Conference on Sexua I leadership role invtted to spe VZl FoREwoRD Beneath Thy Guiding Hand cause she is a . be there be e JOb must If l ministrativ applicant? ant ad qua lifted , are capable of generating a wide variery of interpretations, to say l port . most · m she was the cess for t because ition of "suc nothing of starting any number of arguments. Like our forebears, oman, no ona l defin w and , operan p1 e e a short-h . this: That peo today's students and employees cherish a broad range of views on h d to oaiv wo uld be a nt roday, lt by the me ' used en's move be as bem the roles, expectations, and treatment of women-and it is that he wom om now wt·n t ft y year s fr . is book ft e ftrst three. difference in attitudes, more than any other single factor, that d1 ncr o th . 0 are by th rea some f us uesnons as underlies today's most important gender equiry issues. last three q The major problems facing women do not, I believe , stem from the central administration or from written policies. Certainly, there are still some areas in which administrative fiats or changes in LFATTORE documents are having an effect or could have one; bur the strongest JoAN DE I990-92 and most persistent reason women are still so far from achieving CHAIR or WoMEN, N THE STATUS CoMMISSION o pariry with men is not to be found in written guidelines, bur in the H OR OF ENGLIS lack of collegial acceptance of women in new roles. Such acceptance PROFESS is vitally important to continued progress toward equaliry, but it is difficult to assess and impossible to legislate. What is needed is the kind of consensual attitude change that can occur only as a result of thoughtful, reasonable interactions among colleagues as more and more women become established and familiar figures in roles that were, until so very recently, always filled by men. The last chapters of Beneath Thy Guiding Hand mention significant improvements in the status of women on campus in recent years, but they also point our continuing inequities in such areas as admission to non-traditional fields, promotion through professional staff levels and faculry ranks, and appointment to upper-level positions. As this book illustrates, any progress that is made can be reversed, so it would be naive to assume that all future movement will necessarily be in a forward direction. If, however, women do maintain and increase the gains they have made since World War II, the day may come when young people will find the last chapters of this book as startling as some of us now find the earlier ones. Offering separate classes for women students? Limiting the degrees they are allowed to earn? Dictating the marital status and living arrangements of women employees? Clustering women in lower-paying, lower-prestige jobs? Dividing academic fields into those that are "male-dominated" and those that are "female-dominated?" Assuming that any woman in an IX Vltt c;Y11it0Bitctiort ~ The University of Delaware is proud to trace its roots to 1743 when the Reverend Mr. Francis Alison opened a school at New London, Pennsylvania, where, according to an announcement in the Pennsylvania Gazette, "all Persons may be instructed in the " Languages and some other Parts of Polite Literature . . . . 1 The statement was, of course, misleading, fo r Alison did not really welcome "all Persons," bur rather, all male persons. But, there was no need ro make such a distinction, because, as every eighteenth century person knew, fo rmal education beyond the rudiments was restricted to males. We know a great deal about Francis Alison. We know, fo r example, that he was a native of County Donegal in Ireland, that he rook a master's degree at the University of Edinburgh and was ordained into the Presbyterian clergy before he immigrated to America, and that he became a major figure in the educational development of the middle colonies. By contrast, hardly anything is known about his wife, Hannah, who presumably assisted in the care of her husband's students and managed his New London fa rm during his frequent trips to Philadelphia. Unlike her scholarly husband, she left no treatises, letters, or official documents. We cannot know whether she was educated or to what degree she participated in the intellectual world that absorbed so much of her 1 John A. Munroe, The University ofDelaware, A History, (Newark, 1986), p. 9. xi Beneath Thy Guiding Hand INTRODUCTION hus� and's ti me and rhoughrs. History . . is frequently silent regardin the liv g I · 1 records and statistics tell only part of the story, however. es of women m etghteenth-centur Arc 11va y America because so few . of them at h umat 1 aspect it was necessary to conduct numetous left written records. To aet ' . . ° · . s wirh students ' faculty, and admmtstrators-both past Francis Alison's school moved ora 1·In tervtew to Newark, Delaware, in the 1740s nr. Althouah I inrerviewed some of these people myse If , I and became a college in an d .p1ese o . 1833, bur women were nor . . ted admit forrnnace to have' the services of Annette Wo ola1d, a g1a. d uate to irs student body until 1872. was They were dismissed fifteen years ·In the Department of History, who conducted most o f r 1 1e later with little fanfare. Apparently stu denr Delaware was nor ready for a m vJews d un· na the academic year 1988-89. Her research notes reform so profound as higher · · ter o . . . education fo r women. It was unt not s. Woohrd's skill in drawmab our her subJeCts and 111 il 1914 that Delaware' arrest to M ' . s women got a college of their own. In u r;atefo 111otarions nor only of what people sa1d, bur t 1 1e that year, the state established ma I · ng ' . the Wo men's College as a . yet separate ·m w h'1cl1 they said it She was also responsible fo r readmg coordinate sister to the all-male manner · Delaware College. The . . . gender-specific two, notes from past University publicanons, mcludmg coordinate inst and making itutions were subsumed under the ' task that saved me a tide "University of year b oo k s, ca raloasb and student handbooks-a Delaware" in 1921, bur the . . University did not mare al, Jnterprete d Wi· t 1 1 become co-educati areatt:> deal of time and provided useful n onal until 1945. •• • How nd why these intelligence and sensltlVJty. � changes came about is the subject of this e student, Peggy Ta rnal! unde1took to book. It Is a story of hopi Another history graduat : . ng, striving, and succeeding. : Bur it is also and development of the Wo mens Srud1es Inrer- a cautionary tale about srudy the creation setbacks and about promises . that · have · been · 1·m Program Ms Ta rnall read through arch' 1va l marena· I·1!1 only partially fu lfilled. Readers d!SCI p ary will see nor only how fa . . . . r we have Wo men's Studies Office and mterv1ewed two recent pwgram come, bur ill be able to judge he � fo r themselves how far we to have yet �irectors. Based on those sources, she composed a brief account of go to achteve the goal of equal opportunity for men and women to fulfilltheir educati rhe unit's history rhar proved to be a very valuable resource fo r onal and intellectual potential. I writing this book. undertook to write the . history of women at the University Dela of During the spring semester of 1992, I had the opportunity to ware at the request of the Office of Women's Affairs, which provided funding reach a graduate seminar fo r which sevetal sr denrs wrote papers on fo r the project. I am grateful : � to three consecutive . directors of that office, aspects of women's experience at the Umvers1ry of Del�ware The Mae R. Carter, Laura Shepperd, and Liane work of these students-Laurette A. Crum, Teresa L. Riesmeyer, and � �or�nso , each of whom · � gave me advice, support, and I sptrat on. fhe Matthew W Smallwood-all added to my knowledge and provided � � major repository of the University of Delaware's perspectives on certain themes that bro dened my undersranding. htstory IS the University Archives. � The Director of the Archives, . Jean K. Brown, together Agreeing co be interviewed fo r a proJeCt such as ri11S rakes a with her assistants, Jane E. Pyle, Barbara . A. Cole, and Betty M. certain amounr of courage As an interviewee, one never knows Dunn, always responded knowledgeabl thoroughl y, how a writer might use or abuse his or her words. Without excep y, and rapidly to my many requests. They demonstrated an interest in the project tion, those who agreed to be interviewed fo r this proj�cr spoke and a sensitivity to my needs . that I much freely and truthfully of their personal reactions to policies or events appreciate. Members of the University Office ofinstiturional Researc that were controversial. Their candid assessments pur flesh on the ? and its director, Michael F. Middaugh, also were responsive very bloodless bones of officialrecords. The people whose interviews to y req uests fo r statistical . 1� data, which they provided promptly m sptte of the helped shape this book are here listed in alphabetical order: Susan many pressures on their ri me. Allmendinger, Margaret L. Andersen, Edith H. Anderson, Barbra F. Xtt Xltl Beneath Thy Guiding Hand Andrisani, Irma Ayres, Helen Bay lis, Catherine Bieber, Elizabeth Bohning, Susan Bry nteson, Judith B. Carberry, Mae R. Carter, Ross Ann Jenny Craig, Hilda Davis, Camilla Day, Anna]. DeArmond, Anna DeHaven, Alexander R. Doberenz, Rachel Draper Diver, Elizabeth Dy er, James P Flynn, Florence Geis, Judith Y. Gibson, Helen Gouldner, Sandra Harding, Mary Ann Hitchens, Matilda Whisk, Janice M. Jordan, Barbara J. Kelly, Anne A. Hail to thee proud Delaware, McCourt-Lewis, Lila Murphy, David M. Nelson, Laura O'Toole, Marian L. Palley, Marie B. Perrone, Donald L. Peters, Barbara H. Settles, Bonnie K. Scott, Stuart J. Sharkey, Suzanne K. Smith, In Loyalty we stand. Liane M. Sorenson, Carolyn Thoroughgood, Edgar J. Townsend, E. Arthur Trabant, and Jeraldine Trabant. days Several people read portions of the text while it was in draft We give thee thanks for glorious form and made helpful comments, including Barbara Kelly, Mae Carter, Joan DelFattore, Anne Boy lan, Jean Brown, and Liane Sorenson. Margaret Andersen, who read each chapter as it was Beneath thy guiding hand. completed, offered me excellent editorial suggestions and valuable guidance and support, for which I am very grateful. Jan DeArmond read and edited the text, demonstrating once again her superb qualities as a teacher. Finally, I want to thank Dianna DiLorenzo, who was alway s ready to drop whatever she was doing to satisfy my DELAWARE ALMA MATER whim for getting this manuscript typed as soon as the words came FROM UNIVERSITY OF off my pen; Mary Hempel, who edited the final manuscript and saw it through to becoming a book; and Barbara Broge, who provided a thoughtfully appropriate design. XV XLV CHAPTER ONE C(;;he @7Jep;in/nilv;;s � ON OcTOBER 28, 1 884, an audience composed of both male and fe male students of Delaware College gathered in the college oratory ro hear a speech by Belva Lockwood, an attorney and nationally known advocate of women's rights. Mrs. Lockwood told the students rhar they were living in "The Era of Wo man." "Today," she declared, "the woman question is the question of the hour." Grear advances were sweeping the country, she said, as women were seizing long-denied opportunities to attend college and to partici pate with men in fu rthering the work of society. "There is a memal growth in the women of today unknown to most of the women of the past. It is bur a little rime since the intellectual woman was the rare exception; now, she is a fe ature of society.... " Wo men had OldCollege in the 1890s, a decade ft m a er co-education was discontinued proved their intellectual equality with men and had rhus laid rest the arguments of the conservative doubters who had proclaimed them rhe "weaker sex," fironly fo r the narrow sphere of home life. The advance of women, Belva Lockwood proclaimed, was the keystone of that progressive momentum of the age "that no conser vatism can hold back, no sneer dispel, and no state legislature legislate our of existence." She urged that women be educated to move beyond the single goal of marriage to embrace a broader, more equal partnership with men, "to think and act in the great barrie of life."1 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand THE BEGINNINGS Belva Lockwood's decla arion rhar . � rhe day of women's equaliry HS b in 1856. Cornell University and the WHh men was ar hand rece1ved women from · beginnina favorable commenr in The rhen, Review. an were opened ro women in 1870, an d onerI as now, rhe srudent Um· ver · s1ty ofM'chia 1 t> newspaper. Her speech was rhe hiahlia · . • of rhe 0 ht · especiallyc chose in rheMtddle West, fo 11 owe d seventh anniversary of scare un1versltles,· . . rhe Pesralozzi Literary Sociery, . . an ° commmgl111g of male and organ1zanon of Delaware soon afrer. Th e name aiveno ro dus College women . " Alrhouah "rhe woman quesrion" srill raged fem al. e studems in rhe same courses and degree programs was c�- in many places, ir h · · seemed ro ave been serrie d · " United Stares Commtsstoner ofEd ucauon in women's favor ar Delaware educanon. I n 1873 ' the College, where women had been enrolle d 111· co- admirred on rhe same repone d t I1at more chan 8 ' 000 women were conditions as men , for over a decade. Mrs. Lockwood 's arguments ucan· ona 1 colleges and universities throughout the counrry.- in support of women's e d . intellecrual · were equaliry policy at Delaware College 111 Ju 1 y familiar, nor only ro Co-education became the rhe small number of college-educared ? Americans of rhe rime, 1872, when the Board ofTrusrees adopre an enlightened, although bur ro rhe average newspaper reader as well. 111 future any Female that Her declaration of rhe gramman· cally 1'11correcr ' resolution "chat inexorable advance of democratic social for progress was also a common shall presem herself ro the Faculty of Delaware College . theme amona · o late nineteenth-cent A m ncan journalists, ury exammanon· w 1'th a view ro admission ro the College as a student, � politicians, and other opinion-makers. aud1ence Her authorized ro admit them on the same terms accepted these ideas rh e f:acu ley are hereby as representative of modern and students are ad me· d . "3 progressive thinking. Ti·ue, and under the same regulations as male � some educarors, clergy members, and propose� the resolun n ro the lecturers continued ro hold President William H. Purnell had ? to rhe old, familiar arguments ? college rhar at its spring meeting in March; but, 111 or er ro gtve the work did irreparable injury board to women's delicate and minds, harmed volatile trustees rime to consider the proposal carefully, It was not presented their capacity for reproduction, and encouraged ' them nor to marry, for a vote until the boards summer meeting. The small numb�r of bur the evidence of experience sustain had fc1iled ro voted eight to thre�, tth their fears and objecrions. trustees who attended the July meeting ': Although one abstention, to admit women. We know from a trustee s dtary rhe issue of women's parriciparion in polirics remained controversial, omen's entry that among the eight trustees who voted in_f vor of the � access to higher education � no longer IS appeared ro be 111 resolution ' at least one did so conditionally, and It reasonable to doubr. By • . rhe 1870s, women were 4 admmed being assume that others also regarded the policy as an expenmenr. ro over half of the collegiate insrirurions in America. There were At that same meeting, the board authorized the faculty ro a growing number of private colleges for women of which Mount Holyoke, establish a new course of study, to be called the Literary Course, Wellesley, and Vassar were among ; k1 own. rl e besr which would lead ro the degree, Bachelor of Literature. The � In addirion,. some formerly all-male colleges had joined Wl[h coordmare Literary Course was ro replicate the liberal-arts curriculum that led women's colleges that shared their faculry and resources. Of ro rhe Bachelor of Arts, except that a modern language, typically rhese, rhe "Harvard Annex," begun in 1879 and larer named Radcliffe College, French or German, would substitute for classical Greek. This was rhe most conspicuous model. from the standard liberal-arts curriculum was designed to Although these elite, private institutions variation atrracred much rhe grearesr attention, amacr those studems, both male and female, who lacked training inroads into the previously male domain of ed 1cari higher in the classical languages bur were otherwise ready ro begin college- � ?�1 had taken place at the state-supported colleges unJversJnes established and level work in preparation for careers in reaching. or expanded under . the terms of the Morrill ' Land-Gram Act of 1862. One year later, the board accepted the faculty s recommendatiOn The University of Iowa had admitted to make the Literary Course a three-year program of study that 2 3 Beneath Thy Guiding Ha nd THE BEGINNINGS would not require the study of Larin or Greek, agriculture, or him comfortable with the view of advanced mathematics. In addition, the board authorized a three education embraced in the Land year diploma program inNormal Studies. Srudenrs in this Grant Act that linked the liberal non-degree program would rake courses in geography, English arrs ro rhe practical, professional grammar, higher arithmetic and algebra, elocurion, bookkeeping, subjects of agriculture and "and such other studies as may in the Judgment of the Faculty be engineering. necessary ro prepare students pursuing this Course ro become When Purnell was called ro the teachers in the common schools and grammar schools of the presidency of his alma mater in state."5 At a subsequent meeting, the board created a third degree 1870, the college was being program called the Scienrific Course, also a three-year program reopened after a decade of inac that eliminated the classical languages.6 tivity. Delaware College proudly The admission of women was agreeable ro the faculty, several of traced irs origin back ro Francis whom had college-age daughters. It also was initially popular Alison's colonial academy, but the among the srudenrs. Members of the Arhenaean Society, a college institution had not received irs literary and debating group, endorsed the board's decision by giving collegiate charter from the state a round of "hearty cheers" when they were informed of rhe new until 1833. In 1834, the building William H Purnell,presid ent ofthe policy. It was, however, more controversial among board members. called Old College was completed, Un iversity ofDelawar e, I 870-I 885 In spite of the land-granr monies, the college was impoverished and and the college opened irs doors to in sore need of student tuition dollars. Some saw the admission of an all-male srudenr body consisting mostly of young men from female srudenrs as a means ro enlarge the srudenr body and ro Delaware and the nearby region. Plagued with low enrollments encourage the state legislature ro provide funds for reacher and chronic financial difficulties, the college had closed in 1859 education. Others were more skeptical, believing that the presence just rwo years before the outbreak of the Civil War. During the of women would discourage male students from coming to war, Congress adopted the Morrill Land-Grant Act, which Delaware College and would overwhelm the college's already committed profits from the sale of United States governmenr inadequate resources. lands in the West to assist the developmenr of state colleges where The chief advocate for co-education at Delaware College was liberal arts, together with the practical subjects of agriculture and rhe president, William Henry Purnell. A native of Maryland's engineering, would be taught. Only when the Delaware General Eastern Shore, Purnell had graduated from Delaware College in Assembly had designated Delaware College to receive the First 1846. He brought a variety of professional experiences ro his Stare's portion of these federal funds, were the trustees of the position as presidenr, having practiced law, organized a volunreer defunct institution able to reopen irs doors. regiment for the Union during the Civil War, and served as In light of such negative factors as Delaware's small population, postmaster of Baltimore. In common with most of the preceding popular indifference to education, the state's modest share in the presidents of the college, Purnell was a Presbyterian, bur he federal land-grant money, and the earlier failure of the college, the opposed narrow sectarianism and kept the college non-sectarian prospects for the revived institution were nor bright. The faculty and open ro scienrific inquiry. Purnell's varied background, not consisted of only five people, including rhe president. The physical uncommon among nineteenth-century academic leaders, made facilities, library, and scientific equipmenr, all housed in Old 4 5 Beneath Thy Guiding Ha nd THE BEGINNINGS College, were marginal. Given those conditions, the college might ment Day. These three women-Elizabeth S. Blandy, Harriette H. well have been unable to attract a student body large enough ro Curris, and Ella Y. Mackey-were the first of their sex ro join the sustain ir. President Purnell's proposal ro admit young women was alumni of Delaware College. All three vvere residents of Newark. designed ro increase the pool of potential swdents. Some people Harriette Curtis was the daughter of a paper maker who had believed that the president and a few of the faculty and trustees established the Curtis Mill at the edge of town on the \'(!hire Clay were also looking for an opportunity ro provide an inexpensive Creek. The Blandys, another ofNewark's leading families, lived at college education for their own daughters. Belmont Mansion on Quality Hill on West Main Street. Ella In the September term of 1872, six young women joined the Mackey was the daughter of William D. Mackey, much beloved freshman class. Unlike the men, many of whom lived in the college professor of ancient languages at the college. Both Harriette Curtis building, the women were required ro find lodgings in private and Elizabeth Blandy had prepared for college at Hannah homes in Newark. Several of them were residents of the rown and Chamberlain's academy. During the 1860s, when the college had continued ro live at home. Others found rooms with Hannah been dosed, Miss Chamberlain conducted her school in Old Chamberlain, who maintained an academy for girls nearby. There College, and Harriette had earned the school mistress' ire by were no athletic activities for the women, nor were they expected to coasting down the building's broad, front steps on a sled. participate in military training, but in all other respects, the female In 1944, Harriene, long since married ro her fellow Delaware students were treated like their male counterparts. George Morgan, Colleae0 classmate Delaware Clark, had survived ro become the a student at that time, recalled later that "they were at college only oldest living graduate of Delaware College. In an interview in Th e when in attendance upon classes. They were a well-grounded, UniversityNews, an alumni magazine, she recalled that the college bright lot, even decorous, and were gallantly rreated."7 It was had provided no recreation or sports program for its students, but generally noted that the men's behavior showed a marked improve ment in the company of the women students. Choice of curriculum was not resrricted by sex. Most of the female students chose the Literary curriculum, but a few rook the Harriette Hurd Curtis Clarl? Classical or Scientific. In 1873, the state legislature enacted an (Lejt), whopla yed the role "Act w aid Delaware College and ro provide for the Education of of Ly dia Languish in the Te achers for the Free Schools of this State." The bill provided Delaware Collegepro scholarships for students from each county ro anend the college du ction ofR. B. Sheridan's in preparation for teaching within the state. This act, clearly The Rivals in 1873, lived related to the introduction of co-education at the Newark college, to be the college's oldest would have fulfilled its aim more successfully had the legislature graduate. Here, she meets concurrently established qualifications for teachers. The with Ca rol Christian, a student who played the feebleness and equivocation of the legislature's position on same role in an E-52 educational reform was further demonstrated in 1875, when the production of The Rivals state discontinued the scholarships. in 1949. In June 1875, a class consisting of three female and two male students received Bachelor of Literature degrees on Commence- 6 7 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand THE BEGINNINGS that the students of both sexes enjoyed frequent social visits to the preserved l·n rhe University Archives. The magazine provides a homes of leading Newark fa milies, including her own home and . , the lives and thoughts of the society s revea1·1 noa window into that of the Blandys.R In winter, the students-male and fe male . · · -went irs editors strove to mamr�m a l:1gh-toned members. Although . ice skating on White Clay Creek above the paper mill dam. The � � � � literary style and serious content, r ey often s 1pped � to sarcasnc men rented sleighs, which they raced on Main Street. In spring, the commentary on local news. Every Issue contamed crmques of the women watched from the windows in the Old College Oratory resenrations made at the most recent meetings of the society. while the men played baseball. The most successful cooperative tonsidering rhe small size and close interaction of the student body, venture between the male and fe male students during the era of the the editors did not shrink from malcing statements that must have first women's class was a production of Sheridan's The Rivals, which proved embarrassing to their classmates. The editors had clearly took place in 1873: Harriette played the role of Lydia Languish, defined notions of how college women should behave, and they and President Purnell served as director of the production. The were determined to use the power of the press, even if only in play was presented before a packed house in the Oratory. The manuscript, to encourage a high level of conduct and erudition. budget fo r the play was negligible: Newark ladies rummaged Infractions such as tardiness, lack of attentiveness during the Bible through their attics to supply eighteenth-century costumes and reading, fa ilure to prepare adequately fo r the meetings, and frequent props. It was truly a community project that brought the men and ombursts of "compulsive giggling" all came in fo r reprimand. women students, the college fa culty, and the town of Newark into a Of rhe eighty-one young women who attended Delaware College single orbit. Unfortunately, this brave beginning in theatrical during the period of co-education, fifty were members of the production had no sequel. . Pestalozzi Society. It is difficultto say why the other thirty-one In 1876, a group of nine fe male students fo unded the Pesralozzi fe male students did not join. Perhaps they were not invited to do so, Literary Society, named in honor of the famous Swiss educational or perhaps they were nor interested in associating with a society that reformer. Their society was organized along the lines of the two had literary and fe minist objectives. Th e Review, a publication male societies, the Arhenaean and Delta Phi, both of which had dominated by male students, claimed that "the spirit ofWoman's been fe atures of student life at Delaware College since the 1830s. Rights appears to have pervaded the Pestalozzi Society from the very The new society's purpose was to encourage literary pursuits and beginning, and seems to be the characteristic spirit of the society." 10 companionship. Members met weeldy in a room in the college Although irs weeldy meetings were open only to members, the building, designated by the president fo r their use. They required society had an impact on the life of the college as a whole. It one another to write poems, short stories, and essays to be read at sponsored dramatic entertainments and lectures to which the enrire their meetings, and they debated such issues as, "ResoLved: That the student body was invited. Innocuous artistic tableaux illustrating Native savage possesses a right to the soil" and "ResoLved: Wo men such rel igious themes as "Rock of Ages" and "Simply to the Cross I should be allowed to vote." In 1881, the society established a Cling" were among the Pesralozzians' renditions. But, the society monthly magazine, with the modest proclamation of its intention was also a voice fo r political and social change, as, fo r example, in that it might become the "best monthly published in America."9 irs advocacy of educational reform in Delaware's schools. Tr ue to When the society fa iled to resolve the iss ue of the publication's their uncompromising spirit of frankness, the editors of the No name, they called it No Name. Na me once described the state's legislators as "narrow-minded and The No Na me was handwritten to save on printing costs. In spite pig-headed" fo r their fa ilure to address the needs of Delaware's of its ephemeral appearance, copies of every issue have been "shamefully inadequate schools."" The society also aroused student Beneath Thy Guiding Ha nd THE BEGINNINGS interest in the issue of greater rights fo r women. It was the In June 1877, the Wilmington Every Evening and Commercial Pestalozzians who brought Belva Lockwood ro speak at the college published a series of articles that dealt with the progress of co and sponsored a lecture by America's most renowned fe minist, education at the college. The newspaper reported that the Susan B. Anthony. experiment had proved highly successful. President Purnell observed Not all of the society's themes were so high-minded. ro the press that the young women were having an uplifting effect Commentary in the No Na me deal t with a variety of swdent on the behavior of their male counterparts. Co-education, he said, concerns. There were occasional nods ro fa shion (blue skins and was breaking down the artificial barriers that had hererofore grey overdresses were popular in 1881) and references ro recrea separated the sexes and was giving men and women similar educa tional outings, such as ice skating and roller skating, which became tional experiences. President Purnell was certain that co-education quite the rage in the early 1880s. One revealing entry notes that would encourage the women students to look beneath the surface of "we have no objection ro our lady members smoking cigarette their male classmates, findingtheir more solid qualities, and he fe lt stumps, but would advise them not to make use of the articles that the shared educational experience would assist the women to during society hours."12 In another issue, the edirors discussed the become more sympathetic and helpful wives. 14 recent visit to Newark of a group of girls fro m Philadelphia who The president's argument fo r co-education aimed to overcome fl irted with the male students "which we Pestalozzi girls do not doubts among conservative-minded people by appealing to their deign to notice."13 In 1884, the presidential election in which James belief that women should retain their traditional role in the home. G. Blaine, Republican, fa ced Grover Cleveland, Democrat, also Purnell's appeal to traditional values in order to promote greater excited much interest and debate among the Pestalozzians. educational opportunities fo r women revealed his sensitivity to the The picture that emerges of the fe male students in the Purnell political and social realities of his time. Whether the college women presidency is one of a group of somewhat parochial young women did perform their roles as wives and mothers more sympathetically (about half of whom came fr om Newark and most others fro m or intelligently as a result of their college experience cannot be said nearby) who were adequately prepared ro do college work and who fo r certain, but the record does indicate that over half the fe male affected in their literary magazine a style of sarcastic camaraderie. graduates did marry within a fe w years of their graduation and These characteristics made them similar to their male counterparts. most others probably married later. Their uniqueness lay in the fa ct that they attended college at a time Late twentieth-century people are inclined to interpret when higher education fo r women was still experimental and statements such as those made by President Purnell to justifyco controversial at Delaware College. They could never escape a sense education as examples of the tradition-bound nawre of Victorian of being on trial and of representing issues that transcended each of society. Such an interpretation, however, ignores the fa ct that swift them as individuals. Most married after graduation; some became and dramatic changes were taking place in post-Civil War America. teachers. Tw o, including Carrie M . Purnell, daughter of the Railroads, industrialization, and urbanization were altering the president, obtained advanced degrees in medicine at the Wo men's landscape and the lives of millions of people. Charles Darwin's Medical College of Philadelphia and became physicians. Another, theories of evolution and natural selection excited debate between Sarah E. Mackey, sister of Ella, taught one term fo r her fa ther, religious conservatives and sciemists that set the educational Professor Mackey, while he lay fa tally ill in 1885. The firstwoman enterprise at odds with accepted theological beliefs. to teach at Delaware College, she married in the summer of 1885 The women's rights movemem, which included access to higher and died the fo llowing year. education as a cornerstone of its agenda, was part of the swirl of 10 11 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand TH E BEGINNINGS In spire of warm support from the president and fa culty, co education did nor become 'Yvoven into the fa bric of the college. The area of greatest controversy developed over the awarding of student honors. The short explanation of this tension was that rhe male students resented rhe awarding of honors to their fe male classmates, . bur rhat interpretation of the problem is simplistic and unf1ir. What rhe men objected to was the fa ct that students who took the Literary course, most of whom were women, were placed in the same category fo r honors as were those who wok the classical curriculum with irs emphasis on the mastery of Greek and Larin and its required work in advanced mathematics. The honors issue reached its highest intensity in 1885 when Grace Darling Chester, daughter of a professor of science, was named class valedictorian. Miss Chester, who pursued the Scientific course, was described by Th e Review as a "diligent student," but she had been permitted to substitute three classes in botany privately taught, most likely by her fa ther, fo r regular science classes. The male students President Wttlter Hullihen (thirdfrom right) and Jvlrs. Hullihen (fift h from cried "foul," and the salutatorian refused to participate in the left) welcomea group of Delaware College alumnae from the 1872 -1885 commencement program.15 Grace Chester must have been mortified period to their home, aspart of the Un iversity's centennial celebration in 1933. by the publicity the contretemps provoked, fo r she fa iled to attend rhe class dinner. But the next morning, she gathered her courage and change. It is hardly surprising that the women's movement met appeared before the large crowd at the commencement exercises to with resistance and that, to be effective, advocates of new opportu give a speech, entitled "Pasteur as a Scientist," and to receive her nities fo r women were compelled to express their views in terms of Bachelor of Science degree.16 The next year, she began reaching at the traditional social relationships. In that "era of woman," higher Female Seminary in Frederick, Maryland. education fo r fe males was a new and radical idea, no matter how it It was in the context of this increasingly contentious atmosphere was justified. that a majority of the members of the Board of Tr ustees decided to Enrollment of women students at Delaware College reached irs end their experiment in co-education. On June 24, 1885, by a peak in the year 1875-76 and then declined. By the mid- 1880s, majority vote of thirteen to eight, the board adopted the fo llowing: women represented a mere handful of the total student body. It is "Resolved, That the system of co-education in Delaware College be, difficultto explain that trend except to note the narrowness of the and is hereby abolished; provided that all students already matric geographical base from which the students were drawn, the refusal ulated may at their option finish their collegiate course." At this of Delaware's legislature to require reachers to atrend college and same meeting, in what must have been a closely related marrer, the the lack of special fa cilities fo r women at Delaware College. board accepted the resignation ofWilliam H. Purnell as Perhaps, also, continued hostility of some members of the Board of president.17 Thus ended the first attempt to introduce women Tr ustees to co-education discouraged women's enrollment. students into Delaware College. 12 13 Beneath Thy Guiding Ha nd THE BEGINNINGS Opponents always maintained that co-education had a negative fe male students deterred male enrollmenrs. "Bur rhe presence of . effect on male enrollments. There is no evidence to support that fe w such, sho ld rhell· .tgnora nt and unrea suppose there are a � . claim; in fa ct, enrollments declined in the wake of the board's to dtctare the po!tcy of a State sonable prej udice be allowed object of which should be to dispel rejection of women students. It is possible, however, that some Institution of learning, the very The only college in the little young men chose not to co me to Delaware to avoid co-education. prejudice and enlighten the people? ... . to those of our sex More important was the state legislature's withdrawal of its short Diamond State is henceforth a thmg tabooed ional advantages. lr is a lived support fo r fu ture teachers and its fa ilure to establish college who desire to avail themselves of its educat in patience and awa it attendance as a requirement fo r public-school teachers. Those hard judament, but we will possess our soul fl this injustice."19 actions caused Delaware College a significant loss of revenue at a with con dence the sober second thoughts to right this time when the college was inadequately financed and was hoping in The women of Delaware would wait a long time "to right co-education vain fo r ongoing assistance from the state. injustice." Nearly thirty years separated the demise of in 1914 The To say that co-education was a reform whose time had not yet in 1885 fr om the creation of the Wo men's College . come explains nothing. By the 1880s, co-education had become real reasons behind this hiatus must be sought in Delawareans' well entrenched at many colleges, especially those that received apathetic attitudes toward public education during those years: The to support from land-grant endowments. Nor could it be argued that state's refusal both to improve its deplorable public schools and the women who went to Delaware College had disgraced provide significant support fo r higher education. It was the classic themselves, either intellectually or socially. On the contrary, chicken-and-egg situation: Delaware public schools were too women had been consistently numbered among the best scholars. inadequate to prepare students fo r college, and Delaware College The only scandal associated with co-education occurred a year lacked the students and the incentive to supply teachers to the after the board had voted to abolish it, when a fe male student was schools. The college trustees were unwilling to stretch their modest discovered locked in a yo ung man's room in Old College. Both resources in support of co-education in view of the state's indiffe r students were expelled. At the time that co-education was ence to teacher training. Yo ung women of the Diamond State abolished, eighty-one young women had matriculated at the would not return to college classrooms until there was a college, and thirty-two of them had graduated-a graduation rare groundswell of public support fo r improvements in education at offo rry-six percent. During that same period, 214 men attended every level. Only then would the "era of woman" that Belva Delaware, and eighty-five of them graduated, which represented a Lockwood had so ardently proclaimed in Old College in 1884 graduation rare of fo rty percent. 18 become a reality in Delaware. The mem bers of the Pestalozzi Society were so incensed by rhe board's action that they used their meager fu nds to print a pamph let to proclaim their view of it in their usual uncompromising style. "Delaware College is the only institution of learning in the civilized world that has excluded young ladies after admitting them," the editors wrote. They attacked as spurious the argument that co education was harmful to the male students: "The young men have never been more studious and orderly than since the admission of young ladies." Nor did they give credence to the contention that 14 15 CHAPTER Two IN r897, Lo ursE STATON was among eight girls and four boys who graduated from Newark High School. When Louise's fa ther, a Baptise minister, had died several years before, her mother had moved to a house in Newark where she boarded students from Delaware College to extend her slender income. Louise was an outstanding student who loved learning and hoped for a career in reaching. "I wamed to go to college very, very much," she wrote many years later. "I realized that the education that I had so fa r was only a foundation and I hoped to broaden it. I was bitter against the Board of Tr ustees of Delaware College for refusing admission to wo men-both on my accoum and for the other girls in my class."' Lo uise Staton was not alone in her feelings of frustration with the trustees' policy. Just two years later, the Delaware College junior class annual, Aurora, urged the trustees to admit women. The publication's edi tor, Everett C. Johnson, argued that Delaware's failure to provide higher education for women had pu t the little state seriously behind the times and that the influence of fe male students would improve the quality of education for the college's male students. The Aurora's editor reminded his readers Louise Staton as a young woman that girls made up the preponderance of high school graduates in the state and that many of them "would be glad of the chance to secure a college education," were they offered the opportunity. Beneath Thy Guiding Hand Rf.FO!Uvl Delaware adopted a new state constitution that made stare govern nsible fo r public education. This was a necessary first Everett C johnson, a ment respo Delaware College graduate srep ro addressing rhe educational needs of an overwhelmingly rural and leading proponent of srare, where shanty-like, one-room schools, main rained by ill the Womens College educated and ill-equipped reachers, were commonplace. In the years rhar fo llowed, educational reformers emphasized the importance of reacher training as a key component ro improving rhe stare's public schools. During chose same years, the Delaware College Board of Tr ustees was cautiously reassessing irs position on co-education. In addition ro pressures from those who wished to see the college play a role in providing a better educational system in Delaware, some members of the board were also concerned abom the fm ure of fa rming in rhe stare. Throughout America, and especially in areas such as Delaware where agriculture was stagnating, young people The junior annual called fo r rhe return of co-education ro were abandoning fa rm life to seek opportunities in the burgeoning Delaware College, nor only because ir was just, bur because rhe cities. America's rural communities looked to their stare land-grant separation of the sexes was artificial. The series concluded with a colleges to counter this trend. In 1907, the Delaware College ringing appeal: "In the midst of our intermingling hope and Tr ustee Committee on Agriculture visited several leading land anxiety, we, the Junior Class of Delaware College, with all rhe gra nt universities to observe their practices and noted that ardor, zeal, and determination that our yo ung hearts possess, call co-education "was proving a great success" at those institutions. upon our fa culty, our trustees, our alumnae, the various Wo man's The members of rhe committee "were deeply impressed" at viewing Century Clubs throughout the state, and all other individuals and yo ung women from rural areas engaged in studying domestic societies who are interested in the fu ture manhood of Delaware, co science and believed "that they will play no unimportant part in join us in our earnestappe al fo r the equal education of our boys solving the question of keeping the young people on rhe fa rm. ".l and girls, which apparently can only be accomplished by adopting At rhe end of rhe first decade of rhe twentieth century, the Board co-education at Delaware College. "2 ofTrustees of Delaware College was required to request an The Aurora's fe rvent entreaty touched a chord of sympathy and extension of irs state charter. The reincorporation procedure gave support in Delaware, where efforts to improve education were at the state legislature an unusual opportunity to make demands of last raking shape. In 1891, a fe deral law required stares ro provide rhe college's trustees. The board fo und itself in the unaccustomed land-grant educational opportunities to all citizens, regardless of position of being obliged to bend to growing public opinion and to race. Delaware was a segregated state. Rather than admit black the view of some of irs concerned board members that something students to Delaware College, the stare chartered Delaware Stare be done about women's education. College fo r black students. The new collegiate institution, located The president of Delaware College at rhar critical juncture was in Dover, accepted students of both sexes from the first. In 1897, George A. Harrer, a former professor of mathematics. Harter fa ced the year in which Louise Staron graduated from high school, a quandary. Like most of the board, he opposed the reintroduction 18 Beneath Thy Guiding Ha nd REFOIUvl co-e ucat on ar e aware o e e on r e ro un s r ar r e e ress ves an n of d i D l C ll g h g d h h ress n soc a ro ems identified by th Pro g i d i i n add i g i l p bl ose co e e ac e r e s ca an nanc a resources ro ass m ate n new ro ess ons es ne to res on to th ll g l k d h phy i l d fi i l i il establishi g p f i d ig d p d femal e srudents. O n r har o nt, r e ma or o n on amon r e ccor n to t e tenets o ctor an cul rure, women p i h j iry pi i g h ro blems. A di g h fVi i rrusrees a nor c an e s nce r e s. ur arrer an r e narure, se -sacr c n , sens t ve to r e nee s o f others, and h d h g d i h 1880 B H d h �vere, by lf ifi i g i i h d oar now eare r ar r e stare m t c arrer a se arate co e e or tra ts su te to a ress t e soc a an e ucat onal b d f d h h igh h p ll g f nurruri ng-all i i d dd h i l d d i ' wo men ro rra n reac ers, one w r rs own oar o rrusrees an rs r e ro ress ves. er ca s est- nown exam e o f a i h i h i b d f d i aaen da of h P g i Am i b k pl ' own c a m ro scarce stare an e era un s. e caut ams, oun er o ca o s l i d f d l f d Th i ous p residenr P�oares sive woman activ ist was Jane Add f d f Chi g t ou t care u a our t s emma. e r en recommen e a soc a wor as a ro ess on. e h gh f lly b hi dil H h d d H ullH ouse, who h elped d efi ne i l k p f i Th so ut on es ne to e ucate women an er avo rowt n t e num er o l i d ig d d d y id co-ed ucation, Proaressive Era wi tnessed a d ramatic g h i h b f ' w e ar r e same r me ma nta n n e aware o e e s conrro ra uate e rees, to et er w t hil h i i i i g D l C ll g l over wo ;en seeki ng b accalaureate and g d d g g h i h ' r e stare s e ucat ona resources. women to ecome reac ers, h d i l an open i ng o f o pportuni ti es for b h ' n ovem er e unve e s an or womens an nurses, as we as a m n s I N b 1910, h il d hi pl f higher researchers, government workers, d ll d i i e ucat on n an a ress e ore t e d i i dd b f h Wilm i n gton New Century rrarors o f social and educati onal agencies . Clu b . The p resident had ch osen his audience well. The New Th e c l u b women were nor paid p rofessi onals, b ut vo l unteers, entur u was an or an zat on e-c ass mer can e. C y Cl b g i i of a bour 500 women from ra ised i n r he genteel tradit ion o f u pper-middl l A i lif ' " " m n ron s ea n t e not Wil i g l di g families who met together to p romote They have been called domesti c femi n ists b ecause h y did ant ro an soc a re orm, ro es, phil h py d i l f to h old social functions, an d to as pi re to overturn thei r traditi onal h ome and family l bur ' r, ursue se - m rov ormers, p lf i p ement. Founded i n 1889, Wilm i n gtons New rather to extend h ome val ues i nto th e w ider world. As re f ' entur u ass st C y Cl b was parr o f a network o f women s c l u bs t h at club women were especially active on beha lf o f programs to i exten e 5 d d th roughout the Un i ted S tares. The Wilm i ngton cl ub was children and wo rking women. I n Delaware, where p ublic ' ' r e o h ldest and l argest among the stare s fifteen women s c l u bs and education had b een so long neglected , i rs i m p rovement headed rhe ' rhe l eader o f rhe S tate Federation of Women s Clubs. list o f the i r concerns. ' The c l u b movement was one manifestati on of two i nter-rel ated Among the Wilm i ngton cl u b s members, th e most commi tted phenomena at t he turn o f the century: The Progressive Movement was Emalea Pusey Warner, daughter o f Lea Pusey, a Quaker m ill ' and rhe e ffort of American women to redefi ne and expand thei r owner, and wife o f Alfred D. Warner, t he president o f his fam ily s roles i n sociery. I t was an exciti ng ri me of nati onal renewal . shipping fi rm . Emalea Warner was an enormously energeti c and Progressives urgently sought sol uti ons ro the p ro blems associated effective campa igner for numerous reforms. As a young matron i n ' with l ate-ni neteenth-century i n dustri alizati on, urbanization, and the 1880s, she h ad b een responsible for coordinating Wil m i ngton s i mmigration. Optim istic and p ragmatic, the Progressives sought to chari ties, and sh e kept t he New Century Cl u b focused on i ssues o f restore a national spiri t o f shared communiry responsibility wi thout broad social concern, i ncl u ding education, prison reform, and sacrific i ng the benefi ts of materialp rogress . They h ad a b road public heal th . Emalea Warner believed that rhe p ro blems that agenda t hat incl uded l egisl ation to curb b usi ness excesses and to confronted modern socie ry could b e solved only th ro u gh the acti ve provide greater opportuni ties for self-i mp rovement to all Americans. involvement of commi tted women. She c hampioned higher The Progressive Movement gave a rremendous boost to l ong educati on for women as the s i ngle most i m portant means to standing efforts by femi n ists to gai n e qual rights for women. As t he achieve those goals and to widen the world of women b eyond that ' nati on s greatest, under-used resource, women played l eading roles of thei r private homes and fam ily life. From the perspective o f th e 20 21 Beneath Thy Guiding Ha nd R.EFOR.J'v! club women, especially rhar of organization rhar adopted the cause \·vas Jm· p orranr stare-wide Emalea Wa rner, Presidenr Harrer y, Delaware,s I argest and rhe Grange, or Patrons of Husbandr came with a very timely and ganization. The Grange created most politically powerful fa rm or the cause. Although 1mporranr message. a committee to lobby on behalf of a tepid endorsement, his He hardly needed to remind his Governor Caleb S. Penniwell gave only h degrees audience of rhe embarrassing fa ct successor, Governor Charles R. Miller, a lav<.ryer wit of nsylvania, that Delaware was unique among fro m Swarthmore College and the University Pen ident the stares in providing no who became governor in 1913, was a strong advocate. Pres collegiate insrirurion fo r irs Harrer, expressing his willingness to work with Mrs. \V arner's will daughters. Noting the earlier co mmittee, said: "Let us work fo r a coordinate college that fa ilure of co-education at the offe r to rhe girls of Delaware the same kind of an education that college, he proposed an alternative: Delaware College has been offering to the boys. Let it not only ol The creation of an affiliated, or be a normal school, a school of domestic science, but a scho coordinate, Wo men's College. The that embraces the whole range of college activity."6 Emalea Pusey \.%rne1; in a portrait new institution would be located During 1912, a coalition was fo rged among the women's by Stanley M. Arthurs in Newark, would occupy clubs, the Grange, President Harter, the director of the buildings separate from those used Agricultural Experiment Station at Delaware College, and the by the men's institmion, and would exercise a degree of autonomy. state's Board of Education to work fo r enabling legislation. In But, it would be tied to Delaware College and its board and share April of that year, representatives of the Board of Education the use of the established institmion's resources. visited a number of institu tions of higher learning in New The president's proposal was met with a hearry endorsement England to gather ideas about how a coordinate college might fr om the club women, who were delighted that those in be organized. Among the potential models, the committee authority were finally willing to consider including women in members were most strongly impressed by the relationship the col lege. Emalea Wa rner saw in this proposal rhe opportunity between Brown University and its sister institution, Pembroke fo r the women's clubs of Delaware to take on their greatest College. A woman dean administered Pembroke under rhe challenge to date. In her capacity as chairwoman of the stare general supervision of the president of Brown and that univer fe deration's Education Committee, she mobilized the club sity's board. That was the plan finally implemented in Delaware. women and re presenred them in pushing the proposal to irs The committee also rook note of the layout, equipmem, realization. Without her leadership, the Wo men's College might buildings, and curricula at several New England coordinate well have collapsed before it was begun, and Delaware's colleges and women's colleges. In October 1912, the commi tree daughters would have waited even longer fo r the opportunity to met with a subcommittee of the Delaware College board to attend a state-assisted college. work out the basic structure of an affiliated Wo men's College, to Emalea Wa rner opened the campaign by sending letters to be conducted under the control of the entire board. important people throughout the First State asking fo r their Responsibility fo r the proposed Wo men's College was written support. Her letters brought the issue before leaders of opinion into the new charter fo r Delaware College, which the General and uncovered their individual attitudes toward it. One Assembly adopted in February 1913.7 22 23 Beneath Thy Guiding Ha nd REFORM ce char she could fu lfill The next month, the legislators considered a bill to create the candidate who inspired every confiden tio Wo men's College. As rhe dare fo r rhe vore on rhe bill approached, rhose demanding condi ns. Emalea Wa rner cam paigned vigorously. She wrore lerrers Winifred Robinson was fo rry-six years old when she accepted n's College in Delaware. admonishing supporters to ceaseless work, fo r "rhe hour of our rhe challenge to creare a new Wo me up in rhe active and unired effo rt to secure the passage of rhe Wo man's Reared in Barrie Creek, Michigan, she had grown aunr and her College Bill is now ar hand." She also supervised rhe creation and women's world of her grandmother's home, wirh her ge afrer dissemination of a posrer addressed "TO THE PEOPLE OF widowed morher. Although she dreamed of going to colle rolled DELAWARE." From rhe opening line-" DO YOU KNOW-Thar completing high school, her fa mily lacked rhe fu nds; so she It rook Delaware is rhe only state wirhout an insrirution of higher up her hair to signifyher co ming of age and raughr school. rhe state normal education fo r women?," rhe message was loud and clear. 8 six years fo r her to earn enough money to arrend a On March 19, 1913, rhe Delaware General Assembly passed rhe school in Ypsilanti. Through persisrenr effort, she complered Wo men's College bill. An avalanche of lerrers and telegrams fr om baccalaureate degree ar the University of Michigan in 1899, at the club women, Grange members, and orher friends had secured large age of thirty-one. Afrer graduation, she moved to Vassar College in majori ties in borh rhe House of Represemarives and rhe Senate. Pough keepsie, New Yo rk, as an assistant in borany. She continued The law creared a commission thar was charged wirh overseeing rhe her education ar Columbia Un iversity, where she earned a Master consrrucrion of rhe college's buildings. GovernorMille r chaired rhe of Arrs in 1904 and a Ph.D. in botany in 1912. Her botan ical commission, bur Emalea Wa rner, rhe only fe male commissioner, was irs mosr acrive member. The commissioners purchased a nineteen-acre fa rm, located less rhan one mile south of rhe Delaware College buildings on rhe Depor Road that led from Newark to the Pennsylvania Railroad srarion. They hired Lausarr Rogers, an architect from New Castle, to design two srrucrures, a residence hall and a building fo r laboratories and classrooms. Emalea Pusey \.\'-'llrnerand Construction bids were ler to local comractors, and ground was Winifredjo sephine Robinson broken on June 16, 1913, less rhan three monrhs after adoption of (who holds rr parasol) on the rhc enabling legislation. grounds of Defrtware College, While construction of rhe college buildings was under way, August 7, 1914 the commissioners collaborated wirh rhe Delaware College board to secure a dean, a fa culty, and a srudent body. Selection of the dean was rhe fi rst order of business. In August, rhe Delaware College board defined rhe person ir sought as one "who shall be a woman of liberal learning, adequate experience, and undoubted character and ability to organize and put into successful operation such courses of study as the Board of Tr ustees may adopt. "9 By November, they had fo und in Wi nifred Josephine Robinson, an assistant professor of botany at Va ssar College, a 24 25 Beneath Thy Guiding Ha nd REFOR.JY! work rook her to inreresring places around the world, including the college might become. They vvere a powerful ream. Emalea Hawaii, Germany, and Jamaica. During her years at Vassar, she Wa rner had a well-defined purpose in mind and a prominent social spenr most summers at the New Yo rk Botanical Garden, working position in rhe community. Dignified and determined, "she had a wi th colleagues in her field and occasionally enjoying the theater presence that would not be denied," a member of the first class at 13 and concerrs that the city offered. In 1913, however, she accepted rhe Wo men's College later recalled. the post of Dean of Wo men ar rhe University of Wisconsin Dean Robinson's contribution was her experience in teaching Summer School. That position gave her experience in managing and ad ministration at a women's college. She was described by a large numbers of college women in residence halls and sorority perceptive colleague at Va ssar as "a leader among her fr iends" and as houses and whetted her appetite fo r the opportunity that an individual who had demonstrated "an unusual ability in deal ing beckoned in Delaware. 1 0 with young women."14 Like many of her students, she had come The chance to shape a new public institution designed to extend fr om an economically disadvantaged, sma.l l-town background, and educational opportunities fo r women captured Dr. Ro binson's through sheer determinacion, had earned a professorship in a enrhusiasm and overcame her reluctance to leave the comfortable respected insrirmion. She was thoroughly fa miliar wirh each of rhe world of Va ssar. After a preliminary visit to Delaware as Emalea prevailing sysrems of women's higher education, rhe co-educational Wa rner's guest, the fu ture dean wrote to her hostess ro express plan of her native Midwestern srare universities, rhe wo men's thanks fo r her "charming hospitality" and ro conrinue the dialog college world ofVassar, and rhe affiliated relationship rhar bound that they had begun about the great object of their mutual concern. Barnard College to Columbia University. From those experiences, "I had inrended to learn every line of the Princess (my part in Love's Dean Robinson had fo rmed strong convictions abom rhe mosr Labour'sLost which we are planning to give) on the train but my effective organization of a women's college. She held equally strong head was so fu ll of your great ideal fo r the Wo man's College that I views concerning nor only rhe living arrangemenrs and social life of kept turning plans over in my mind and never a word did I learn." rhe students but also their curriculum and potential careers. The letter continued with suggestions fo r the arrangemenr of rhe Both Emalea Wa rnerand Winifred Robinson were women college dining room, the layo ut of an athletic field, and the instal moved by powerful convictions and fo r both, in their differenr lation of cooking apparatus on each floor of the residence hall so ways, rhe creation of the Wo men's College was to be the greatest 11 that the srudenrs could make tea. adven ture and achievement of their lives. Mrs. Wa rnerkept When Emalea Wa rner replied a fe w days later, she showed her beautifully organized scrapbooks, filled wirh letters, newspaper enthusiasm by using a Qu aker salutation, "My dear Friend." clippings, and other memorabilia concerning rhe creation and early Hoping that Wi nifred Ro binson wo uld accept the position at life of the college, all of wh ich are now located in the Archives of Delaware, she wrote, "your coming to us... will be a new day fo r the University of Delaware. She dedicated the scrapbooks to: little Delaware and a fresh page will be written in our history. We "Winifred Ro binson, Dean of rhe Wo men's College, whose vision, are going to help you tremendously-the dear good women of this scholarship, inspiration, and efficient administration won fo r it state whom I know you will love when you can touch their lives Honor and Success."15 and they will love you."12 Dr. Robinson made a favorable impression on the Delaware The tone of the Winifred Robinson-Emalea Wa rner College Board ofTrustees, and, in November 1913, Presidenr Harrer correspondence suggests that, from the beginning of their long offered her rhe position of dean at an annual salary of $2,000. The collaboration, these two remarkable women shared a vision of whar dean was expected to live in the residence hall, and her room and 26 27 Beneath Thy Guiding Ha nd REFORM newspaper reporter wrote, "She is of pleasing appearance, of medium ht, fa ir in complexion and of slender figure. Her personality is heiat> alcogerher kindly and she made the girls at the High School fe el char she is interested in them fo r their own sal 28 29 CHAPTER TH REE THEY CAME. A CLASS OF fo rty-eight freshmen began the Wo men's College. Later, when the early years of the Wo men's College had become legendary, irs firststuden ts were seen as pioneers who had laid rhe fo undations fo r a better Delaware. The fo rmal opening of the college took place on October 10, 1914, which the Ne wark Post described as "the greatest day Delaware has ever known."1 The Posts editor, Everett C. Johnson, was the man who, as a student at Delaware College, had argued fo r co-education in the Aurora of 1898. Now a member of the Delaware College Board ofTrusrees, he had been chosen by his Dean Wi nifi·ed Robinson in her do ctoral robe poses at the center of the fe llow board members to accept the keys to the Wo men's College WOmen)· Co llege faculty, staff, and student body at the op ening of the WOmens buildings from rhe commission. The realization of the Wo men's College in the fall of 1.914. College was a dream come true fo r Johnson and fo r his equally intellectual wife, the fo rmer Lo uise Staton. An eager crowd of berween 2,000 and 3,500 people, including the stare's most distinguished men and wo men, gathered on that bright October day to see the two buildings, called Residence Hall and Science Hall, that had been erected fo r the new college and to witness the installation of Samuel Chiles Mitchell as president of Delaware College and Winifred Josephine Robinson as dean of the Wo men's College. "Enthusiasm and fa ith in the possibilities of our litde Commonwealth was the spirit of the day," the Post reported. 31 Beneath Thy Guiding Ha nd TH E CoLLEGE The speakers and audience shared a sense of pride and of parriorism as they contemplated the meaning and purpose of the rwo coordinate col leges. The outbreak of war in Europe only a fe w weeks before served to heighten President Mitchell's rhetorical references to "America as a moral power in the world" that offered equality of educational opportunity to both sexes. In her remarks, Dean Robinson concentrated on the ideals that underlie a liberal education. She declared that work, recreation, the search fo r rrurh, and ethical values Dean Wi nifred Robinson and made up the fo ur wa lls of the Tr ustee Everett C. johnson at academic structure. Those walls the formalop ening of the could keep our the frivolous and the Wo mens College fa lse while exalting knowledge, art, religion, and the spirit of social usefulness. "On the outside must be Scenes fromthe dedication of the Wo mm'sCollege, all that is conventional in reaching, all that is servile in learni ng; on October 10, 1914 the inside, all freedom in method fo r the reacher, all honest questioning fo r the learner. "2 The dean had already described the mission of the new institution in its first Bulletin. "The purpose of Winifred J . Robinson provided the vision and leadership that the Wo men's College," she \Vrote, "is to provide academic work of shaped the Wo men's College. She was responsible fo r every col lege grade that is especially adapted to the needs of women." In thing-from ordering coal fo r the fu rnace to hiring rhe fa cul ty, addition to its academic go al, the Bulletinalso promised that the advising the students, and maintaining discipline. She had not college would give irs students "social experience, so essential to chosen the affiliated college model fo r Delaware; the Delaware poise and grace of manner. . . . The girls will live in a world of their College Board ofTrusrees had done that. The board had selected own," Dean Ro binson wrote, "surro unded by refined, cultural Winifred Ro binson to be dean from a long list of candidates influences, in daily association wirh the dean and her associares."3 primarily because the board believed that she could create a college Translating those broad, idealistic concepts into the day-to-day on rhe affiliated college model. Her ability to pursue rhar vision was decisions that would guide rhe development of rhe nascent col lege never in doubt, but, in rime, rhe board would come to was to be Wi nifred Ro binson's life work. From rhe college's question the wisdom and cost of continuing rwo institutions beginning in 1914 until she reti red at the age of seventy in 1938, segregated by gender. The history of rhe Wo men's College is, 32 33 Beneath Thy Guiding Ha nd TH E CoLLEG E therefore, a bittersweet tale of an enterprise rhar began on rhe officer in rhe Uni ted Stares Army during \'V'orld \Xfar I. Hullihen's buoyant crest of idealism in rhe Progressive Era and rhen outlived interests and abilities lay in adminis tration rather than scholarship. irs era; ir is also rhe story of rhe woman who saw her once-shared He possessed a cordial, Southern manner, which, coupled with a vision questioned and ultimately, ar least ar Delaware, rejected . love of ou tdoor, manly sporrs such as big game huming, allowed Supervision of rhe Women's College of Delaware, as ir was him ro move easily in the world of Delaware's male elite . One of originally called, was rhe responsibility of a special committee of the new presidenr's flrs r ac tions was to promote a redefinition of rhe Delaware College Board of Tr us tees, which consisted of three rhe ins rirurion by according it the name University of Delaware, members of the all-male board, together with rhe president of which encompassed both Delaware College, rhe men's portion, and Delaware College and the dean of the Women's College. The rhe Wo men's College. The faculty and Board of Tr usrees consenred chairperson of rhar committee was State Chancellor Charles M. ro rhe new name, which became rhe official ride in March 192 ] . 'i Curtis, a graduate of Delaware College and the brother of Harriette Dean Robinson agreed to the change on condition rhar the Curtis, rhe student from rhe Purnell years of co-education who had Women's College would re tain irs au tonomy. played Lydia Languish in Th e Rivals in 1873. Chancellor Curtis The Wo men's College was born in an era that was as yet was a strong advocate of rhe Women's College, one on whom Dean untouched by forces that were soon ro unravel rhe fabric of Robinson could depend for support. During rhe initial fourteen Vic torian culture. Auromobiles were a rarity in Delaware in 1914, years of rhe college, rhere was no woman member of rhe Board of and srill in rhe future were rhe social changes associated with Tr ustees. In 1928, Emalea Warner was selected the first of her sex America's involvemem in the First World War, the ill-advised ro join what had rhen become the Board of Tr ustees of the Pr ohibition Amendmenr and the decade of free-spirited self University of Delaware. To compensate for rhe lack of a female ind ulgence rhat followed the war. In 1914, most people who had presence, the president of the board appointed an advisory achieved or aspired to middle-class status believed that earnest commi ttee to rhe Women's College, which consisted of five women endeavor, sexual abstinence before marriage, and dedication to selected from throughout rhe state. An Academic Council-made selfless social causes were worthy goals tow ard which educated up of rhe president of Delaware College, Dean Robinson, the people should aspire in rheir lives. Dean Robinson and those who faculty of the Women's College, and all Delaware College faculty assisted in the creation of the Women's College believed who taught courses in the Women's College-me t biweekly to deal wholehear tedly in rhese concepts, and they purposefully built rhe with issues concerning ins truc tion, rhe curriculum, examinations, college around rhem. and studen t discipline. The Wo men's College was conceived as a secular convent, where Samuel Chiles Mitchell, whose inauguration as president of unsophisticated, inexperienced studenrs were ro be shaped in to Delaware College took place on the same day as the opening socially poised, educated women prepared to pursue careers in ceremony for the Women's College, remained ar Delaware for only fields open to members of their sex and useful to the ci tizens of six years. A kindly man, but a lax administrator, President Mitchell Delaware, particularly reaching and home economics. The various became embroiled in disagreements with some faculty and resigned aspects of rhe college were unified by rhar purpose. Ir represented his presidency in 1920 to accept a professorship in history at an adaptation of those bits and pieces from the experience of other Richmond College." Mitchell's successor was Walter Hullihen, a schools rhat Dean Robinson regarded as most appropriate to the tall, dignified Virgini an who held a Ph.D. in classical languages unique needs of the college in Delaware. She was par ticularly from The Johns Hopkins Universi ty and had recently served as an conscious of rhe college's goal to educate those young women who 34 35 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand TH E COLLEGE could nor affo rd to attend private colleges. She knew that rhe majority of the students in the Wo men's College had nor received thorough high-school educations and were likely to be self conscious and insecure in college classes. Many were nor prepared to undertake college-level work. Students often came from poor fa milies who lived culturally impoverished, narrow lives. To accommodate them, the dean designed a college that provided a safe, homelike, comfortable environment in which young women could most easily respond to educational opportunities. A key element in Dean Robinson's concept, therefore, was her use of the Residence Hall. The dean had helped plan the building to ensure that it included large, well-furnished public spaces appropriate to the conduct of social events. Student rooms, by contrast, were deliberately kept small and cell-like, to inspire study but not conviviality. The dean had an inflexible rule that all fe male fa culty of the college must live in residence, must rake their meals with the students, and must serve as chaperones fo r student social events. Concomitantly, she fo rbade students to live off campus, unless they were commuters living with their parents or close relatives. Those ironclad rules were designed to provide the students with fa culty role models who would instill in them a love of learning and introduce them to a richer cultural life than they had known previously. As the dean explained to the Board ofTrustees, "It is nor the professor's course bur the professor's world that the student "6 enrers. The dean regarded rhe college as her fa mily. "So com pelling," she once wrote to a fr iend, "is the desire to mother it. "7 When the college fi rst opened, there was but one residence, and Dean Robinson, who had her rooms there, was its director. The sudden appearance of the dean in her red-flannel bathrobe was sufficient to restore order instantly to a room fu ll of noisy, high spirited college students.8 Dean Robinson had no hesitation in The Delaware State Wornens Clu bs fu rnished the public rooms of the Wo rnens giving advice to students on any subject. On at least one occasion, College Residence Ha LL to create a gracious, dign ified, )'et homey and . � she instructed a surprised young woman on the art of applying uncLuttered atmosphere typ ical of the upp er-middle-c�ass taste oJ.the tnne. The makeup.9 Another student received a letter fr om the dean dining room, although Located in the basement and stmplyfu rmshed, was admonishing her against dancing cheek to cheek. "Many a man has equipp ed for formaldining andftatured a fireplace. been tempted beyond what he was able to bear in the way of sex 37 36 Beneath Thy Guiding Ha nd TH E COLLEGE impulse by a perfecdy inn ocent girl," rhe dean wrore. "Cheek-ro cheek ancing i� a very dangerous . � thing borh as ro rhe reputation wh ch It may bnng to rhe girl � who permits ir and to rhe results wh ich may come from ir."Jo In rh period when : rhe Wo men's College began, the so-called Seven Sisters colleges-Mount Holyoke, . Smith, Va ssar, Bryn Mawr, Radcliffe , Barnard, and We llesley-offe red models a · · of the colie 0Jate I d ea 1 t;or women. Srudenrs _.... ar those prestigious private institmions -;l't had created what was called "The Life," a special world apart, ,.,..... "' ..... � where women students marched "!.f.: in daisy-chain ceremonies, built Th e annual Fo under'sDa y tree-planting ceremony in 1924 strong loyalties to compatriots, and pursued leadership roles in clubs, sports, and theatrical programs. 11 Many of those elements were replicated at the Wo men's College. The dean established a yearly succession of ceremonial occasions that began with Founder's Day in October, proceeded to a special Thanksgiving dinner, and ended with May Day and Commencement at the close of rhe school year. Ceremonies were designed to inspire in students an unquenchable loyalty, both to the college as a whole and to rheir Me mbers of the "pioneer particular class. Those activities became genuine traditions thar class" of 1918 pose in their lasted rhe life of the college and bound the students ro one another graduation robes on the steps and ro rhe institution. of Residence Hall before Tr ee planting was the special fe ature of Founder's Day. In the marching, surrounded by early years of the college, the ceremony had practical as well as undergraduates bearing a symbolic value since the small campus had begun on treeless daisy-chain, to the com fa rmland. Each year, the president of the sophomore class plamed a mencement ceremony on . june 10, 1918. tree and presented the spade to the president of the fr eshman class The members of the junior class chen bestowed class colors on the 38 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand TH E COLLEGE .· 11 campus d UI 1 ao t he 1920s and 1930s and provided local newspapers . . . w. h exce 11 en t photo opportunities. Each year, Bearnce. Hat ts l101 . n, rt , dr· rector o f ph)rsical' education at the Wo mens College, created a w pagean t based on a diffe rent theme. Colorfully garbe d dst u enr ne . dancers enac ted fa iry tale stones on the model of classrca· l b a 11et, . and dstu e nt 'acrobats ' demonstrated their skill in gymnastics. S ru d ents Wearinao di-ap' hanous yet modest, costumes danced aroun d ' the May Pole ro the strains of "May Is Here," a song, accord' rng to Jeaend, composed by Miss Hartshorn...... 0 Dean Robinson disapproved of soromres because she fea red theu po•ver to detract fro m the unity of the student body, bu� she . approved of academic clubs, Idee the Math Cl�b, Le Cercle F rancars,· and rhe Home Economics Club, whrch enhanced the . college's mission. She empowered the studenr government or ant- . � ? zanon to create rules to °aovern student behavror and to appoint proctors to enforce those rules. The emphasis on se If- d'ts �·tp 1 ·me t 1 t Th e Jvfay Pole da nce, as performe � d by costumed students on the Mall on May Day, 1925 this system encouraged was also extended ro the students academtc freshmen, each freshman receiving her colors from her "big sister" among the juniors. The ceremony culminated in the robing of the seniors in caps and gowns. A special fe ature of that event was the speaker, usually a well-kn own American professional woman, who would discuss career opportunities fo r women. Among those who spoke at the Women's Colle ge were rhe suffragist leader Dr. Anna Howard Shaw; Lillian Gil breth, the time and motion engineer; Dr. Anni e Jump Cannon, Harvard University's Dover-born astronomer; and Judge Florence Allen of the United States Circuit Court ofAppeals. Weekly chapel services presented another opportunity to reinforce rhe solemnity and high moral purpose of the college. The entire student body and many fa culty joined in worship under the dignified leadership of the dean. Whereas Founder's Day and chapel emphasized the purposeful, academic side of college life, May Day paid tribute to feminine pulchritude, grace, and Th e Ma ndo lin Clu b in 1919 attracted students who play ed a variety of outdoor recreation. The queen and her · · 1920 court drew annual mustcaltnstruments. In the s, tt· was su'J 1 mededby a Ululele Clu b, when crowds of several thousand visitors to the that instrument became the rage among coflege students. 40 41 Beneath Thy Guiding Ha nd THE COLLEGE life, which was conducted accordin g to an honor system. Another The only fa ilure of an attempted cooperative venture between the college-supponed extracurricular activity was the Y. W.C.A., which rwo institutions was in journalism. Students from both colleges conducted Bible classes and unden ook charitable projects. A Glee cried ro reorganize the Delaware College Review as a joint Club and a Mandolin Club addr essed the college's commitment ro newspaper, bur rhe Women's College students complained that the music education, especially in the early years when there were Review's editors were only concerned wirh sports and ignored their neither faculty nor courses in that discipline. The Dramatic Club, ideas fo r stories. The women withdrevv from the newspaper and created in 1917, fo cused initially on performing modest instead published a succession of short-lived and inadequately productions of skits and l·l charades, bur it later evolved into an fu nded, bur often very creditable, literary magazines. organization capable of performing major dramatic works in Three academic programs were available to swdenrs at the conjunction with its counterpan in Delaware College. Wo men's College: Arts and Science, Education, and Home Nor all of the activities of the Women's College students were so Economics. Bur, because the college was philosophically self-consciously studious and culturally high-minded as rhe above committed to rhe liberal arts and was roo small to offe r more than a description might suggest. Th e Ch ronicle, the first yearbook narrow range of courses, the students' programs varied relatively published by the college in 1918, notes that Glee Club members little, irrespective of their majors. When the college opened, it had had kazoos, which they played at Delaware College athletic events only fo ur fe male faculty, bur that small band was greatly or, ille gally, at lights out in the Residence Hall. Any student who augmented by faculty fro m Delaware College, who willingly did fa iled a rest could expect a kazoo serenade of"The Wo rms Crawl double duty, reaching their courses in both institutions fo r In, The Worms Crawl Our."12 Student pranks were commonplace. additional pay. Mary E. Rich and Myrtle V. Caudell were the One warmly recalled episode involved placing a hand muff with a original professors of education and home economics, respectively. hot water bottle in it inside a girl's bed so that it looked and felt They also did double duty. Beyond their reaching responsibilities, like a small animal. Memorable fo r a diffe rent reason was the rhey traveled extensively throughout Delaware enlisting students, studen t in the firstgrad uating class who tried to evade taking a rest studying the stare's educational, economic, and living conditions, fo r which she was unprepared by applying white powder to her fa ce and suggesting ways Delawareans could improve the quality of and fe igning a fa inting spell in front of the professor. 13 Students of their lives. Home economics extension in Delaware had irs rhe 1920s recalled learningrhe Charleston in a line by hanging beginnings in rhe work of Myrtle V. Caudell. onto the sides of rhe shower stalls in Sussex Hall, while one girl The creation of the Women's College was bur one link in a chain whistled "Yes, sir, that's my baby. " of events that transformed public education in Delaware. As a Social relations between Delaware College and the Women's preliminary step to beginning her duties at the Women's College, College were generally cordial. Female students sometimes Mary Rich drove a horse and buggy over muddy roads, visiting complained that the fra ternity brothers invited non-college women schools throughout the state to recruit students and to observe to their parries in preference to Wo men's College students, bur social and economic conditions. She was impressed by the interest most of the women students had no trouble getting dates ro and cooperation that she received throughout rural Delaware, bur coll ege-sponsored dances with students in the men's college. In the she also discovered ill-educated reachers working in run-down, one early years of the Wo men's College, it became a tradition fo r the room schools with dilapidated, backyard privies. To awaken students at Delaware College to descend in costume on rhe Delawareans to the need fo r change, Mary Rich presenred women's Residence Hall before one of their biggest athletic events. information at meetings of women's clubs and other organizations 42 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand THE CoLLEGE hich about the depressing condition of Delaware's sc hools. One man 1 932, 312 women had earned two-year teaching certificates, "v who took up the challenge was Pierre S. du Pont, then president of qualified rhem to be primary-school teachers. In 1935, Dean the DuPont Company. In 1918, Pierre du Pont created an organi Robinson reponed that 329 of the stare's active teachers were zation, called Service Ci tizens of Delaware, to promote school araduaces of the Wo men's College, including 102 reachers in the reform. Its goal was to centralize school administration in city ofWilmingron, 225 throughout rural Delaware, and rwo at Delaware, to upgrade the quality of school instruction, and to rhe Wo men's College itself.1 7 provide new, state-of-the-an, comprehensive school buildings to The other professionally oriented program offered by rhe every community in the state. P. S. du Pont initially endowed Wo men's College was home economics. Like social work, home Service Citizens wi th $1.5 million to accomplish irs building economics was a new field that had come into being in response to program, and he personally campaigned fo r a new school code to the reform agendas of the Progressive Era, attracting a largely ensure that his new schools would be managed according to fe male, professional work fo rce. Home economics was designed to professional standards.15 bring scientificinf ormation and resting procedures co the One outcome of that concentrated effort to advance education heretofore prosaic, yet creative tasks char occupied the rime of was a much-needed improvement in the preparation of teachers. In housewives: Cooking, sewing, and infant care. As an academic 1913, the state's Board of Education had secured passage of a law to field, home economics, or domestic science as it was sometimes create a summer-school program for reachers at Delaware College. called, sought to justifythe role of housewife in an industrial world In its early years, rhe summer school fo cused on supplying and to create new professions fo r women as dietitians, fo od testers, rudimentary instruction to reachers who had received little or no clothing buyers, and nursery-school teachers. Home economists college training. When the Wo men's College was fo unded in 1914, were also employed to reach their discipline in high schools and to the summer school became the joint responsibility of rhe two become agricultural extension agents. 18 Where education majors affi liated colleges. In 1919, rhe stare authorized a two-year college relied upon rhe social-science fields of psychology and sociology fo r certificate program fo r reachers, another stopgap measure designed their intellectual fo undation, the major building block of the home to give reachers some training beyond high school. The two-year economics curriculum was chemisoy. Home economists sought to certificate program became a distinct fe ature of rhe Wo men's apply knowledge about newly discovered nutritional components, College until 1934, when the program was discontinued. such as proteins, vitamins, and carbohydrates, and to improve fo od Supporters of the Wo men's College hoped to interest Pierre du preparation in households as well as in hospitals, schools, and other Po nt in providing fo r new buildings and professorships. Through institutions. Home economics, with its emphasis on scientific Service Ci tizens, the philanthropist did give some fu nds fo r the tes ting, was closely allied with the emerging fo od-processing construction of Kent Dining Hall and fo r te mporary dormitories. industry. The study of textiles, although less scientificallydeveloped He also financed scholarships fo r fu ture reachers and paid a than nutrition in 1914, was similarly taught with the goal of portion of Mary E. Rich's salary. All told, Service Citizens spent explaining the process of textile and clothing manufacture in both $71 ,000 on the Wo men's College, but du Pont made clear that his home and industrial settings. interest was in improving public education in general, not in rhe Ar Delaware, as elsewhere, home economics looked Janus-like Wo men's College as such.16 toward women's past and to their fu ture. The fieldevolved rapidly The college played a very successful role in improving the in response to both mainstream social pressures and the growth of quality of teacher preparation in Delawa re's public schools. By knowledge about early childhood development, nutrition, and 44 45 Beneath Thy Guiding Ha nd TH E CoLLEGE indusrrial processes. A fo od-science laborawry and a textile laboratory were located in Science Hall. In 1914, the fo od laboratory was equipped with experimental equipment suitable fo r rraining dietitians and fo r testing fo ods fo r their chemical and nutritional comem. By the early 1930s, the demand fo r technicians uained to carry out such industrial and scientificapplications in cooking had cooled, and Amy Rexrrew, who then headed home economics, requested that the old equipment in the fo od laboratory be replaced by new equipment that would replicate kitchens fo und in home environments. 19 A similar shift toward rraining homemal 46 47 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand TH E CoLLEGE srudenrs. 1° Chemistry, however, she believed, should not be presented in rhe same way to men and women because it should be directed to their diffe rent careers. In a world in which careers fo r women were limited, male studems might study chemistry in preparation fo r a variety of careers, whereas fe male studems who srudied chemistry were largely restricted to careers in fo od science. For that reason, the dean believed that the presentation of chemistry to women students should concentrate on the chemical composition of fo od, which, she believed, was of "much more practical value to women. "�' In rhe early days of the college, rhe number of women fac ulty was quire small and turnover was rapid. Until the early 1920s, none of the Wo men's College fa culty held the Ph. D. aside from the dean; many had only a bachelor's degree plus some prior experience as teachers . The pay scale was low, even Fo nner Delaware College President George A. Hartel; teaching a mathematics fo r those times, and the requirement that all women fa culty live class at the WomensCo llege in 1914 in the dormitories, a benefit which the University valued at $300, was doubtless a disincentive fo r most to remain more rhan a fe w years. College grew, Dean Robinson concentrated on hiring fa culty in a There was disparity of pay between men and women fa culty. fe w disciplines to teach exclusively in the Wo men's College. In To cite but one example, in 1922, Delaware College hired a male addition to home economics and education, those disciplines instructor in English fo r a salary of $1 ,800; that same year, a were physical education, art, music, biology, and chemistry. The woman with similar credentials was hired to teach fo reign selection of art and music is not surprising, fo r those creative arrs languages at a salary of $900 plus room and board, a benefit had long been associated with women's alleged special affi nity fo r culture and aesthetics. The choice of physical education, likewise, can be explained by the strict segregation of thesexes in college athletics during that period. The explanation of the \rlomenstudents play dean's decision to employ separate fa culty in biology and chem basketball in 1919. Th e istry, however, is not so self-evident. Dean Robinson believed Wo mens College had no that there was no appreciable diffe rence berween instruction fo r sp ace forind oor sp orts until men and women in fields like history, fo reign languages, and the completion of the English literature. Male faculty, used to teaching students of Wo mens Gy mnasium in their own sex, could perform quite adequately as teachers at the 1930. Wo men's College in the humanities, she said, as long as they taught in a "vivid" manner that excited the interest of their 48 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand TH E CoLLEGE which carried with it unending interaction with students, own quest to teach Delawareans the incl uding chaperoning responsibilities. Te aching loads were very value and meaning of art. heavy by recen t standards. Ty pically, fa culty taught fo ur courses Beatrice Hartshorn came to each term, although higher loads were not uncommon. In 1933, Delaware in 1925 to take over a the clothing instructor was scheduled to reach twenty hours a physical education program that had week, while Amy Rexrrew, in addition to her duties as head of been co nstricted by the absence of a home economics, taught twenty-three hours each week and also gymnasium and consisted primarily supervised rwo student-teachers . 22 of rhe students doing indoor It was only in the college's second decade rhar a permanent exercises with wands and dumbbells core fa culty was recruited to the Wo men's College. That small and playing a fe w our-of-doors group of women became leaders of the various branches of the games. By the 1920s, the value of Wo men's College and made permanent marks on the develop physical education fo r women was men t of the University. Outstanding among them were Amy no longer open ro question, bur Rextrew, whose work in home economics has already been noted; disagreements were rife over the Harriet Baily in Art; Beatrice issue of women's participation in Hartshorn in Physical Education; competitive sports. Miss Hartshorn Beatrice P. Ha rtshorn, director �f' Quaesira Drake in Chemistry; and rook rhe view that women should womens physicaf eduCfltiOJI at Jeannette Grausrein in Biology. participate in such team sports as Delaware from 1925 ttlltif 1962 Harriet Baily, who joined the hockey and basketball, bur she faculty in 1929, created the first art opposed intercollegiate athletics fo r women. The Hartshorn department at the University of regime emphasized body-movement exercises, fo lk dancing, and Delaware. An had not been taught rhe May Day rituals as more appropriate ro women than the at Delaware College, bur under competitive athletics associated with the world of men. In Miss Baily's guidance, it became a addition ro her influence on women's athletics and physical real presence on the University training, she sought the constr uction of a gymnasium; when the campus. Having much vision bur state legislature agreed ro the venture, she helped design the little money, she organized annual structure that now bears her name. art shows that brought students During the 1920s and 1930s, career opportunities fo r women into contact with reproductions of scientists were very restricted. Ty pically, the only industrial major works of art. The students' positions open to them were in ancillary roles as technical librarians talents were displayed in the fine Ha rriet Baily, whose career at or laboratory assistants. Research universities, likewise, shunned posters that they designed to Delaware began in 1929, taught women professors in favor of men. In that restricted marker, the art in the Wo mens College and advertise exhibits, plays, and other Wo men's College was able to attract and retain several outstanding became the firstchailp erson of the special events on campus. Many an scientists. Quaesita Drake, a chemist who joined the fa culty in the Art Department under co maJors went on to careers as art early 1920s, was the firstWo men's College fa culty member, other education in 1945. reachers, where they continued their than the dean, to hold the Ph.D. degree. Jeannette Grausrein, 50 51 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand TH E COLLEGE another Ph. D., joined the fa culty in biology in 1930. Burdened with h�avy teaching loads in beginning-level courses that they Th e W"lornens Gy mnasium, taught m overcrowded laboratories, neither woman had much 110w named Ha rtshorn opportunit was built with state y to pursue research. Elizabeth Dyer, who joined Dr. Half, Drake in chemis appropriations app roved try in the 1930s after earning her Ph.D. at Ya le, was able to esta short6' beforethe onset of blish a research program in a laboratory in the new Delaware Coll the DepreJSion. Completed ege chemistry building, now named fo r its donor, H. in 1930, it contained a Fletcher Brown, but that development came only very late in the swimming pool, locker history of the Wo men's College. room, and cfasHooms, as By 1934, when the Wo men's College had reached the end of irs wellas a gymnasium. second decade, it had fulfilled the hopes of those who had celebrated its beginning. The student body had grown from 133 in 1919-20 to about 300 a decade later. Ty pically, the Wo men's College enrolled about two-thirds of the number of men enrolled in Delaware College. In 1934-35, during the depths of the Depression, there were 28 1 swdents in the Wo men's College, 110 of whom were fr om Wilmington, sixty-six from rural New Castle County, twenty-two from Kent County, twenty-five from Sussex County, and fifty-eight from our of state. In that year, 185 students were studying fo r degrees in Arts and Science, fifty-four in home economics, and fo rty-two in education. Since its opening, the college had added several buildings: Sussex Residence Hall in 1916, Kent Dining Hall and New Castle Residence Hall in 1926, and the Gymnasium in 1930. In addition, the college maintained three "temporary" dormitory buildings, called by the whimsical The Wom�n� College campus in 1930. Th e Jvfafl, which separates the original . names To psy, Tu rvy, and Boletus, which had been constructed in coffege bwfdmgs at nght from Ne w Castle and Sussex Ha ils, seen in the distance, was p anted in rows of the early 1920s to accommodate the increased student body. ln � . honey locust trees-a sp ecies chosen by campus lrmdscape archttect Marzan Coffin to contrast with the more masculine elm 1934, approximately fifty percent of the student body were trees that wer� c�osen J:r the Delaware Coflege Mali. Miss Coffin, who was commuters, a statistic explained, in part, by the hard times and the among �mencas pmmer landscape architects, was the pioneer professional lack of dormitory space.23 In 1933, Amy Rexrrew undertook a umr an m thefield. In the ear61 � � . twentieth centwy, it was most unusual foran survey of the students' accounts to ascertain the true cost of at mstttu�t�n to employ a woman fancfscape architect. Miss Coffin owed her rending the college. She learned that the average in-state corm IJSwn � at Delaware to trustee and benefactorH. Rodney Sharp, who commuter paid about $370 a year in personal costs and college aclmtred her worle and employed her to plan the groundsat his own home. fe es, whereas an in-state student in residence paid about $686.2;, 52 53 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand TH E CoLLEGE Students could earn some of rhe money necessary fo r on-campus residency by wai ting rabies in Kent Dining Hall or by undertaking other parr-rime jobs on campus. In rhe 1920s and 1930s, rhe college was stretched ro rhe extreme limits of irs resources in buildings and fa culty, bur ir was a lively place rhat offered sound instruction and a wide array of extracur ricular opportunities fo r choral singing, acting in plays, meeting the leading women of the day, attending dances, playing indoor and ourdoor sportS, swimming, and seeing arr exhibitions. The college had a homey fe eling about it. Studen ts and fa culty interacted ol Doi.wan ,,,,....ci 0.-Plu f• Dw~ I J I of Dola...,. c.a...... 11M w....:, eon..,. ll¥.LAWAKE OOLLl'lOE WOIIEl<'8 COU.EOI; constantly, not only in the classroom bur also in the dining hall and •W, &u..■ ll•H J -1.J. 0.,-Jt.,a.. A. a.la.I~ A,W. Y. 'W, C. A. Jl .\. Ol,I 11,.ll•C Pla•t L Arv .... ~ R.U. J,W, c...... S-1• 1 ,t. ,~.. , H..U-.Alfkalt•,. u~ U..U the residence hal ls. Classes were kept small, and no student fe lt losr "- m... Mun I. nn1n T , (al raary 0-W• ._..,_. Rall . J.W. 0-'..... I.A. a..!1o1i...... U. A••IIIM- D,W, - Kai } x-w. ..,....,,. u... ~ ~:::~-= u,n lil. c,rt.,.,.r1e1 a.H4f.•c '"· P,..,.....,. a,.... ,_ E-W. Dean Ro binson could honestly boast th at the curriculum had been ,~ ),l"'~'".i OW B•llal Pb.al t'. RMN t f 11,-11111 lANrtlt'7 ~• ::,=::- ~.. ~:;:~~ := i:;: 0.,-1~ l,W, o. a..,1t.. ,r.. 11,u 1,.1lt• 1kUtl11 \', lfutn BIii carefully designed to provide "courses distinctly fo r women" thar tL rv,..1 u.... P. A•l•1•1• 1,1. f"r■Wt•IU' ..... O,.., Q. 1:.s1~ would prepare them fo r "their probable life work."25 From the distance of nearly six decades, it is tempting ro • ed, proposed condemn the dean fo r deliberately limiting Wo men's College dmgne• 1920 Com'Pleted building; are un da rl d 1·n • Th,r· p Lan was , o-be -but. "I t students to opportunities in a fe w, generally ill-paid "women's" b11ildings, including a structure on the locatzon of the soon-t re �n outline. No �e that, professions. While it is true that Dean Robinson remained an Memorial Hallfacin g the area labeled "th e Green, "a mens College, seveml new exemplar of the Progressive Era long after the ideals of that time m three existing buildings of the Wo · addition to the · f. b l ettE WF' ' ' Want JW. I GWwere had fa ded from the American consciousness, it is also important ro built/in s were proj ected, of whzch those a e the Ke nt Dining Ha ll. Th e pla t called note that her assessment of women's career opportunities was not ventu�lybu ilt as residence halls and : d onlyb t�e Malls fo each college to develop enclosed ca z uses, joine ! off the marie In 1930, fo r example, when the University of r rr_? was neve1. ' classroom butldzng, connectmg· z·mes. BW a projected addzttanal 1. Delaware was seeking a librarian ro take charge of the Memorial nta HatL J/J(' atter , the projected YWC.A.!Student Ce b m ·1 t, nor wasA W Li brary, one of those under consideration was Dorothy Hawkins. have cut ()ffth~ lllflffll· tme a tong been built on the prop osed location, it wou!tl Miss Hawkins had previous experience at Delaware College, where campuses. the Mall that links the formermen's and women's she had successfully served as rhe college's first professional librarian from 1921 un til 1927. She had left Delaware ro pursue increasingly responsible positions in libraries at other colleges. Dorothy Hawkins wrote ro President Hullihen of her inrerest in returning ro Delaware. He replied: "I am sorry rhar I am unable ro say anything definite about the position bur I really have no idea ar all whether rhe Library Committee and rhe Committee on Instruction will fe el that it is necessary to have a man in rhis position or whether rhey will fe el rhar a woman would be just as acceptable. "26 The co mmittee chose a man. 55 54 CHAPTER FouR ON A BEAUTIFUL MAY afternoon in 1935, the Delaware Federation ofWomen's Clubs dedicated a rose garden at the Wo men's College to Dean Winifred Robinson, whom they praised fo r her "wise guidance and gentle leadership."1 The gesture was timely, because Winifred Robinson, at the age of sixty-seven, was fa st approaching retirement. Only th ree years later, a Wilmington newspaper headline proclaimed, "Delaware's Foremost Wo man to Re tire. " The small-town girl from Michigan who had struggled so conscientiously to acquire an education and had abandoned a promising career as a botanist to fo und a college fo r wo men in the First State was praised as a gentlewoman of courage and fo rtitude "whose life is a monument of service fo r orhers."2 In retirement, the Students at worle in the \%mens Co llege chemistJy laboratmy in 1934 dean planned to leave Delaware. She continued to fo llow her established pattern ofspending her summers in rural Ve rmont, bur she substituted Florida fo r Delaware in the winters. On rhe surface, Dean Robinson's life and work appeared as triumphant as the newspaper coverage suggested, bur behind the celebratory fa c;:ade, she had reason to fe ar fo r the fu ture of the college. Her concerns were well-known within the University of Delaware. At a dinner held in Ke nt Dining Hall in April 1938 to honor her, Dean Ro binson reflected on the development and present situation of the institution she had shaped. After making Beneath Thy Guiding Ha nd MERGER the Wo men's College buildings are still the obligatory reminiscences conrrasr, nearly all of of abouc rhe early years of suuggle and remain viral pans of the modern University ro s randinao . idence Hall are now apt I y named 111 establish rhe college, she noted Delaware. Science Hall and Res and Emalea Wa rner, respectively. The rhar the fu cure of women's higher honor of Winifred Robinson r Beatrice Hartshorn, is nmv home education was nor secure. The women's gymnasium, named fo Theatre Training Program. But, young women of the First Wo rld to rhe University's Professional udents and hundreds of faculty Wa r era had viewed college work hardly any of rhe thousands of st n's campus are aware that as preparation for the careers they who pass by or through the fo rmer wome today even !m ow there was a saw awaiting them, buc since rhar it was once a place set apart. Few collective memory. rime, the national mood had Women's College, so fa r has it receded from to the retirement of shifted away from accepting rhe It would be too easy to attribute rhe merger of the Second Wo rld concept of careers fo r women. Dean Robinson or, alternatively, to the impact joining the rwo Since 1926, the number of War. The dean had been an implacable fo e of served as a catalyst American women seeking schools and rhe special circumstances of wartime graduate uaining had steadily Dean Wi nifred j Robinson at her decreased, while es tablished desk, shortlybefore her retirement women scholars increasingly in 1938 complained of their low pay and low sracus in American univer siries.3 The Wo men's College, she said, was a bulwark set against those fo rces that would marginalize women scholars, deny women equal access to education, and keep women from pursuing careers. Buc the ideals that Dean Robinson embodied were no longer in fa shion and, with her passing, those ideals lost their best champion in Delaware. Seven years later, in 1945, when the Wo men's College officially merged with Delaware College, the creation of a co-educational University of Delaware had the appearance of inevitability. The shift fr om coordinate education to co-education seemed not unlike the gently rising ocean ride, which by 1926, had so undermined rhe fo undation of another Delaware landmark, the Cape Henlopen Lighthouse, rhat rhe building suddenly collapsed into the sea. The comparison is instructive. As a physical reality, the lighthouse entirely disappeared, though to rhis day it lives on in hundreds of paintings, clay sculptures, and relics. In fa ct, the Cape Henlopen In the 1930s, the Wo mens College remained a separate and distinct part of Lighthouse remains one of Delaware's besr-known symbols. In the Un iversity of Delaware. 59 58 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand MERG ER to co-education . However, neither event was, in itself, re sponsible. B row n, a DuPont Company executive who dedicated his fo rtune to The seeds of the merger must be sought elsewhere. t l1e edu carion of the common man and the advancement of President Wa lter Hullihen had never been convinced of the . science. In 1935, Brown announced his i �tentioi� to p rovide a value of the coordinate model. In 1928, responding to a query . building fo r chemistry and cheimcal engmeenng fo r the abo modern ut co-education, he described Delaware's coordinate plan as � University. With his gift, the University built a larg , handsome "old-fashioned" in its insistence on diffe rent courses and � � . structure fa cing the Mall on the Delaware College SI e of emonal regulations fo r men and women students. He believed that 1937, Brown offered to build a structure Identical to the coor Library. In dinate education was neither cost-effe ctive nor good pedagogy. chemical laboratory, to be located on the opposite side o � t�1e Mall. "Our regulations," he wrote, "forbid [men and women] being This building was to house the Delaware College humanities combined in a single class. This seems to me an indefensible departments, humanities classrooms, graduate education, and the increase in our overhead costs and is prej udicial to good teaching."4 University administration. Throughout his long presidency, which lasted from 1920 until . his More than any previous building project, the construction of death in 1944, Hullihen pressed fo r a unification of Delaware this humanities-graduate education-administration building, which College and the Wo men's College. Nearly all of rhe major building s was at fir constr st called University Hall, fo reshadowed the dissolution of ucted during his administration were designed to bring men coordinate education at Delaware. Dean Ro binson and the and women students together, not to set them apart. The Memorial Wo men's College fac ulty saw the building project as a deliberate Library, built in 1924, combined the libraries of the two colleges in attempt to encourage co-educational classes and t? redirect the one building located in the middle of the Mall, halfway between University away from basic undergraduate education and toward the two campuses. In the years that fo llowed, Hullihen clustered advanced scholarship. The dean explained her opposition to the other new buildings in close proximity to Memorial Hall, rhus co nsuuction project in a letter to a member of the Georgetown, creating a new campus, symbolically located halfway between the Delaware, school board Declaring that "buildings are tools," she original . Delaware College and the Wo men's College. araued that the proposed building was designed to promote With each succeeding construction of a University building, rhe scholarship in various academic disciplines aimed at the best president pre-empted Dean Robinson's efforts to maintain the separation of students of both sexes, in place of the Women's College's concept of the sexes. In vain, rhe dean sought fo r state fu nds ro build inregrating many disciplines in order to prepare fe male students fo r a student union building and a new classroom-laboratory fo r the "their probable life work. "5 Wo men's College. In 1929, she almost succeeded in the latter qu University Hall provided a concrete symbol fo r a debate that est when the University Board of Tr ustees voted its support fo r a absorbed rhe fa culties of the Wo men's College and Delaware classroom-laboratory to take pressure off overcrowded Science Hall. The College throughout the 1930s and into the 1940s. Funda�enrally, request went before the state legislature just as the effects of the the question was whether the University should be reorgan ized stock marker crash were wreaking havoc with the economy, so, around disciplines rather than remain divided into two, gender in spire of subsequent annual appeals by the dean, the state never specific units. As early as 1932, the faculty of Delaware College had fu nded the building. taken a stand in favor of a discipline-based organization rhat would In the 1930s, while building projects at the Wo men's College red uce the repetition of courses and promote research scholarship. languished fo r ·wantof support, Delaware College and the Those University Delaware College fa culty who taught classes in the Wo men's as a whole fo und a new champion in H . Fletcher College could not develop advanced courses, much less find time 60 61 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand MERGER fo r research, so long as they were required ro reach an endless In 1938, in rhe midst of round of the same beginning-level courses in both institutions. uncertainty over the fu rure of The Wo men's College fa culty argued fo r retaining the status coordinate education at Delaware, quo. Some of them, particularly rhe yo unger women, recognized che University underrook a search rhe limitations and redundancies inherent in rhe dual college fo r a new dean of the Wo men's system , bur they had reason to fe ar for their careers should rhey College. The successful candidate come under the control of their male colleagues. The women was Marjory Steuart Golder, faculty argued against academic reorganization. Noting that "co widow of an English professor at education does not bring our rhe best efforts of the woman American University in Wa sh student," they observed that "in a mixed group, rhe men express ington, D.C., and mother of two themselves, the women are passive." The women fa culty also young children. Mrs. Golder's life declared that co-education would deprive women students of course had been very diffe rent opportunities fo r leadership in extracurricular activities and char fr om chat of her predecessor, and co-educational classes would be directed roward rhe needs of her selection, over a host of other male students at the expense of the needs of fe male students. candidates, signaled a new With respect ro their own situation, the women faculty cited direction fo r the college and a new Jvf arjory Steuart Golde1; dean of studies done in co-educational universities ro show that once rype of role model fo r its students. the Wo mens CoLlege, 1938-1945 men and women fa culty were integrated, the women fa culty were Marjory Golder was the daughter stuck in the lowest ranks.6 of a well-connected Wa shingron lawyer. She was a Phi Beta Kappa In spite of these protests fro m the Wo men's College, President graduate of Northwestern University, held a Master of Arts fr om Hullihen and the faculty of Delaware College pressed on roward Columbia University, and had taught English in high school in El co-education. The composition of rhe University's Board of Paso, Te xas. She had postponed completion of a Ph.D. at Radcliffe Tr ustees had changed since the rime when the board had accepted College to marry and rear a fa mily. Just before coming ro Delaware, responsibility fo r women students only on condition that they be she had served as the registrar and assistant to the dean at American educated separately. The board was no longer con trolled by small University. She had not had to struggle fo r the opportunity ro rown men with parochial views, but was in the hands of more attend college, and she had set aside rhe life of scholarship to marry, cosmopolitan men who had big-business connections and whose only to be led back into a career by the death of her husband. A goals fo r the University embraced scientific research and graduate refined and gracious woman, Dean Golder supported the retention study. Co-education was not threatening ro them. Uniting the rwo, of the Wo men's College, but she was unable to hold back change. sex-segregated colleges would reduce costs and wo uld free faculty to Ir was indicative of the new atmosphere that, in the same year in direct more time roward research and the teaching of more which Mrs. Golder came to Delaware, the University offered its advanced courses. The construction ofUniversity Hall went first co-educational courses during a regular session. At fi rst, co fo rward with the board's approval, and the building was completed education extended to only a few upper-level courses, but within in 1940. It is particularly appropriate chat University Hall was rwo years, most advanced courses had become co-educational. By renamed Hullihen Hall in 1944, shortly after the death of the 1940, women students regularly attended humanities classes with president who had been its chief promoter. men in University Hall; and Wo men's College chemistry fa culty 62 63 Beneath Thy Guiding Ha nd MERGER renure, she reluctantly agreed to permit students to smoke in the college commons room, bur she succumbed to this compromise Quaesita Dralu, seated in only because of her embarrassment at the sight of students smoking ji-ont, with her colleagues in on rhe streets of Newark. Faculty were never permitted to smoke chemist1y and physics: anywhere in Newark during her regime.8 Elizabeth Dye1; Eve6m E. While rhere was no organized protest, younger fa culty at the Taffe) � Edith A. McDougle, college complained of the smoking ban and of other res trictions. and j. Fe nton Daugherty They resented rhe demand rhar they live in rhe noisy, "gold fish bowl" environment of the dormitories, rake all of their meals in rhe company of students, and spend their weekends as chaperones at student parries, dances, and sporting events.9 Faculty chaperones deliberately turned blind eyes to the students' daring behavior. Some women fac ulty even laughed privately at the seriousness with which the college indulged in the pomp of May members-Quaesira Drake and Elizabeth Dyer-were reaching some Day celebrations. A more sophisticated ge neration fo und those of their courses in rhe previously al l-male chemistry building, now elaborate extravaganzas fa rcical. named Brown Laboratory. Changing attitudes toward the overly protective nature of higher fu the academic rationale fo r coordinate education was dissolving education fo r women affected colleges throughout the United at Delaware, support fo r continuing the separate social life of rhe women's campus was also collapsing. The first major challenge to Dean Robinson's elaborate system of controls had come in 1931, when women students protested against the ban on smoking. Initially, rhe students dared not suggest that smoking be permitted on rhe Wo men's College campus, bur they did seek the right to smoke elsewhere in Newark. They also sought the right to accept rides in cars within rhe town without securing permission from rhe student governingboar d.? Denial of rhe freedom to smoke became a major source of irritation fo r both students and fa culty at rhe college. During the 1920s and 1930s, smoking cigarettes symbolized fe male liberation from the strictures of Victorian morality. Ir was fo r that very reason that Dean Robinson upheld the smoking ban so vigorously. Faculty members resented the need to drive across the state line to Maryland to escape the dean's authority in order to smoke a cigarette. Nothing showed the degree to which Dean Robinson had become our of touch with the times so much as her refusal to seek accommodation on this issue. To ward the end of her The May Queen and her court in 1937 65 64 Beneath Thy Guiding Ha nd MERGER Ka theryne ancl Dorothy Stares in rhe 1920s and 1930s. Nor surprisingly, Delaware absorbed Levis, graduates of tbe rhe new ideas much later than did larger, rrend-serring colleges and �11om ens Co llege of the universities. In many women's colleges, fe male fa culty had achieved Un iversity of No rth the right ro live off campus, or at least ro live in non-dormirory, Ca rolina, became the private residences, as early as the 1890s. 10 M. Carey Thomas, rhe Un iversity of Delaware�· redoubtable presidenr of Bryn Mawr, insisted on providing wo men first women graduate fa culty with residenrial privacy as a means ro encourage their students in chemishJ' when research. The First Wo rld Wa r and the post-war period ushered in a they joined a research revolurion in moral standards that especially affected the young, program in plastics in 1944. while, at the same rime, the decline of rhe Progressive Movement Th e Un iversity was willing called into question the value of careers fo r women. Srudenrs at to support women graduate women's colleges rurned away from the inrense, all-female activities students in science became and from the social service spirit rhar their colleges had fo stered in of the war emergency. the pre-war years toward the greater exciremenrs of daring, drinking, dancing, and driving in fa st cars. The right ro smoke fir squarely into that changing scene. Wo rld War II inrroduced powerful changes at the University of Such developmenrs were muted at the Wo men's College in Delawa re. Many male students were inducted inro the armed fo rces, Delaware, bur they were nonetheless presenr. It was as if rhe ground and military training programs rook over University fa cilities. Wo rk were shifting beneath the fe et of the older generation of women fo r an undergraduate degree was crowded inro three years, instead of scholars who had renounced marriage in favor of rhe chance ro fo ur, and new career paths were temporarily offered to women so that have a career. Helen L. Horowitz reporrs in her study of the Seven rhey might qualifyto replace men in the war emergency. For the first Sister colleges, enrided Alma Ma te1; that "women fa culty and rime, rhe University of Delaware opened to women the opportunity adminisrrarors felt berrayed. Only a fe w years earlier, they had been ro pursue degrees in engineering, bur only a tiny number of women objects of srudenr admiration;" now they seemed like leftovers from chose that male-dominated field. The pre-war pattern of athletic the Vicrorian era. 11 Patricia Albjerg Graham, another scholar who contests, dances, and other fe atures of campus social life was also has studied those years of transition in women's education, has disrupted. Wo men studenrs were pushed ro complete their studies noted that opportunities fo r women in higher education were rapidly and were strongly encouraged to apply their trainingto the greatest in the years from 1875 ro 1925, when colleges and univer nation's all-absorbing goal of achieving victory. 13 sities concenrrared on providing undergraduate education in rhe The war also acted as a catalyst fo r more fu ndamental changes at liberal arts. After rhe mid-1 920s, as universities became ever more rhe University of Delaware. "The war years," says University historian preoccupied with research and graduate study, opportunities fo r John A. Munroe, "were a major watershed between the small, slowly women scholars declined. During rhe fo rty years that fo llowed rhe evo lving institution of times past and the rapidly expanding end ofWorld Wa r I, rhe cultural model fo r American women co-educational state university of the near future."14 Presidenr Wa lter became one of "domesticity" and "acquiescence," not unlike rhe Hullihen died in the early spring of 1944. His successor as acting mid-nineteenrh-cenrury ideals of womanhood that women of president was Wilbur 0. Sypherd, a graduate of Delaware College Wi nifred Robinson's generation had fo ught so hard to overcome.11 who had been a member of its English fa culty fo r nearly fo ur decades 66 67 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand MERG ER and chairman of the department. Although his presidency was brief, ralizing ir, as rhe new organization would do. 16 Amy Rextrew of home Sypherd moved vigorously and emphatically to press fo r changes rhar economics commented that the plan held no advantages fo r \vo men, he believed were long overdue. Most significantly, Sypherd urged the who "in general ... are not careerisrs. They are homemal 68 69 Beneath Thy Guiding Ha nd MERGER Rexrrew. Reed believed rhe administration could address that pro alerr, lady-like women blem exposure of students to mature, intellecmally by hiring women to serve as deans of some of the proposed acade onment in mic that underlay the old system was replaced by an envir colleges, including the College ofArts and Science, and by recruiting which women students were only expected to adopt "rea parry women scholars who would qualifyfo r the rank of full professor. 9 1 manners" on rare occasions rhar bore little relation to their everyday Acting Presidem Sypherd and the board made a very modest ties effort in Jives . The fr iendly mentoring, the sense of community, and the rhar direction when they decided to retain at least one woman in a that bound social life to academic life rhar had marked the role of academic leadership, naming Amy Rextrew to head the new Wo men's College disappeared, leaving the smdents fr ee to co nstruct Division of Home Economics. their own social world. On September 16, 1944, the Board ofTrusrees accepted rhe The end of rhe war, the return of male smdents, and the reorganization plan. Dean Marjory Golder complied with the resu mption of a more regular academic and social life were fa r more University's request to resign her position, effective July 2, 1945, the significant fo r the women smdents than was the dissolution of the dare when the Wo men's College ceased to exist. For the first time, Wo men's College. The women fa culty fe lt rhe effe cts of the merger women studems fa ced no fo rmal barriers to entering any academic more keenly. Some faculty viewed it as a release fr om the stifling program offered by the University or to participate in almost any environment of the Wo men's College. Elizabeth Dyer, then an University extracurricular activity. The newly hired dean of women, a assistant professor of chemistry, rel ished new oppormniries fo r twenty-six-year-old economist named Gwendolyn S. Crawford, was research. But, rhe effects on others-for example, Professor Dyer's expected to provide whatever counseling and moral support women senior colleague, Qu aesira Drake-were less positive. The merger students might require to fa ce the more competitive and less intimate coincided with the retirement of the ranking chemistry professor at academic environment of a co-educational university. In the women's Delaware College, and, as the senior professor in her field, Professor residence halls, there was to be little change. Familiar rules were still in Drake was temporarily elevated to the role of department chairman. effect there that governed late-night and uptown privileges, sign-ours, Bur, under the new co-educational order, it was nor considered seemly dressing fo r dinner, and ten o'clock lockup on weeknights. fo r a woman to head such an important department, and she was One mark of change that pre-dated the dissolution of the Wo men's re placed by a man as soon as one could be fo und. That experience College by a fe w years was the relaxation of the rule that had required illustrated most emphatically rhar women could expect few opportu women fa culty to live in college housing. For several years fo llowing nities fo r academic leadership in the co-educational University, the war, some fa culty women voluntarily remained as heads of outside rhe fe male field of home economics. Only one woman, residence halls, bur they were slowly replaced as hall directors by Harrier Baily of rhe Department of Art, was appointed to chair a unit housemothers-generally, widows who served under the jurisdiction of in arts and science, bur only because Delaware College had had no arr the dean of women. The University sought to employ "women of fa culty and, rhus, there was no male competition fo r the post. charm, common sense and characrer"20 in that role, but housemothers Co-education did much more than destroy the gender division could not command the same respect nor enter into the academic within rhe University; it put women into a predominantly male world of their charges as the fa culty residence directors had done. The _world, and it emphasized scholarship over reaching and nurturing. previous practice, whereby women fa culty had tal 70 71 CHAPTER FIVE crgo-eavtcatiotz IT WA S SYMPTOMATIC of the rimes that the University of Delaware Student Association's first major post-war initiative was a highly successful lecture series on the topic of marriage. The series, held in Mitchell Hall in the spring of 1946, fe atured physicians, sociol ogists, and psychologists who addressed such themes as "Problems of Daring and Courtship" and "Personality Adj ustments in Marriage." Fueled by release fr om wartime demands and supported by molders of popular culture and merchandisers, marriage seemed m be on everyone's mind. In 1946, the marriage rate among Americans reached an all-time high, soon fo llowed by that now Students share a room in �mer Ha llin 1950. fa mous demographic phenomenon, the Baby Boom. Fears that women would resist being displaced fr om their wartime jobs and chat the returning veterans would be unable to find work influenced much public discourse in the immediate post-war period. Psychologists and magazine journalists promoted the belief char marriage provided an exclusive and all-embracing route to fe male self-fulfillment, and they warned that those women who insisted on pursuing careers, whether married or single, were doomed to neurosis, fr ustration, and a loss of fe mininity. The issue of a perceived conflict between marriage and career was one with which college women of the 1940s have contended throughout their lives. Among the cohort of women who attended Beneath Thy GuidingHa nd Co-EDUCATION the University of Delaware in the late 1940s, a fe w planned to historian William Chafe has written, "sought jobs, not careers-an pursue jobs, but only fo r a brief period, and most gave up outside extra paycheck fo r the fa mily rather than a reputation as a success work when they married, or when their first child was born. The in business or the professions."4 The intense anti-communism of University's director of career planning reported his frustrations in rhe times reinforced the concept that linked the stay-at-home dealing with the "girls" in the 1946 graduating class. Many of mother to American ideals and discouraged as "socialist" the idea of them, he said, had applied fo r assistance in findingjo bs, bur as working mothers and day-care centers. 5 graduation day approached, they got engaged and withdrew their The prevailing attitudes raised doubts about the utility of college requests. Employers were having so much trouble retaining women education fo r women. Lynn White, Jr., president of Mills College, employees, the director said, "that they are not very enthusiastic an all-female institution in California, attracted widespread support about employing girls who expect to marry soon."1 fo r his view that the entire collegiate curriculum should be The director's experience was part of a nationwide restructured to meet women's essentially non-professional phenomenon. The job editor of Glamour magazine contacted the educational needs and to glorifywomen 's roles as homemal 74 75 Beneath Th)' Guiding Ha nel Co-EDUCAT ION fo r rhe University, " Munroe added, "he was determined to raise ,!JJ irs standing in the academic world."9 The Perkins era was one of dramatic growth. The 1950s and ,. ii I john A. Perkins, president of .., ,,,. .... the Un iversity of Delaware, J960s were years of population explosion throughout rhe United '[ 1950-1967, greets a Scares, and particularly in Delaware, which became one of the ' fi'eshman coed in Sep tembe1; nation's fa stest-growing states. During the decade of the 1950s 1953. alone, rhe number of people in Delaware grew by fo rty percent, and rhe greater parr of this increase was among middle-class children destined to attend college. Perkins' presidency corres ponded with an increase in total student enrollment, from 1,722 in 1950 to 9,567 in 1967-68. Graduate studies, which accounted fo r a mere handful of students and programs in 1950, enrolled over 2,000 srudents during his final year as president. The unprece den ted growth in student numbers was marched by an increase in home economics. It was not that the University's engineers were rhe size of fa culty, fr om 204 to 380, and by a great expansion of the unkind to her, but she fe lt she did not belong in the discipline University's physical plant. The president attracted several large and did not develop sufficient confidence to use her professional additions to the University's endowment and ably represented rhe training after graduation.8 University's interests in the state legislature and with state officials. At Delaware, the post-war era was shaped by a particularly He was less successful, however, in his dealings with fa culty and strong-willed University president. After a succession of brief students. His relationship with women as students, fa culty, and presidencies fo llowi ng on the death ofWa!ter Hullihen in 1944, administrators was particularly troublesome and fr ustrating fo r the University, in 1950, hired a new president who was destined both sides. In part, those difficulties were a reflection of the times, to shape significantly the development of the University of bur in some measure, they grew out of Perkins' own personality and Delaware during the expansive decades of the 1950s and 1960s. his concept of what constituted progress at the University. Professor John Alanson Perkins was only thirty-six years old when he came DeArmond, who began her career at the Wo men's College and was to Delaware fr om the Un iversity of Michigan, where he had one of the University's distinguished teachers, has described Perkins earned a Ph.D. in political science and had begun a career that as "ferociously anti-feminist" and "contemptuous of all those combined university administration with public service. From wo men left over from the Wo men's College."10 Her perception of his arrival in 1950 until his resignation in 1967, Perkins was a the president was shared by many women fa culty who watched as conspicuously dominant fo rce at the Un iversity. Hard-driving the University hired scores of male fa culty annually, while vi rtually and autocratic, he exercised personal control over every aspect of no fe male fa culty members were added, except occasionally in a the University's life, particularly in the area of fa culty women's fi eld like home economics. As fa culty from the Wo men's development. John Munroe, a most even-handed historian who College retired fr om their positions, women fa culty members knew Perkins well, described him in his history of the University decl ined in absolute numbers. The women who remained as "a vigorous, stro ng yo ung man with tremendous willpower re senrfully complained that their salaries were kept low and their and with a temper he could not always restrain. Ve ry ambitious pro motions were slow to come, compared to those of no-better- 76 77 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand Co-EDUCATION qualified male colleagues. Among those who experienced discrim Women's College. Student problems were routinely solved by inatory treatment was Professor Evelyn H. Clift, an inspiring creating and enforcing new rules. For example, when someone reacher, who fo r many years taught a fu ll load of courses in both complained that women students were leaning our the windows of classical languages and history, bur was denied extra pay or rheir residence halls to talk to people on the sidewalk, a rule was promotion to the rank of full professor until very late in her enacted fo rbidding the women to speak to anyone through the career. Those fe w women who were hired to reach at the windows. When Newark residents complained about congestion University were often on parr-rime contracts or non-tenure lines, fr om student-driven cars, a rule was put into fo rce to prevent non and, since President Perkins fo rbade the practice of hiring more commuting students from driving cars either on campus or in the than one member of a fa mily, faculty wives were excluded from rown. The automobile rule extended even to students home fo r the employment at the University. weekend who might wish to drive their parents' cars into Newark To some degree, the president's unfavorable attitude toward ro shop on a Saturday afternoon. Failure to comply with University women faculty harkened back to the debate in the 1930s and early rules could lead to severe penalties, including expulsion. 1940s over retention of the Wo men's College and irs separate The person charged with maintaining order among the swdents faculty. All the arguments made by Dean Robinson, the principal was John E. Hocutt, whom President Perkins hired in 1952 to fi ll champion of the coordinate model, had stressed a commitment ro rhe newly created position of dean of swdents. Dean Hocutt's reaching over research. Since John Perkins wished ro reverse that arrival on campus co incided with a vacancy in the post of dean of emphasis, he had little appreciation fo r the qualities of reaching women, a position now essentially that had won women places on rhe Women's College faculty. That rhat of a subordinate. Hocutt so many women faculty came to feel that the president had chose Bessie B. Collins, fo rmerly contempt fo r their contributions to rhe University was, however, an assistant dean of women at the also a res ponse to rhe ungracious, grudging, and intimidating University of Pennsylvania, to fi ll manner that Perkins employed in dealing with all fa culty. Faculty rhe newly defined post. women, reared in the lady-like politeness and civility of the early Dean Collins exemplified the twentieth century, particularly resented the president's graceless Perkins administration's attitudes behavior, and were ill-equipped to counter it. roward women. Mannerly, earnest, Co-education brought virtually no change in the discipline that and kind, she was concerned fo r governed the residential life of women students. Even by the rhe welfare of women students standards of irs rime, the Perkins administration was unusually academically, socially, and profes conservative, indeed repressive, in irs approach to student sionally, and she earned the discipline. The president firmlysub scribed to the concept of in loco affection and respect of a parentis and did not hesitate to limit student behavior and generation of women students. She expression to conform to his notion of an orderly campus. was, however, unsure of her Regulations that restricted the lives of women students fa r more abilities, which made her willing to than those of men remained in effect. Lady-like decorum accept the orders and priorities set concerning dress, deportment, and personal security were at the by her two male superiors as well Bessie B. Collins, dean of heart of a system that had changed little since the days of the as their patronizing attitude toward women, 1952-1970 79 Beneath Thy Guiding Ha nd Co-EDUCATION her. Miss Collins' subordinate position as dean of women was in sharp contrast to the role that Deans Ro binson and Golder had once held as head of one of the University's two colleges. The period of Miss Collins' deanship marked the nadir of women's influence wi thin the University's administration, not because she lacked zeal, but because the concepts of women's autonomy and educational purpose were so weak. The primary domain of the dean of women was south campus, where the women were located in the residence halls that had once been part of the Wo men's College. The atmosphere of regimented order so dear to President Perkins' heart was nowhere achieved more effortlessly or completely than on the south campus during the decade of rhe 1950s and into the early years of the 1960s. Many of rhe rules that governed student behavior had precedents in rhe Wo men's College of a quarter century before. Students going our fo r rhe evening were required to record their destination and time of return in a sign-out book, and on weeknights, the big, colonial-style fro nt doors of rhe residence halls were locked shut at Th e May Queen and her court make one of their finalapp earances in the ten o'clock. Rules regulated the apparel that women students wore late 1950s. to class, in the dining halls, and on the streets of Newark. Late night privileges on weekends were doled out and monitored by distinctive class seal with a University of Delaware motif on the watchful housemothers. Those rules and regulations were breast pocket. Those blazers, worn with a blouse and skirt, administered by students elected from each residence hall to serve constituted the most common garb among women students. on a judicial board under Dean Collins' supervision. Another tradition that continued was the Big Sister-Little Sister To gether with the restrictions that ruled theirli ves, the relationship, in which junior women, recruited by the dean of University's women students inherited a number of traditions fr om women, served as big sisters to freshmen. the Wo men's College, to which new traditions were added, in an Residence halls were at the center of manytra ditions. The effort to maintain an intimate, cohesive community spirit. For students in each residence hall invited fa culty and parents to fo rmal instance, May Day continued to be celebrated with the annual teas, where each hall's fo rmal tea service was put to use. In the fa ll, crowning of the queen, the May Pole Dance, and gymnastic the students in each residence hall marched en masse to evening demonstrations, until a combination of declining student interest pepfesrs held on the steps of Old College rhe night before every and the retirement of the program's creator, Professor Hartshorn, fo otball game. Also during rhe fo otball season, residence halls were ended the yearly ritual in 1962. Moving Up Day also was the fo cal points fo r weekly, outdoor decoration displays, usually perpetuated, although without the academic regalia of Dean fe aturing a large Blue Hen, made from chicken wire, stuffe d with Robinson's time. A big event fo r sophomores was the arrival of their colored crepe paper, devouring or otherwise destroying the mascot class blazers, ordered in either blue or white wool which carried a of rhe opposing team-often a fa r more fo rmidable animal than 80 81 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand Co-EDUCATION even the most fe arsome chicken. The competition fo r the ultimate rhe left breast. To be "pinned" was a step berween wearing a boy's chicken-wire extravaganza came on Homecoming Day, when the ring and being engaged. On other occasions, fr aternity men would fr aternities and residence halls built displays that were mounted on descend on women's residence halls, usually after they had been flatbed trucks and paraded around the fo otball field during the drinking, to attempt a panty raid. These fo rays were inevitably half-time ceremony of crowning the Homecoming queen. At broken up by the prompt arrival of Dean Hocutt, looking his most Christmas, the students on each floorin every residence hall partic inti midating, and at whose appearance, order was quickly restored. ipated in the annual pe anut sisters, or "secret Santa," gift-giving When the Wo men's College had been absorbed into the swap. During the winter months, the women's residence halls took University, the college's fa culty had anticipated and fe ared that part in another creative competition, the annual Playbill, held in women students would lose opportunities fo r campus leadership. Mitchell Hall, in which each hall presented an original, satirical The co-education experience justified these fe ars. In the post-war theatrical skit, often based upon some campus theme. years, an informal fo rmula developed by which men were elected to Those women's ca mpus activities complemented the continuing class presidencies and to the presidency of the campus-wide interactions of the men and women students at fraternity parties, Swdent Government Association (S.G.A.), women were elected to interest-group activities, and campus-wide dances . Nothing typified vice presidencies and to the position of secretary, and men filled the campus life during the 1950s more than "pinnings," which rook post of treasurer. In 1957, the pattern was briefly interrupted when place occasionally on weeknights. The members of a fra ternity a woman was elected S.G.A. president. Her victory was attributed would accompany their brother to the front of the women's w an argument among the fr aternities that normally controlled the residence hall where his girlfriend lived and would serenade the outcome. Wo men were indeed chosen to lead many special-interest couple. As the fe male residents watched fr om windows, the brother clubs on campus, but, almost always, their leadership was in areas would affixhi s fraternity pin on his girlfriend's blouse, directly over where men chose not to compere. In rime, rwo new all-female organizations were created that resrored some opportunities fo r women students to gain recognition and develop leadership. Ta ssel, an all-female honorary society, was introduced at the University in the early 1950s. Each spring, a small number of outstanding women fr om the junior class were awakened at dawn to be "rapped fo r Ta ssel." Chosen on the basis of their scholarship, leadership, and commitment to service, the Tassel inductees gained valuable experience in the management of a service-oriented society. In 1960, Ta ssel was invited to become part of Mortar Board, the national honorary society fo r women, which later became co-educational under the mandate of the Civil Rights Act. Another important innovation was the creation in rhe early 1960s of rhe Association ofWomen Students (A.WS.), which included all women students. In many ways, A.W.S.'s purpose A Playbill s!dt is performedin Mitchell Ha ll in the 1960s. paralleled that of the Student Government Association, to which it 82 83 Beneath Thy Guiding Hanel Co-EDUCATION Despite rheir docility, John A. Perkins was dissatisfied with the wome n Students of rhe !are 1950s. He developed the idea char the Universiry of Delaware was preparing what: he called "corner post: CJDZ· · ens" who would become community leaders. Ye r, too many women students appeared reluctant to assume leadership. . President Perkins was dist:ressed that so fe w young women 111 Delaware chose to atrend college, and he was discouraged by the low academic motivation and lack of career ambirion displayed by chose women who did en ter rhe University. As !are as 1956, rhe ratio of male to fe male students was a disappointing two to one. B the early 1960s, the ratio of male to fe male students was a;proaching equality, bur the presi�enr was still disturbed to note _ rhac~while the University's academic programs 111 rhe fields of science and technology had earned national reputations fo r Th e offi cers of the Association of Women Students pose in a non-t1·aditionaf numnerthat sy mbolized the changing mood in 1967. sent representatives. The A.WS. spoke specifically fo r women in a system that persisted in treating them differently fro m men. Organized into committees that had representatives in each women's residence hall, the Association of Wo men Students was dedicated to the goals of encouraging scholarship and personal growth and to promoting leadership roles fo r wo men. Although by the middle or late 1960s A.WS. had developed a re putation fo r Studen ts work in a coo/zing la boratory that simulated home !? itc�ens in th busy work, it did give women students a sounding � board when rhey 1950s. Compare this homelike atmosp.1ere to the institutionaL lu tchen settmg began demanding change in rheir rule-ridden lives. pictured on page 46. 84 85 Beneath Thy Guiding Ha nd Co-EDUCAT ION excellence, fe w women students took advantage of these prog rams. rh e P ublic mood of restlessness and growing aversion to post-\var "From · elementary school on, unfortunately ," the president wrote Placency in his successful campatgn fo r the pres1'd ency f h o t e "girls com are conditioned against distributing themselv ' es over the ed States. In September of that year, an amc· 1 e enm· 1 ed "A whole spectrum Unit of collegiate studies and related ll1. professions often fo r Wo men," by Marion K. Sanders, appeated in Proposition disregard of natural aptitude and ability. " : 11 er'sMaga zi�e. �an�ers ar u d that too m an Ame tcan women Wo Hmp � � � � men students flocked to some disciplines , . . and avoided others wastina then lives m the ctrcular puttenng and redundant The vast . were b majority of them were preparing to become � . school usewifery" associated with unending rounds o f h oppmg, teachers, about ho half in the elementary grades, the other s in various n aro oominao' while they ignored the nanonal need fo r high-school 'dyt ·n ao' and disciplines, especially home econom . . � . ics, English, social professionals in the tradmon ly fe male-domtnated a1e. fa s o studies, career and the arts. The demand fo r school , . teachers was insatiable social work, and educanon. The authors plea, whtch dur health care, ing the era of the Baby Boom, and ease in finding employment Betty Friedan's bestseller, Th e Fe minine My stique, by three was pre-dated a major factor in deciding women's choice . of careers. But on women to emancipate themselves from thetr President yea rs , called Perkins was dismayed to note that fe . w women aspired to suburban cocoons, return to school, and prepare to pu sue become narrow � scientists or even to become science teachers. Statistics on gful work outside the homeY A fe w months later, at hts the grad meanin uating class of 1962 reveal the gender division . . among the inauguration, President Ke nnedy challenged the nanon wtth the University's pre-professional disciplines. In that year, 100 � percent of stirring phrase, "Ask not what yo ur country can do or you, ask the students who received . . degrees in home economics 111 and ninty what you can do fo r yo ur country. " A growing shtft public eight percent of those in elementary education . were fe male. By supported the view that important jobs that women nught contrast, opinion business and engineering produced onl y one woman ully fillwere going begging. major successf each, 12 and only seven of the 23 1 students . in the College of The Ha rper'sarticle pointed the Dyer Comnm ee toward a Agricultural Sciences : were women. 13 A major fa ctor in the lopsided group of potential students who had been largely tgnor�d: distribution pattern lay in women's seeming aversion to adult students. In 1963, Professor Dyer appomted a sub mathemat returning ics and science-a fa ctor that had a negative . . impact not committee chaired by Dean Collins to consider how the Umverstty only on thei r enrollment in traditionally male discipli nes but also might best respond to the needs of such a g oup . The fo llowi g in nursing � � and those aspects of home economics . that required a year, the sub-committee distributed a quesnonnatre to approx1- scientificbackgro und. who were, or. 19 mately 900 women aged twenty-five years and older In 60, in an effort to reverse this waste of women's educational been, enrolled in the University's grad tate or pot had recently � ential, President Perkins appointed an Advisory Committee on dergraduate programs, including those enrolled tn non-degree the Education un ofWomen, chaired by Professor Dy er, a veteran of University extension courses in night school. Responses to the the Wo men's College and an active research chemist. The reflected the growing desire of women to seek careers: commi questionnaire ttee, consisting of faculty, administrator s, and students, was to supplement their fa mily's income and to findthe personal charged many "to stimulate the thinking of undergrad . uate women satisfaction that a career might bring; others to become pnmary regarding their professional plans."14 breadwinners after divorce or the death of a spouse. The Dyer The creation of the Advisory Committee on the Education of Committee had uncovered an urgent social need to which the Wo men came at a propitious moment, fo r the 1960 year was one y of Delaware might respond. The committee recognized of Universit incipient change in American society. John F. Kennedy captured and publicized the fa ct that an increasing number of women were 86 87 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand Co-EDUCAT ION returning to college to complete degree programs they had � meeting rhe rapidly growing University's need fo r fa cu ty due to abandoned to marry. The survey also revealed that rwenty-eighr � ercent "rhe present incredible shortage of competent men availa le fo r ? of the more than 2,600 women enrolled at the University y positions." The president, like many who considered m the fa ll of 19 Universit 62 were rwenty-five or older. 16 The co-ed ucational themselves thoughtful and fo rward-looking people, had grasped model based exclusively on student s in the eighreen-to-rwenty-on age e on e aspect of the women's career dilemma, bur could not see the bracket no longer reflected changing social . . realities. whole picture. As women entered into a new era of a piranons In the 1960s, the end of the Baby Boom . � brought other social and self-awareness, they moved beyond the more hmaed go ls changes that affected � university women. Early in the decade, demand the t hat President Perkins had in mind when he created the Advisory fo r school teachers remained very high. In 1960, it was Co mmittee on the Education of Wo men. Ye t, Per 1 In 1958, on Academy Street, roughly opposite Smyth, the That fa ct presented special problems fo r rhe University because University completed a Student Center that included a Iaro-e of irs restrictive policies regarding women students. dining facility to handle the overflow from Kent and rhe �en's Traditionally, rhe University had maintained a relaxed attitude off commons in Old College. As the University entered the 1960s, it roward housing irs male srudents, who were free to live was necessary to expand student housing construction even campus in fraternity houses or in private housing. By contrast, fu rther, and the University began constructing residence halls on rhe policy established by Dean Robinson a half century before the large property behind the center. The residence halls built in continued to require those women students who did nor the 1960s diffe red from those built earlier in significant ways. In comm ute fr om home to live on campus. Burgeoning student the past, the University had depended on private gifts or state numbers fo rced University administrators to reconsider their appropriations fo r such purposes. In the 1960s, the fe deral housing policies fo r women students. One response to this Housing and Home Finance Agency and the Department of problem was to limit the number of women by enforcing a Housing and Urban Development extended long-term credit to quota of thirty-five percent on the number of our-of-state universities to support construction of student housing. In order women who were admitted. to minimize the room fees that were essential to paying off the In retrospect, it is clear that the years from 1945 until about construction bonds and to increase the number of units as rapidly 1967 were the twilight of the Wo men's College. On the surface, as possible, the University abandoned expensive, colonial-style fe w differences distinguished University women in 1967 fro m architecture in favor of modern, fu nctional styles. The use of those of 1947. In 1967, the Association of Wo men Students brick fa cing in the newer buildings maintained a semblance of published a pamphlet entitled, "Your Co-ed Campus," which uniformity with earlier campus architecture, but the size and scale was to be distributed to all women students. The rituals and of the new buildings was larger than those constructed earlier. rules th at it described were little changed from those of a decade, Most important fo r the future of women residential students, or even two decades, before. The pamphlet began with a brief however, was the abandonment of the concept of a women's history of the Wo men's College and a statement of welcome from campus separate from that of the men. New residence hall Dean Collins, who was described as "our very sincere and complexes, constructed on east and west areas of the campus, enthusiastic adviser." The booklet then took note of the organi mixed men's and women's dormitories to create a truly co zation and purpose of the A.W.S. and gave an account of the educational campus. During the 1960s, the University built women's social honor system. The authors explained that women three large residence hall complexes around a grassy area behind students were honor-bound to report themselves or others who the Student Center-Harrington, Russell, and Gilbert. Those committed infractions of the rules. The booklet reminded halls, which combined men and women srudents in one area, students of the University community's expectations fo r their became the fo cal point fo r a new kind of campus life. In the late deportment, suggesting that women students wear skirts and 1960s, the University built two more co-educational residence sweaters or "A-line" dresses and loafers to class or on casual dates. complexes, Rodney and Dickinson, on the west parr of the Suits and heels were appropriate attire fo r more fo rmal occasions, campus, and in the early 1970s, the Pencader and Christiana such as fo otball games. complexes were developed on the north campus. The theme of continuity was also vividly recalled by a member No matter how rapidly theUn iversity increased its campus of the class of 1967 who attended a party in Wa rner Hall to housing, student numbers were always well ahead of the supply. honor the senior-class residents about to graduate. The 90 91 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand Co-EDUCATION ear Expectations refreshmenrs consisted of rwo cakes. On one was a message of Wo men sponsored a seminar series entitled, "Gr a Democratic Society, a radical congratulations together with a long list of rhe names of rhose For Wo men." Students For nizarion better known by irs initials S.O.S., staged a protest seniors who were engaged to be married. A second cake, oraa0 in ROTC and containing only three names, was presented to those who were on Frazer Field against compulsory participation fo r president of the Student Government not as yet engaged. Nobody at the parry knew quire how ro rrear elected irs candidate Tr ustees rhar the these three atypical women, especially the one who had chosen Association. President Perkins told rhe Board of students to attend graduate schooJ. 21 University could no longer accept so many women e policy. Despite demonstrations of conformity to the gender roles of without surrendering irs residenc ..x of rhar year of the past, dramatic changes were on rhe horizon. The year 1967 For rhe University of Delaware, the clima ncement of]ohn A. was a crucial one fo r inaugurating changes of all kinds. In rhar turbulent change was the unexpected annou in the history of year, which Dean Collins characterized in her annual report as Perkins' resignation from rhe presidency. An era 's place in "nor-roo-easy rimes,"22 the Co mmittee on the Education of rhe University of Delaware was closing, and women campus life was about to be redefined. Offi cers of the Un iversityof Delaware in 1967- 68: In terim President jo hn A. Shirley is seated with Dean of Nursing Mary Ca rl (at right) and Dean of Ho me Economics Irma Ayers (a t left) . Th e otherfemale figure is Dean of �'0J men Bessie B. Co llins. 92 CHAPTER Six eJ?evivaL BETWEEN 1967 AND 1974, universities and colleges were at the center of a great wave of social unrest that swept through the United States. A veritable army of restless young people revolted against the restraints, values, and political beliefs of the past. Demographic and economic factors combined with major political events to produce this period of change. The Baby Boom generation matured at a rime of unprecedented national affluence that permitted a large percentage of irs number to attend college. Simultaneously, the shock of political assassi A protest callingfor greater stud ent autonomy was staged in front of Hu!/ihen nations, the moral fo rce of the civil-rights movement, and . Halldu rmg the 1967- 1968 academic year. reactions to the war in Vietnam, and especially to the draft, led young people to engage in mass protest against the world that their elders had made. Social scientists use the term "paradigm shift" to describe the profound change in point of view that rook place during that time. The shift had special meaning fo r those who had been consigned to marginal positions in American society: women and minorities. The era of the 1960s witnessed a revival of a quest fo r fa irness in Am erican life. Blacks, Native Americans, and women rethought and rejected past views of themselves, searched fo r new ways of thinking and behaving, and demanded that society treat them as equals to white males. As with so much else of that 95 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand REVIVAL era, the effects of the women's liberation movement were no where more powerfully fe lt than on college campuses. A decade later, in 1979, McCall'sMag azine rook a backward look at the rapid changes that had taken place in campus life. "It seems to have happened so suddenly," the magazine author remarked. "Ten years ago, there were women's dorms and men's dorms, and rarely did a member of one sex enter the domain of the other. And now, there are co-ed dorms on almost every campus in the country, so many that they have become the rule rather than the exception."1 The most remarkable thing about this change, the author said, was not that it had occurred, but that the shift fr om single-sex to co-ed living had been so readily accepted by virtually everyone, from students to university administrators to parents. No one a decade earlier would have believed such a change possible, In 1980, Un iversity offi cials rethought housing policies as women students nor would prudent adults have countenanced it. It was as if the were crowded into make-shiftliving quarters in residence halls, sleeping on attitudes and assumptions that had guided the past had suddenly rows of do uble-decker beds. been swept away, and everyone awoke to discover that life would continue without rules. In short, a paradigm shift had occurred, in of rhe brother-and-sister residence-hall model, President John A. which fo rmer-concepts of fe male respectability and security had Perkins was concerned about where it might lead. Some students been replaced by notions that elevated women's equality, were demanding an end to the rules that governed residence life, opportunity, and personal freedom. but the president cautioned against further liberalization. "If The housing change described in the Mc Call's article was institutions of higher learning are to be merely hotel and dining exemplified at the University of Delaware. We have already seen room managers with no influence over the quality of the living how, in the early 1960s, rapid growth in the student population experience," Perkins warned in his final Annual Report in 1967, fo rced the Universityto experiment with new residence-hall designs "prudence would suggest they cease providing housing fa cilities and and to locate its new men's and women's halls adjacent to one leave it to private enrerprise .... "3 another. In the mid-1 960s, the University rook another step toward President Perkins' departure fr om the University later that year co-educational residences by permitting contiguous men's and spared him the necessity of working out a solution to the women's halls in one East Campus complex to share a lounge. To multifaceted problem of housing students, a problem that he had amplifyrhe co-educational atmosphere, the University hired a rightly identifiedas the University's dominant issue at the time. young married graduate student and his wife to be the residence In spite of continuing new construction, the University could not hall directors of the experimental co-ed halls. Student response was keep up with the need fo r more rooms. Meanwhile, adminis enthusiastic. "Dorm life here is fa mily life," the hall president trators worried that if the students got their wish to be freed fr om reported. "The parents are young, liberal, yet firm; they do not residential restrictions, there would be no mechanism in place to interfere when unnecessary, yet they are there when needed. They control potentially disruptive behavior.4 Some administrators are respected out of love, not fe ar. "2 Despite the obvious advantages noted that the rapid growth of the student body and of the 96 97 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand REviVAL fa culty created a potential vacuum in which no one, not residence Delaware. Like John Pe rkins, Art Tr abant was an extremely self hall directors, not fa culty, and not judicial courts, could or would confident man, but whereas Perkins exhibited his confidence by give srudents the direction, support, and attention that they had dominating others, Trabant demonstrated his confidence through received in the past. openness to new ideas and a willingness to experiment with Those circumstances presented a challenge to the new change. Under the leadership ofTrabant and John E. Wo rthen, president, E. Arthur Tr abant, when he arrived at the University of who succeeded John Hocutt as vice president fo r student affairs, Delaware in 1968. A native of southern California, President the University moved rapidly to dismantle the ethos of rule Trabant had graduated from Occidental College and earned a enforcement that had fo rmerly guided residence- hall life. One Ph.D. in mathematics at the California Institute ofTechnology, manifes tation of the new approach was the dissolurion of the before beginning a rapid rise in academic administration that had position dean of women and the unification of the residence life taken him from Purdue University to the University of Buffa lo ro staff into a single, co-educational body under a male dean of the Georgia Instirute ofTechnology and then, finally, to students and a male vice president fo r srudenr affairs. The old system had been fo unded on the notion that women must be regulated and protected. It had been created in the early twentieth century when collegiate education fo r women was a new concept, and colleges and universities sought to prove to parenrs and to society-at-large that they could protect women students in a college environment. The system had gone unchal lenged fo r a long time. As late as the early 1960s, young women accepted the controlled, secure system of housing regulations. They were used to obeying such rules at home. But in a time President E. Arthur when eighteen-year-old men were being drafted to be sent to fight Trabant, 1968-1987 and in Viemam and flower children were proclaiming "make love, not 1988-1990, with Mae Carter, who worked war," those rules suddenly appeared as a demeaning denial of the successfullyto help redefine women students' starus as responsible, mature adults capable of the role of women at the making their own decisions. The demand fo r greater fr eedom was Un iversity especially strong in the personal area of sexuality, where modern methods of birth control weakened sexual taboos and altered the behavior of the young. The national trend fo r women students to demand greater freedom reached Newark, Delaware, in January 1967, when a student speaking on behalf of herself and others in her residence hall told a meeting of the Association of Women Students that "women are being discriminated against because of their sex" at the University of Delaware. The student complained that women were fa r more regulated in the residence halls than were men. Her 98 99 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand REVIVAL s midst. argument touched a chord in the minds of many students.5 Later bawdy a performance that the curtain was dropped in ir raid on that spring, usually conservative University of Delaware students Later in rhe term, women from Russell D organized a panty men's amazed themselves and the administration when they elected Russell C, a neighboring men's residence, then dyed the bur rhe Ramon Ceci, a Navy veteran and local leader of the radical national briefs pink before they returned them. This incident was nights organization, Students fo r a Democratic Society, to be president of fo rerunner of a campus-wide panty raid that lasted fo r two In the University's Student Government Association. Ceci won his and was quelled only through the intervention of state police. majority vote by addressing two issues that had aroused strong retrospect, the students were more proud than ashamed of their semester, fe elings among Delaware's students: the abolition of compulsory actions. The editors of The Blue Hen wrote: "In one short ROTC fo r males and the abolition of restricted visitation hours and Delaware had changed from an academic prison haunted by fe ar closing hours in the women's residence halls. The editors of Th e and suspicion to a University of active, excited students."9 Blue Hen captured the moment with the comment that "a new In char radicalized environment, University administrators chose spirit craclded across the campus-one of defiance, one of power. co bend rather than break. As a first compromise, opposite-sex Delaware had suddenly splashed into the stream of nationwide visitation was permitted fo r a fe w hours each week on condition college movements. "6 rhar students left the door to the room open; then, the hours were University policy prohibited women from door rule was relaxed to the partly ajar position; visiting in men's lenarb hened and the rooms and vice versa. Bur whereas men students could choose to finally, in the fall of 1969, the University took the final step of live off campus where the rule did not appertain, women students permitting on a trial basis an unrestricted visitation policy. The who did nor commute from home were required to live in the doors could now be closed. The new policy could be instituted in residence halls. "Can a woman who presumably is not capable of any residence hall in which eighty percent of the residents voted fo r deciding when to come in at night mal{e independent decisions it. With that change, the whole concept of what constituted a about her life in general?" asked a sister group to S.D.S. called The protective environment fo r women was revised. Women students Wo men's Liberation Front (WL.F.)JThe WL.F.may not have no longer had to return to their residence halls by a specifictime. attracted many members and it certainly did nor survive fo r more Instead, the halls were kept locked at all hours and every resident than a short time, but irs flyers communicated messages that made was given a key, just as in the private housing market. To ease women students think about their place in society. "We have to parental worries and to gauge public reaction to this experiment, analyze the fe male's role in terms of a society which perpetrates President Trabant held an informational open hearing in February male supremacy and profits from ir.. ..We need to build up our own 1970. Those who attended learned that, contrary to lurid popular confidence to the point where we can contribute our share of assumptions, most students used the free visitations ro study thought and ability to what is now a male-oriented society, " the together, play cards, or talk, just as students had always done in Wo men's Liberation Front proclaimed. And students listened. 8 single-sex dormitories. In the stimulating spring of 1967, a spirit of irreverence In spite of President Tr abant's efforts to deflect criticism, the pervaded the campus as Delaware women pushed against open-visitation experiment was not without its critics. Some traditional restraints through a variety of means. The annual parents, students, and community members viewed the policy as an Playbill, long an occasion fo r satire, offered one such opportunity. invitation to promiscuity, as in some cases it surely was. The In defiance of rhe Playbill coordinators from the Association of principal complaints came from young women who encountered Women Students, the students of Harrington B presented so men in the communal bathrooms or had to endure seeing and 100 101 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand REviVAL of irs male students. The hearing the steamy embraces of roommates with boyfriends who all of irs fe male students and most obliged the University to blur spent the night. Bur, despite those invasions of some people's demand fo r student housing fl l1ally ated the residence halls fr om privacy, sense of propriety, and safety, President Trabant and Vice rhe lines that had once separ rules were relaxed to President Wo rthen told critics rhar if eighteen-year-aids were privately owned rental housing. Old . . move to apartments. Un1vers1ty mature enough to serve in the Army or to work and live on their encourage upper-classmen to fa ced a diffe rent set of own, the University should nor treat them like children. University housing administrators eventually a administrators also consoled critics by pointing our that trained t to maintain studenr discipline, but to seek challena0es -no was a sufficiently amacrive residence hall staff members w.e re available to advise students and balance whereby Universityhousing giving students to help them deal with the problems of college life. After an initial on to fi ll the rooms, while at the same rin:e, opti . . res1dence halls flurry of public cri ticism, in lo co parentis died a quick and enough freedom of choice to prevent Umverslty 70s, a new parrern remarkably quiet death. fro m becoming overcrowded. In the 19 but upper-class With the implementation of the open-visitation policy in emerged in which freshmen lived on campus and seniors, usually 1970, the way was cleared fo r creating co-ed residence halls, in students of both sexes, especially juniors y and to assume which alternate floors or even alternate rooms were occupied by chose to live in apartments, both to save mone members of the opposite sex. The residence-hall staff proclaimed more adult responsibilities. fo r women that those changes were a means to liberate students fr om The new residential parrern had implications red "artificial and restrictive controls [that] only limit a student and students' sense of community. The intense, campus-orien bur what was to be put offe r him no personal choice."10 Surveys showed that students communal life of the past had disappeared, ly commitments, living in co-ed halls had higher morale, experienced greater in its place? For somestud ents, jobs, fa mi one's major or arhletics su� personal safety, and had a better outlook on themselves, on the boyfriends, or involvement with . res1dence-hall hfe. Universi ty, and on their relati ons with the opposite sex than did srirured fo r the fo rmer "rah-rah" co mmunal experie c that those living in single-sex halls. 11 The collapse of the old rules and Many others, however, still desired a college � � . orgamzll1g soc1al the introduction of co-educational residence halls rendered rhe included late-night talks, sharing fe elings, and problems fo r men Association ofWomen Students obsolete, and it disappeared into events. The quest fo r community posed fewer history at the the newly created Residence Hall Association. Stuart Sharkey, rhan fo r women because fraternities had a long had been fo rbidden who served as director of residence life during that period of rapid University of Delaware. Sororities, however, lege on the grounds change and went on to succeed John E. Wo rthen as vice president fr om the establishment of the Wo men's Col sidence-hall life. fo r student affairs, viewed the dissolution of the A.W.S. and the rhar they would divide students and dilute re body and the restructuring of transfer of responsibility fo r women's residential rules from the With the growth of the student . s were no longer vahd. dean of women to the director of residence life as the final residential life in the 1960s, those argument campus with the integration of the Wo men's College into a truly co-educational In 1968, sorority colonies were organized on � Tr ustees and the support o the University of Delaware. 12 approval of rhe Board of . fo r that l!1novanon Throughout the 1970s, the continuing growth in enrollments Association ofWomen Students.13 Impetus omen Bessie B. fo rced the residence-hall staff to convert double rooms to triples came not only fr om students but from Dean ofW University of Delaware and to put temporary cots in lounges and recreation rooms. Ye t Collins' assistant Ross Ann Jenny, a recent r the University to despite Herculean efforts, the University co uld no longer house graduate, who reasoned that it was unfair fo 103 102 Beneath Thy Guiding Ha nd REVIVAL accord men students the right to belong to fraternities while Collins ro address the educational needs of older women. Their denying that right to women students. 14 In February 1969, five cause received a big boost from the Higher Education Act of sororities were colonized at Delaware. All offered activities rhar 1 965, which provided fe deral fu nds to support university had once been a parr of women's residence life, including group co mmunity service ventures directed toward helping women. carol singing, intramural sports, and parries. Additionally, rhe Robertson used these government fu nds ro hire parr-rime sororities reached beyond the campus to provide service to rhe counselors to assist women returning as students. One person that community through such activities as tutoring disadvantaged she selected to fill this modest, government-funded position was children and visiting hospitalized veterans. The sororities quickly Mae Carter, a mature, married woman with considerable gained popularity and became a regular parr of University life. experience as a community volunteer. Mae Carter came highly While those changes were restructuring student life, rhe recommended by Bessie B. Collins, who had known her through women's movement was having an even greater impact on rhe their mutual involvement in the Newark branch of the American lives of older women. Wo men's liberation had gained national Association of University Wo men. Neither Adele Ro bertson, attention with the publication of Berry Friedan's best-selling book Bessie Collins, nor even Mae Carter herself could possibly have The Feminine My stique in 1963. Friedan's main theme, that a anticipated the significant role that she was destined to play in generation of college-educated, suburban housewives had the University's development. surrendered their autonomy and self-respect to become childlike It would be no exaggeration to say that, with theexcep tion of housebodies, struck a deep chord with many American women. Winifred Robinson, Mae Carter has done more to change the One year 'after the book was released, Congress adopted rhe Civil position of women at the University of Delaware than any other Rights Act of 1964. The act's Title VII prohibited discrimination individual in the institution's history. Her accomplishments are in employment based on race and gender. When rhe government particularly remarkable because they were achieved by a person fa iled to rake the act's protection of women seriously, Friedan and who had a lowly status by usual university measures. Mae Carter other fe minists fo unded the National Organization fo r Wo men was not a fa culty member; she had no doctoral degree; and she to fightsex discrimination. never held a high-ranking administrative appointment at the As those reform ideas were taking root throughout the nation, University of Delaware. And yet, the evidence of her influence is President John A. Perkins' Advisory Committee on rhe Education everywhere apparent and is widely acknowledged by faculty women of Wo men completed a survey in 1965 that revealed that adult and administrators throughout the institution. For a person women had great unmet educational needs. The majority of rhe initially hired into a parr-time, marginal position to have had such respondents were married women bored wirh staying at home, an extraordinary impact is not only a testimony to Carter's skills but rhe most pressing needs came from divorced women. The but also suggests that she was the right person in the right place at advisory committee's discovery of this hitherto ignored group rhe right time. Mae Carter was effective because she combined the coincided with statistical evidence of the rising divorce rate in non-threatening manner and tactics of the traditional Delaware during the 1960s. 15 homemal 104 105 Beneath Thy Guiding Ha nd REVIVAL she married and, after a brief career as a pre-school teacher, Com munity Design Planning Commission to identify new goals fo llowed the then-common pattern of leaving the wo rkforce when fo r the University to pursue in the 1970s. The commission her children were born. She did not, however, abandon volunteer members, including students, fa culty, and administrators chosen community work, becoming particularly committed to working fro m all parts of the University, issued a two-volume report with the American Association of University Wo men (A.A.U.W) en titled Th e Decade Ahead in 1971. That document called fo r in support of education and libraries. In 1956, when her husband's the University ro respond to the educational needs of hitherto corporation relocated him in Delaware, the Carters moved to neglected groups, specifically including women. The commis Newark. Mae Carter soon became re-established as a volunteer sioners posited "85 theses to stimulate academic reforms," one of activist fo r the A.A.U.W, where she met Bessie B. Collins and which read in part: "The transformation in higher education that other community wo men, many of them fa culty wives. beaan in the last third of the 19th century needs to be When she began her part-time position in University Extension, co mpleted. Not only should women in greater number be Mae Carter discovered a new world of fr ustrated, even timid, accep ted in graduate and professional schools, but special women, fo r whom higher education represented a means to secure provisions should be made fo r them, including the right to study employment and to build self-respect. Some wished to complete on a part-time basis, particularly during the years when they are degrees they had abandoned in order to marry. Many had difficulty obliged to care fo r their young children."17 making academic progress because of the demands of parenthood The most important change associated with the Community and repeated corporate transfers required by their husbands' Design Commission's proclamation took place in the treatment employers. The most distressing problems, however, beset the of the University's women fa culty and staff. In the two and one widows, the women deserted by their husbands, and the divorcees. half decades from 1945 until 1970, the University had Typically, those women were unprepared to support themselves. All represented itself as a co-educational institution because all of its they knew was shopping, playing tennis, serving on church com academic programs were open to men and women equally. mittees, and rearing children. Seeing those fr ightened women University administrators had wondered why women students stream through her office made Mae Carter "very aware that you spurned many curricular opportunities and remained entrenched have to be financially independent."16 Using the skills and networks in a narrow sphere of "women's" subject areas. During that same that she had developed during years of experience in women's era the University had made no effort to hire professionally volunteer organizations, Carter urged the Division of University qualified women to staff its fa culty or its administration except Extension to offe r programs and courses to serve the needs of adult in the "women's" fields of home economics, women's physical women students. These efforts met with an enthusiastic response. education, and, later, nursing. Through the activities and The program, "Great Expectations fo r Wo men," presented in insights of the women's movement, the relationship between Newark in 1967 and aimed at returning students, was so well academic study and professional opportunities was made received that it was repeated fo r the benefit of women in apparent, not only at Delaware, but throughout the United Georgetown and Dover. States. The issue of fa ir hiring and promotion procedures fo r During that same time, President Tr abant was seeking ways to women and minorities became the subject of national debate and respond constructively to campus unrest and to bring a sense of political action. As the decade of the 1970s began, the University shared purpose to an institution that was in the midst of great of Delaware, like other American institutions and corporations, growth and change. Early in his presidency, Tr abant created the undertook ro rectifythe imbalances and unfair practices that had 106 107 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand REVIVAL The picture in other restricted employment opportu seven others employed only one v.roman. nursing, was no better. Only nities fo r women and other colleges, except home economics and the thirty-six faculty members mmonty groups. one woman was employed among d College of Education, while In January 1971, Benjamin F. in rhe traditionally fe male-oriente Agricultural Sciences, McLuckie, an assistant professor none were to be fo und in the colleges of Only one academic of sociology, taught a Winterim Business and Economics, or Marine Studies. by a woman. IS (now called Winter Session) department, Secretarial Studies, was chaired rtance of role course on changing sex roles in By 1970, social scientists had established the impo young people to define society. As part of the course, models of rhe same race or gender in helping ture careers. The Report Professor McLuckie organized a themselves and to envision themselves in fu ed the significance of panel discussion on the status of on Wo men at the University of Delaware not uded with the women at the University of fa culty role models fo r women students and concl iversity mal 109 108 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand REVIVAL There were so many sex-equity problems that needed anemion life, fr om medicine and law to the co mminee could only much briefly on ' imponam issues. hs English literature and art, where repon nO[ ed, fo r example, the absence of gynecological services fo r rhe compositions of women were students in the Heahh Center and the deanh of wo men in higher discounted as being less worthy paying, more re sponsible positions among professionals and rhan those of men. The first salaried staff. The advisory commi nee's most significant recom mendation practitioners of women's studies was that the Universicy should emp loy a fu ll-rime set out to expose those biases. affi rmative action officerwho would give hi w s or her attention goal of women's studies was addressing One the goal of achievi ng equitable ue arment with respect w women students a more hiring, ro give promoting, and compensating women and minoricy persons rationally based, positive view of in every branch of the Universi ry. 20 That recommendation was fu themselves, and to offe r them lfilled shortly thereafter, with the appointment of Jeannene Sam e fulfillingpos sibilities fo r as the Univ mor ersiry's fi rst affirmative action officer . their lives. Along the way toward compiling irs re port, the advisory commi Spurred on by the advisory ttee also wok the step of consti tuting an offshoot sub co mmittee, in 1971, a group of comminee to coordinate the introduction Florence (L indy) Geis, professor of of women's studies as a fa culty from throughout the new field of teaching and research. The sub-com psychology, coordi nated the initial minee was to University-some men, but mostly determine women'sstud ies course and co- what fa culty resources the Un iver sicy possessed in rhe women-joined by Mae Caner, emerging area of interdisci authored Seeing and Evaluating plinary study, w coordinate the who chaired the new committee, People, creation of a team-taugh a study of nega tive t women's studies course, and w dete began meeting together to create perceptual bias toward women. rmine how women's studies might become a regular part of a jointly taught women's studies the Universicy curriculum.21 . Wo course. Most of the participants were young, newly hu·ed, un men's studies emerged on the academ ic scene in 1970 at a tenured women who, up to that time, had been isolated in nearl conference _r on women held at Cornell Un iversity. The impetus all-male departments and had hardly known of on another unnl fo r this new academic subject � grew out of studies by scholars clust they joined fo rces to create the course. One of theu· num�er, ered in the social sciences and humanit ies that were demon however, was Jan DeArmond, a veteran professor of English, who m·a ring how negative social conditioning and artificial barriers had begun her career at Delaware in the Wo m n's Coll ge. Her had blinded scholars w women � � 's past co ntributions. Those same _ misog involvement lent the enterprise a sense of con tll1un y wt rh a near ynist attitudes were depriving women of professional fo rgotten era in the University's history Although th _Y hoped to opportunit . e ies fo r self-fulfillment and were denying society the see women's studies become a fu ll-fledged program With regular benefits of women's talents. One fa mous st udy showed that course offerings and fa culty lines, the fa culty who anended those college wo men fe ared academic success because it _ _ was not meetings were willing to start small and t volunteer the1r nme socially acceptable � to be seen as smartY Other studies showed to get the first co urse off the ground. Dunng the fa ll term of . that both men and women systematically viewed the work of women as 1972, a group of nineteen faculty, organized under the leadersh1p less valid than that of men. Those perceptual biases of Florence (Lindy) Geis of the Department of Psychology, ranged over the entire specuum of professional and academic presented Delaware's first women's studies course to an 110 111 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand REVIVAL en thusiastic gro up of ninty-five srudents, including some eral fa culty members, parric Universiry employees. sev Margaret Andersen of The wome ularl)' n's sru dies course fi lled an imporrant need fo r many ciology, Bonnie Scott, Barbara students who, So like the fa culry, were reassessing themselves and and Gloria Hull of English, their world Cares, in light of the new scholarship. Bur, the cumbersome a ding of fo rmat and Sandr Har of the first course could nor be perpetuated. Wo men's women created srudi Philosophy. Those es needed a budget ro pay fo r permanent leader ship and ro a workable structure fo r the pay irs fa culry or gain them release rime from thei r departmental isted f rwo teach program that cons ? ing obligations. In 1972 and 1973, the Wo men's Studies advtsory Commi co mmittees-a large ttee chairperson, Mae Caner, patiently bur persistenrly included all negoti committee that ated ro establish women's studies as a permanent, fu nded ac with an interest in program f ulry within the College of Arts and Science . Early in 1974, women's smdies and a small Provost L. Leo n Campbell agreed ro hire a program direcror fo r executive committee that directed women's studies and a search committee was established from the wome rhe program. n's studies fa culry ro findan appropriate leader . After From irs beginning in 1971, intervie wing many candidates, mostly women fr om other univer rhe Wo men's Studies Committee sities, the search committee selected an ass istant prof essor of lightning rod fo r a myriad Engl was a Mmg And pr r ish from the Universiry of Pennsylvania, who aret ersen, ofesso of began her duties of women's concerns. Long pent- in September 1974. sociology and editor of the journaL, up fr ustrations on issues ranging In Gender and Society, led the spite of the care and concern that had gone inro the search fr om sexual harassment co pay and in spit re01ganization of zuomen'sstudies in e of the first direcror's enthusiasm fo r the program, her equiry co the need fo r child care 1980 tenure and served as dire�to r of the at Delaware was brief and unhappy. The ma jor lesson ro poured into the committee fr om programfr om 1980 unttf 1985. be learned from the experience was that enthusia sm alone-w ith students, fa culty, and staff. The neither administrative abiliry nor an adequate budget . . -was nor members of the Wo men's Studies Committee empathtzed wnh enough. The second direcror, a psychologist, also hired from the those serious concerns, but the committee had co concemrate on outside, headed women's studies from 1975 until 1980, bur was irs educational mission. In 1973, rhe Wo men's Studies only margi nally more effective. However, thanks ro the fo r rhe creation of another organization that continuing Committee called commitment of a core group of women fa culty, the could fo cus on non-instructional issues affecting women. program not only survived, bur thrived. Mae Caner re a mained Impressed by the seriousness of women's complaims f ·om key figure in � maintaining the program's viability during . those throughout the Universiry, President Trabam rook thetr advtce and difficult years. Because she was nor part of the fa culry and could created rhe Commission on rhe Status ofWomen as a permanent, not be denie d tenure, Mae Caner was fr ee to champion en's wom Universiry-wide body ro support women's interests, re porting studies in University administration circles without incurring the directly to the president. risks that some young fa culty had reason to fe ar fr om . unsympa The commissioners were appointed by the prestdent and thetic male academic colleagues. The success of the pr . . ogram also included fa culry administrators, staff, and students, the maJority owed a great deal co the administrative savvy and conviction of of whom were �omen. Mae Carter left the Wo men's Studies 112 113 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand REviVAL The commission urged rhe University ro make improvemenrs in many areas. Irs report drew arrenrion ro sexist language in University publications, ro the inrimidarion of women srudenrs Gloria Hull, professor of by some male fa culry, and ro the unconscious assumptions of English at the Un iversity male superiority char were perperuared and overlooked b cau e, fi"om 1971 to 1988, helped � � to create a co-operative as rhe commissioners said, "rhe administration of the Un1versny relationship between two is primarily a man's world."23 As an example of the effects of past fledgling interdisciplinary policies, rhe reporr noted char, while salaried staff employees progmms- WtJmensStudies made up one-half of rhe rota! University employmem and and BlackAmer ican Studies. women constirured sixty- five percenr of chat group of employees, salaries fo r the University's largest employmenr group were "based on the outmoded assumption chat women are supple menring rather chan providing the fa mily income."2'1 The commissioners could cite one imporranr area where some progress was being made: the hiring of women fa culty. In the Committee to ass ume leadership of the new organization. President three years since 1972, when the Tr abant gave the comm ission a broad charge to "suggest and assist Presidenr's Advisory Commirree in the implementation of programs ...re garding the basic social had compiled its data on fa culty changes occurring in our society as newly defined roles fo r women by rank and gender, the University and men emerge." More specifically, the commission was to be a had added 255 new fa culty, 102 of watchdog on behalf of affi rmative action and to publish an annual whom were women. The assessment of the condition of women on the campus. challenge, as the commissioners The commission presented its firstann ual report, a hefty saw it, was ro make certain that document containin g fo rty-one pages of text together with numer those new women faculty were ous statistical rabies, to President Tr abanc and to the University given equal access ro research community in Ap ril 1975. The commissioners reported that, opportunities, equal respect fo r during their firstyear, they had published a handbook fo r women, their professional accomplish entitled "HERS," and had printed newsletters that disseminated ments, and ultimately, a fa ir, useful information about campus resources fo r women. They had unbiased judgmenr regarding their also co-sponsored Sandra Ha rding, professor of speakers and programs by and about women and promotion and tenure. women's issues philosophy and a feminist theorist and distributed a questionnaire to women srud enrs Am ong the most significant of /m own forher worle on the and employees to gather data on women's concerns. Those efforts the commission's earliest activities relationship of women to the were designed to help women overcome their socialized tendency was its sponsorship of open sciences, directed the WtJmens to accept discrimination passively , as if it were an inevitable and hearings concerning Title IX of the Studies In terdisciplinary Program unconquerable fa ct of lif e. Education Amendments of 1972. fi"om 1985 to 1992. Beneath Thy Guiding Hand REviVAL Tide IX prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex in educational programs. The act was aimed at college and university athletic programs, wh ich typically excluded women's participation Pr ofes.iors Barbara Ke f6, of and provided scholarships to male athletes but not to fe males. ph]'Sical education and Women's athletics at the University of Delaware had long been Sandra Ha rding of governed by ideas that dared from the era of the Women's philosophy at work in 1980, College. Both Beatrice Hartshorn, who controlled women's restructuring the curricu physical education fr om 1926 unci! 1962, and her successor, lmn forthe �llomens Studies Barbara Rothacher, strongly opposed a women's varsity spores !n teJdisciplinmy Program program at Delaware on the grounds that athletic competition was neither practical nor fittingfo r women students. Hartshorn and Rothacher's view, one widely shared among women physical instructors trained before the 1960s, was that the goal of women's phys ical education was to promote exercise fo r the many rather than to concentrate on competitive intercollegiate sports fo r the now fe w. This philosophy held that, while all women students should intercolleaiate athletics in 1969.26 Mary Ann Hitchens, 1969 to participate in physical education classes, women should perspire, associate director of intercollegiate athletics, was hired in n's not sweat. Hartshorn and Rothacher's policy was partly intended reach physical education classes and to coach the new wome mpeted to protect women students fr om the derision that was then basketball team. University of Delaware women also co fo r the commonly hurled at fe male athletes fo r stepping out of the aaainst teams fr om other schools in hockey and swimming coaches appropriate "feminine" role. In addition, Hartshorn and fi:st time in 1969-70. Initially, the women's teams and Rothacher were attempting to make the best use of a small staff labored under the burden of inadequate fa cilities and equipment. but Through the 1960s, the University's women physical educators Students sometimes had to purchase their own uniforms, y program were fu lly engaged teaching the ever-larger classes of required student and fa culty enthusiasm was high, and the varsit When courses fo r fr eshmen and sophomores . There was no time to be expanded to include more sports as conditions permitted. ated both teachers and coaches. Ti de IX was introduced in 1972, the University congratul In the 1960s, as state universities began developing women's itself fo r being ahead of the gameY at varsity athletic teams, women's physical education underwent Just as women's varsity sports were becoming a fixture cation significantcha nges throughout America. At Delaware, student Delaware, the old freshman and sophomore physical edu ated as part of a general curricular athletes and yo unger fa culty members such as Barbara Kelly, who requirement was elimin . requtred had been "radicalized" by what she learnedas a member of the overhaul that saw the end of nearly all University-wide had been President's Advisory Committee on Women, sought to join the courses. Gone too was the swimming requirement that ations movement. 25 David Nelson, then head of the University's athletic rhe bane, and perhaps in some cases the salvation, of gener ucation programs and later the first dean of the College of Physical of Delaware students. The concept of separate physical ed Education, Athletics, and Recreation, accepted the necessityfo r co urses fo r men and women was also called into question and education change, and the University of Delaware introduced women's ultimately abandoned as the male and fe male physical 117 116 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand fa culry reorganized inro a single unir. One resulr of rhe reorgani zation was rhar women adminisrrarors in physical educarion losr rheir posirions of leadership. Ironically, ir was only afrer rhe physical educarors lefr rhe Wo men's Gymnasium of which Bearrice Harrshorn had been so proud to occupy new quarrers in rhe much larger and berrer-equipped, fo rmerly all-male Carpenrer Sporrs Building, rhar rhe old building was renamed Harrshorn Gymnasium. A woman from rhe Universiry's graduating class of 1967, rerurning ro her alma marer in 1974, would have seen many fa miliar buildings, bur could hardly have recognized rhe insrirurion as rhe one she had arrended. A revolution had occurred in rhe posicion of women in campus life. The entire apparatus of rhe dean of women's office, wirh irs responsibiliry fo r single-sex residence halls, curfew rules, and dress code, had been swepr away, rogerher wirh rhe Association of Wo men Srudents and rhe women's honor courrs. In rheir place had appeared co-educational housing unirs supervised by members of borh sexes. A new academic program in women's srudies had been creared and over 100 newly hired women fa culry were reaching in numerous deparrments. The Commission on rhe Srarus ofWomen had been creared wirh powers ro recommend policies aimed ar ensuring fa irness and consideration fo r rhe needs of women srudents and employees. An affirmative acrion program had been pur in place. Wo men's arhleric reams were competing wirh teams from other schools, and gender-specific physical education classes had disappeared. A new paradigm em phasizing equaliry of opporruniry in every realm of Universiry life had replaced rhe old paradigm rhar had isolared women inro a limired, prorecred world of rheir own. No one could say where rhe revolution in women's opporruniries mighr lead, bur rhe fu rure looked promising. 118 CHAPTER SEVEN , ./ OU71:Jinishe[)(§!/Jtts iness � IN THE 1983-84 ACADEMIC YEAR, the University of Delaware marked the one-hundred-fiftieth anniversary of its charter from the state as a collegiate institution with a series of ceremonies, co nferences, and symposia. One conference, sponsored by the Office ofWomen's Affairs, was entitled "Women's Education: Evolution, Revolution, and Beyond." The theme of the daylong conference was that the revolution in women's place in campus life, which had begun some fifteen years earlier, was as yet incomplete. The keynote speaker, Elizabeth Minnich, a prominent fe minist scholar, told an audience of sixty-five students, faculty, and administrators that the collegiate curriculum must be enriched by including the contributions of the "excluded voices" of women and minorities.' Another principal speaker, Florence Howe of the State University of New Yo rk, cautioned the audience that the University of Delaware, like other American universities, still had much to do to ensure women's equality. To prove her point, she noted that only twelve percent of the University of Delaware's current women students were majoring in fields not traditional fo r women. Delaware women'sla crosse coach ja net Smith is carried by team Those calls fo r fu rther accomplishment came at a time when the members aft er they won the Association for In tercollegiate University had already adopted structures, procedures, and policies Athletics for Women (A lAW)Divi sion II nationaL championship aimed at assisting women and rectifying inequities. Affirmative trophy in !Vfay 1981. action was the law of the land. The Commission on the Status of 121 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand UNFINISHED BusiNEss momentum of positive change. The fa culty was disheartened to see that the women undergraduates of the 1980s expected that rhe gains made by women during the 1960s and 1970s ·would necessarily continue into the fu ture without fu rther effo rt on their part. Meanwhile, the statistical data published annually by the Commission on the Status ofWomen suggested that the much-routed progress of the recem past was more apparent than real. In the fa ll of 1984, fo r example, when women outnumbered men among the University's undergraduate body by fify-seven percent to fo rty-three percent, women constituted only rwenty three percent of the fa culty-a ratio that, in spite of affirmative action, had remained stubbornly consistent fo r a decade. 2 In fa ct, the proportion of tenured and tenure-track women in the faculty had actually decreased from rwenty-two-and-a-half to rwenty percent of the rota] fa culty between 1975 and 1982. Nor had Several smalL-group discussions of themes were held as part of the University's great breakthroughs occurred in the University's administrative 150th anniversary sy mposium on women in 1983. ranks, where only sixteen percent were women. Wo men, at the outset of its second decade in 1978, had added an administrative arm called the Office of Wo men's Affairs, managed by Mae Carter. The office assisted women with job related problems and created and coordinated a wide variety of support services. The Office of Wo men's Affairs was perhaps best-known ro students and faculty as the sponsor of the Wo men of Promise and Wo men of Excellence dinners, held annually to honor and encourage outstanding women undergraduates and graduate students, respectively. The Wo men's Studies Interdisciplinary Program, having earned a permanent place among the Un iversity's academic programs, was reaching over 1,000 students a year with a wide variety of courses and was available to undergraduates as a minor academic field. The program had also begun-and opened to the campus community-a weekly, lunchtime lecture series on topics of jeraldine n·abant(ce nter) shares a toast with Elizabeth Dya (left) and Anna interest to women. J DeArmond (right)-retired facultywho began their careers at the Women's The existence of those institutional structures, each led by College-during a reception to celebrate the Un iversity's 150th anniversary, zealous and capable people, was not enough to maintain a held No vember 11, 1983. 122 123 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand UNFINISHED BusiNEss The disparities were even more extreme regarding black srudenrs Patricia DeLeon, a biologist, and Barbara \Xli lliams, an astronomer, and fa culry. Black women fa culry accounted fo r an astonishingly have been among the Universiry's most prominent black scholars. low percent of rhe UniversirytoraJ.3 In 1983, women outnumbered The intracrabiliry of social change demonstrated by those men among black srudents at the Universiry 339 to 278; bur statistics showed that the quest fo r women's equaliry had barely whereas there were thirty-five black male fa culry, there were only begun. The fo rmal victories that had led to rhe creation of eleven black women in a Universiry fa culryof more than 700 srrucrures such as the Commission on the Starus ofWomen and persons. Opportunities fo r black students to find role models in rhe rhe Wo men's Studies Interdisciplinary Program had come rather fa culty were fe w, bur fo r black women, the problem was especially easily, but using those structures to change conditions fo r women acute." The first black woman to become a fu ll-rime member of rhe and attitudes about women's place in the Universiry was proving fa culty was Hilda Davis, who joined the Department of English in more difficultand tedious. The scope of the problem was so broad 1965 as a non-tenure-track instructor and taught rhe Universiry's rhar it could not easily be contained in any one theory or any one first course on African-American writers. More recently, Gloria set of actions. Securing justice fo r women was a goal that depended Hull, who taught in the English department from 1979 to 1988, on a myriad of subjective perceptions, personal objectives, and Carole. Marks, a sociologist in rhe Black American Studies Program, fe elings of self-worth that transcended statements of Universiry policy. Men and women students continued to be distributed in traditionally skewed fa shion among rhe Universiry's ten colleges. Statistics consistently showed that, although women came to the Universirywith higher S.A.T. scores than men, men were more likely to elect majors in subject areas that would earn them greater respect and money than those chosen by women. Analyzing the statistical data on sex and career choice in the 1980s is analogous to deciding if a glass is half empty or half fu ll. In the College of Engineering, fo r example, whose graduates consis renrly rated at the top of the starting salary scale fo r all Universiry of Delaware programs, women were slowly making inroads. As recenrly as 1967, no women graduated fr om that college; ten years later, the graduating class included nine women; and by 1982, fifry of the college's 305 graduates were women. Optimists who fa vored wo men's entry into better-paying professions could point to a steady, healthy gain. On the other hand, the great majority of men and women students continued to fo llow traditional professional Professor ja mes E. Ne wton presents an award to Hilda A. Davis, pioneer paths. In 1982, the overwhelming majoriryof engineering majors black faculty memberat the Un iversity, as part of a symposium entitled were still men, while ninety-eight percent of the graduates in the "Black Presence at the Un iversity of Delaware," held in sp ring 1984 as part of College of Human Resources (successor to Home Economics) were the Un iversity's 150th anniversary commemoration. At left is former women, as were ninery-five percent of those who majored in Un iversityacad emic counselor jean Stanton. elementary education. The most significant area of change during 124 125 Beneath Thy Guiding Ha nd UNFINISHED BusiNESS the 1970s was in the College ofBusiness and Economics, where rhe home economics majors changed, the Home Management House number of women graduates rose dramatically from five in 1967 ro experience had lost its gl amour. The newer students were planning 228 by 1982, when women represented fo rty-five percent of those careers outside the home. Some were already married women who graduating with majors in business administration or accounting.s had more than enough practice maintaining their own homes Statistics revealed that fo rces were at work reshaping some while they attended college. They did not appreciate a disciplines to make them more gender-neutral and depriving requirement that fo rced them to leave their fa milies to spend others of their fo rmer lock on large numbers of women students. several weeks living with a group of fe llow students much younger The most noteworthy example of the latter phenomenon was in and less experienced than they were. As these negative reactions rhe College of Education. Although women remained the mounted, the college decided to abandon the requirement, and overwhelming majority of elementary education majors, the total rhe house was converted to other purposes. number of people preparing fo r careers in that field declined Home economics was changing in other respects as well. During markedly during the 1970s. In part, this shift represented rhe years of Dean Irma Ayers' administration between 1948 and students' reaction to the declining demand fo r elementary school 1972, the college abandoned its cramped quarters in Robinson teachers, but another significantfa ctor was the expansion of Hall fo r the spaciousness of the new Alison Hall (1954), which opportunities fo r women in other fields, such as business offered much-improved equipment and research fa cilities. The administration, which offered more prestige, higher pay, and college began a modest graduate program in the 1950s and enrolled greater chances fo r advancement. irs first fu ll-rime graduate student in 1962. Programs in child The most complex reaction to the shifts in women's career development and in marriage and rhe fa mily were added to the options occurred in the field of home economics. From the earliest curriculum. During those years, the men who ran the University days of the Wo men's College, the faculty in home economics had were content to remain fundamentally ignorant of what went on in conceived of their field primarily as pre-professional training. Even this college, viewing it as an inexpensive, but necessary, enterprise in the fa ce of evidence that the overwhelming majority of home that posed no threats and made few demands.6 Dean Ayers insisted economics majors used their education in the home rather than in rhat her fa culty project a conservative, well-groomed image, the work place, Amy Rexrrew and Irma Ayers, whose consecutive designed to keep top administrators content.? terms as heads of home economics ran fr om 1929 to 1972, justified By 1972, when Dean Ayers retired, the concept of home their field on the grounds that it trained students fo r jobs in economics was undergoing dramatic change across the country. industry and reaching. Bur, they had to acknowledge that many The fo od and textile industries had become high-tech enterprises students majored in home economics as a prelude to homemal<..ing. and commercial care of small children and the elderly were In the early 1920s, the home economists had established a subjects of increasing national concern. As the fields embraced by "Home Management House" near Robinson Hall, where groups home economics began attracting more research support, men of senior majors put to rhe rest their training in fo od preparation, moved into them. In 1976, the college hired its first male dean, sewing, and other home-related skills. For the first several decades Alexander Doberenz, a nutritionist. Dean Doberenz was soon to of its existence, it was highly popular with students. The discover that at Delaware, as elsewhere, the home economists were opportunity to move from the residence hall into a homelike arguing among themselves about renaming their college. He setting marked a significantst ep toward the responsibility of moved quickly to resolve this divisive issue, and, in 1978, the unit managing one's own home. But, by the 1970s, as the profiles of was renamed the College of Human Resources-a title with no 126 127 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand UNFINISHED BusiNESS fe male or home-centered connotations. Soon, other men were The College of Education has fa ced many of the samestrug gles hired to fill important roles in rhe college, one as irs first named fo r students and recognition as Home Economics/Human professor, others as department chairpersons. Wo men fa culty Resources and Nursing. Education is similar to them in that irs watched those changes with ambiguous fe elings. They applauded primary, historic role has been to prepare students-mostly the greater freedom to dress and act as they chose, but they were women-for service-oriented, poorly paid careers. In the days before dismayed that the drive to add men to rhe college deprived women many women with children contemplated careers that kept them at of positions of authority. work year-round, reaching offered an attractive choice of The College of Nursing was less affected by change in rhe profession. As with nursing, national trends in women's careers 1970s. Nursing had originally been established at Delaware in have changed the milieu in which rhe College of Education must 1955 as a major within the College of Arts and Science. By 1966, compete. The downturn in the birth rare during the 1960s also had when i r became a separate unit of the University, 210 students a negative impact on enrollments in the College of Education. were enrolled in the program . In ] une 1972, as i r moved into new In the 1970s, the College of Education was restructured to quarters in Madeline 0. McDowell Hall, named in honor of rhe emphasize research and graduate study as well as the preparation of program's fo under, its students numbered 435. But, as medical reachers. This restructuring was intended, in part, to shake off the schools revoked the quotas that had previously restricted women's college's fe male-oriented image, but it was the student body in entrance and as other professional opportunities, both inside and education, not the faculty, that was preponderantly fe male. In the outside the health-care professions, became available to women, mid- 1970s, only sixteen percent of the fa culty in education were fe wer undergraduate students chose to major in nursing. fe male. The College of Education has been an anomaly with Enrollment reached a peak of 883 in 1982 but declined to 374 respect to sex: It has had the fa culty male-female profile of a college by 1990, before beginning a modest upward climb. As it of arts and science coupled with a student profile that more closely responded to the threat posed by low enrollment, graduate resembled a college of home economics. The College of Education programs were instituted to attract practicing nurses, courses was the first at the University to hire a fe male named professor, were offered in southern Delaware, and an aggressive recruitment Sylvia Farnham-Diggory, a specialist in reading disabilities who campaign was undertaken, especially targeting older students. came to the University of Delaware in 1976; but leadership Edith Anderson, who became dean of nursing in 1976, concen positions in the college have remained in the hands of men. trated on maintaining enrollments and raising rhe fa culty's While chose professionally oriented colleges with high fe male academic credentials to bring the college into conformity with enrollments were adj usting their programs in response to women's ocher campus units.8 As in the case of home economics, the changing career goals, the College of Arcs and Science emerged as predominance of women in the College of Nursing was seen as a the primary unit fo r reaching about wo men. By the mid- 1980s, irs serious liability in matters of fu nding, salary levels, and respect Wo men's Studies Interdisciplinary Program earned a unique place within the University. That reality fo rced deans of both Nursing among the co llege's offerings. In 1986-87, a typical year in that and Human Resources to adopt various strategies designed to win decade, the program offered fifty-four courses to 1,400 students, equal support fo r their units in University decisions concerning who represented ten percent of the entire undergraduate student money, space, and enrollment. Professionally oriented colleges body. This was accomplished in spite of the fa ct that no fac ulty chat traditionally attract a preponderance of men have not fa ced were assigned exclusively to the program. Part-time fa culty were such an uphill struggle. hired to teach the introductory courses, while others fr om a wide 128 129 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand UNFINISHED BusiNESS variety of departments, both men and women, taught the more adopted a requirement that all advanced courses, usually cross-listed so that students could choose undergraduate students rake at to rake those courses fo r credit in women's studies or in English, least one multicultural course philosophy, history, psychology, sociology, anthropology, or dealing with issues of race and whatever discipline the teacher represented. The fa ct that fa culry gender. By the late 1980s, the could neither hold a primary appointment in women's studies nor number of fa culty who regularly be granted tenure in the fieldproved to be more a strength than a taught about women and racial weakness because it spread responsibility fo r the program across issues was sufficiently large that the many academic departments. multicultural requirement was The goal of women's studies was not to become a new discipline implemented with surprising ease. but to encourage the expansion of existing disciplines to include In rhe 1970s and 1980s, the women's perspectives and to encourage research related to women. University made a concerted effort The program has brought together faculty interested in women's to hire women into more issues at irs weekly research luncheons, and its seminars introduce responsible positions in non severa,l leading scholars to the Delaware campus each year. traditional fields. In 1973, Helen Barbara Kel6� the lastchair person Wo men's studies also has developed a visiting scholars program Gouldner came to the University of the WomensPh ysicalEdu cation through which departments can add a distinguished woman from Washington University in St. Department, rose to become scholar from another university fo r a fu ll year. Among the Louis to become chairperson of associate dean of the College of outstanding women who have participated in this program have the Department of Sociology. She Physical Education, Athletics, and been Elaine Showalter, a leading literary critic; Jessie Bernard, was the first woman appointed as Recreation. doyenne of sociology; and Darlene Clark-Hine, a pioneer in the chairperson of a department in field of black women's history. the College of Arts and Science since Harriet Baily headed the During the 1980s, the emphasis in women's studies moved from Department of Art in the 1940s. A year later, Professor Gouldner creating special courses about women in various disciplines to the was named dean of the College of Arrs and Science-the concept of an "inclusive curriculum" that includes material by and University's largest and most diverse college, encompassing about women in all relevant courses. To ward that end, Margaret roughly half of the institution's faculty and students. She Andersen, a sociologist, and Sandra Harding, a philosopher, both occupied this important post fo r seventeen years and was of whom served terms as director of women's studies, led a month succeeded by another woman, Mary P. Richards, a scholar in Old long fa culry development seminar in January 1984 fo r eight social English. In 1985, Carolyn Thoroughgood, a University of science faculry, seven of whom were men. The seminar fo cused on Delaware alumna who taught nutrition in the College of Human strategies fo r revising introductory-level courses to cut across Resources and later in the College of Marine Studies, was chosen gender lines. This concept, called mainstreaming, has taken on dean of the College of Marine Studies. greater meaning as the University has sought ways to address Another non-traditional area in which University women have students' lack of knowledge about people different from shown significant progress has been athletics. Although excluded themselves. In 1988, in response to a recommendation from a com from intercollegiate competition previously, University of Delaware mittee charged to study undergraduate education, the University women's athletic reams moved swiftly into top contention among 130 131 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand UNFINISHED BusiNESS due to rhe unusually high cost of outfittingthe fo otball ream, before rhe Bob Carpenter Sporrs/Convocarion Center opened in 1992, the locker rooms fo r women athletes were more crowded and Mary Ann Hitchens, 10 generally less satisfactory than those fo r the men. associate director of intercoL Legiate athletics, hoLds the The University athletics program provides an excellent East Coast Co nftrence benchmark fo r assessing the position of women throughout the Co mmissioner's Cup University in the early 1990s. On the one hand, spectacular awarded to the University gains have been made toward achieving sexual equity; on the seven times for its out other hand, there is still room fo r improvement. The concept of standing women'sathletic gender equality itself is subj ect to different interpretations, teams. Wi th her are Susan depending on whether it is perceived as an equality of McGrath-PoweLl, coach of opportunity or an equality of result. The fa ct that women are not track andfieLd, and joyce the same as men was used fo r centuries to justifysevere EmoryPe rry, basketbaLl limitations on what they said or did. It is one thing to open the coach. doors of learning to women and to offe r them the opportunity to model their lives and careers on those of men. It is another to stretch well-established educational systems and ways of thinking to include women on their own terms. The resolution of the complex issues that arise fr om these considerations remains the unfinished business of the women's movement not only in NCAA Division I schools during the 1970s. In 1978, the women's universities but throughout society. field hockey team took second place nationally among the During the 1980s, the University of Delaware responded to Association fo r Intercollegiate Athletics fo r Women (AIAW) teams. several key recommendations fr om the Commission on the Status Three years later, the women's lacrosse team began a winning streak ofWomen. In response to a fe deral mandate, the University that culminated in its becoming the only team of either sex in the adopted a strongly-worded policy on sexual harassment, and University's history to win an NCAA Division I championship. In President Tr abant demonstrated his commitment to its goals by 1992-93, the women's volleyball team was the North Atlantic firinga vice president who fa iled to live up to its principles. After Conference champion. The University of Delaware women's years of complaints fr om University personnel regarding lack of athletic program won the East Coast Conference Commissioner's day care, arrangements were made whereby the Newark Girls Inc. Cup fo r all-around excellence seven of the nine years that the Child Care Center would accept employees' pre-school children University participated in that conference. into its program. Better lighting was installed along pathways and Though there is active progress by the University toward the in campus parking lots to improve nighttime safety, and police achievement of gender equity and Tide IX compliance, an NCAA call boxes were installed in conspicuous locations throughout the survey reported in the spring of 1992 that sixty-four percent of campus. These initiatives did not solve completely the problem of University of Delaware athletes are men, yet they receive over child care fo r University students and employees, nor did the eighty percent of the available funds.9 While this disparity is partly brighter lights eliminate the threat of rape, bur the commission's 132 133 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand UNFINISHED BusiNESS persistence did succeed in encouraging the campus community Geis performed a host of psychological tests that demonstrate that to address issues that affect women most seriously. both sexes have been conditioned by their experiences to give In 1990, women constituted nearly fifty-six percent of the l:lareater credit to males than fe males, even when both sexes perform University's undergraduate students, fo rty-seven percent of its equally. 12 The findings of her studies and those by other scholars graduate students, and thirty-three percent of its full-timeand have been collected in a pamphlet called Seeing and Evaluating part-time fa culty. The increasing number of women who are People. The Office of Wo men's Affairs has distributed over 2,000 studying fo r the Ph.D. degree at the University promises that the copies, both within the University of Delaware and beyond, 13 but it pool from which fa culty will be drawn in the fu ture is approaching is difficultto gauge its impact because, as Professor Geis fo und, parity between the sexes. During the 1980s, the proportion of perceptual biases are unconscious. tenured women fa culty increased from fo urteen to nearly nineteen Dramatic disparities continue to define career choices fo r both percent of the total. In 1991, the University Faculty Senate sexes in the 1990s. At the University of Delaware, women remain adopted a parental leave policy that offe rs faculty parents the the overwhelming majority of students in the colleges of latitude necessary to meet a promotion schedule that was Education, Nursing, and Human Resources, whereas men originally designed fo r married men and single women. Ye t in constitute nearly fo ur-fifths of undergraduates in the College of 1992, only eleven percent of the University's full professors were Engineering. The continuation of strong professional stereotypes women, a percentage that is still below the median fo r comparable based on sex has several explanations. Beginning with puberty, girls 11 American institutions of higher education. are less likely than boys to excel in mathematics, a fa ct that appears The number of women occupying senior administrative to be linked to nurture rather than to nature.Wh ile women tend to positions has continued to grow. In 1980, Susan Brynteson shun mathematics and come to college unprepared to pursue became the director of libraries and successfully coordinated scientifically-based disciplines, studies also show that womenpr efer planning fo r an addition to the Morris Library that has more than jobs that involve working with people over those that focus on doubled its size. In 1989, Maxine R. Colm, an experienced abstract ideas and purely intellectual work, even when the latter personnel administrator from the New Jersey state system of offe r higher pay. This theory would explain why women have colleges and universities, was named vice president fo r employee gravitated to business careers but not to engineering, in spite of the relations. In 1994, Susan J. Foster was promoted to the new post fa ct that both of these fields require preparation in mathematics.14 of vice president fo r information technologies. Barbara L. Kreppel Wo men's increasing presence in the College of Engineering is of and Judith Y. Gibson both serve as assistant vice presidents. recent origin. The tiny handful of women who ignored social Women's achievements have not always been so readily prohibitions to study engineering in the 1960s fo und their college welcomed. The research findings of fe minist scholars continue to experience and their entry into the job market fraught with provide seeds fo r debate in some academic disciplines, nor has the discouragement and difficulties. By the 1970s, socially imposed perception that a quota system is at work in the selection of barriers had begun to recede, but as late as 1975, the college women administrators and faculty disappeared. Although women's remained ninety-six percent male. By the 1980s, the climate fo r share of policy-making positions has increased, their voices are still women had become less chilly. Engineering has, however, remained largely absent at the highest level. an unusual career choice fo r women, not only because fe wer Florence Geis, professor of psychology, said unconscious women acquire the necessary preparation, but because there are perceptions are a major cause of ongoing discrimination. Professor very fe w women role models. Most women who go into the field 134 135 Beneath Thy Guiding Ha nd receive encouragement fr om a male engineer in their families, bur when rhey get ro college, rhey see few women. For example, in the fall of 1990, the College of Engineering ar Delaware employed only three, a mere fo ur percent of irs total fa culty, rhe lowest percentage of women faculty among rhe University's ten colleges. In 1992, however, the college rook an important step toward improving conditions fo r women students wirh rhe inauguration of rhe Wo men in Engineering (WE) Industrial Mentors Program, rhe imperus fo r which came from several women engineers employed by local corporations. By bringing women engineering majors and practicing women engineers rogerher, the program seeks to overcome the effects of sexual imbalance in the current faculty. Compared to many women in rhe years before rhe women's movement, most of roday's srudents seem neither afraid to appear intelligent nor unable to approach their college srudies wirh rhe same drive toward career goals rhar characterize male students. Having achieved so much, women might easily become complacent in the expectation rhar the movement toward equality will continue under irs own momentum, but the history of women ar the University of Delaware suggests otherwise. Tw ice before, in the period from 1872 to 1885 and in the years fr om 1914 to 1945, women appeared to have established a firmpl ace in the University only to have it either swept away or seriously eroded. One senior faculty member who has participated in the revival of women's place at the University remarked during an interview fo r this book, "Equality is something you fight fo r every day."'5 Universities may take the lead in making society change, but they also reflect society. And, as this history of one university has shown, ir is only through the efforts of inspired, persistent, capable individuals that univer sities move closer to the still-elusive ideal. 136 @>nfJ.notes ~ Chap ter One TH E BEGINNINGS 1. The Delaware College Review, November 1888. 2. Thomas Wo ody, A History of Women's Edu cation in the Un ited States (New Yo rk: The Science Press, 1929), II, p. 25 1. 3. Minutes, Board ofTrustees, July 2, 1872, University of Delaware Archives. 4. John A. Munroe, Th e Un iversity of Delaware: A His tory (Newark: University of Delaware, 1986), p. 133. 5. Minutes, Board ofTrustees, June 17, 1873. 6. Ibid. , June 25, 1873. 7. Gloria Marie Dean Bockrath, "Smdent Recruitment at Delaware College During the Purnell Era, 1870-1885," Master's Thesis, University of Delaware, 1977, p. 31. 8. Th e Un iversity Ne ws, June 1944, IX, 6. 9. No Na me manuscript periodical, March 1881. University of Delaware Archives. 10. Th e Review, November 1884. 11. No Na me, March 1881. 12. Ibid. , May 1881. 13. Ibid. , February 1882. 14. Wilmington Ev ery Evening and Co mmercial, June 19, 1877. 15. Th e Review, May 1885. 16. Ibid. , July 1885. 17. Minuces, Board ofTr ustees, June 24, 1885. 18. Bockrath, p. 40. 19. Ca ta logue of Th e Pestafozzi Literary Society of Delaware Cof!ege (Newark, 1886). 139 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand ENDNOTES Chap ter Tw o Chap ter Th ree REFORM TH E CoLLEGE 1. Louise Staton Johnson, Autobiography, Manuscript in the University 1. Ne wark Post, October 14, 1914, Wa rner Scrapbook, University of of Delaware Archives. Delaware Archives. 2. The Aurora, 1899, University of Delaware Archives. 2. Ibid. 3. Minutes, Board ofTrustees, 1907. 3. BuLLetin of the Womens Co LLege of DeLaware, I, 1, 1914-1915, 4. Karen ]. Blair, Th e CLubwoman as Fe minist: True Womanhood University of Delaware Archives. Redefined: 1868-1914 (New Yo rk, 1980). 4. John A. Munroe, Th e Un iversity of Delaware: A HistO l)', pp. 229-236. 5. For a fu ller discussion of the Wilmington New Century Club, see 5. Ibid. , p. 243. Gail Stanislaw, "Domestic Feminism In Wilmington: The New 6. Undated newspaper article, ca. 1935, Wa rner Scrapbook, University Century Club, 1889-1917," DeLawareHisto ry, XXII, 3, pp. 158- 185. of Delaware Archives. 6. President George A. Harter to Mrs. A. D. Wa rner, Newark, 7. W J. Ro binson to Isca, undated letter, W J. Robinson Papers, Delaware, February 2, 1912. University of Delaware Archives. 7. State ofDelaware, Journal of the House ofRepres entatives, 1913, p. 690. 8. Interview with Helen Baylis, October 5, 1987. 8. Wa rner Scrapbook, University of Delaware Archives. 9. Interview with Camilla Day, April 20, 1991. 9. Delaware College Board ofTrustees Resolution, August 6, 1913, 10. W J. Robinson to Viola Smith, undated, W]. Robinson Papers, Wa rner Scrapbook, University of Delaware Archives. University of Delaware Archives. 10. Wi nifred J. Robinson to Mrs. Mathews, New Yo rk, August 23, 11. Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, ALma Mater (New Yo rk: Alfred A. 1913, University of Delaware Archives. Knopf, 1984), p. 147. 11. Winifred ]. Robinson to Mrs. A. D. Wa rner, Poughkeepsie, New Yo rk, 12. Th e Ch ronicLe, 1918, University of Delaware Archives. November 2, 1913, Wa rner Scrapbook, University of Delaware Archives. 13. Letters to W J. Robinson and Baylis interview. 12. E. P. Wa rner to W J. Robinson, Wilmington, Delaware, November 14. W J. Ro binson to Mrs. R. W Claiborne, January 30, 1930, 17, 1913, W J. Robinson Papers, University of Delaware Archives. Hullihen Papers, University of Delaware Archives. 13. Interview with Helen Baylis, October 5, 1987. 15. Ro bert J. Taggart, Private PhiLanth ropy and PubLic Education, Pierre 14. Katherine E. Puncheon, Vice Principal of the Philadelphia High S. du Po nt and the Delaware SchooLs, 1890-1940 (Newark: University School fo r Girls , to Judge Herbert Rice, Philadelphia, of Delaware Press, 1988) pp. 48-53, 74. Pennsylvania, October 30, 1913, W. J. Robinson Papers, University 16. Taggart, p. 103. of Delaware Archives. 17. W J. Ro binson "Report to the Committee On The Wo men's 15. Wa rner Scrapbook, University of Delaware Archives. College," May 17, 1935, Hullihen Papers, University of Delaware 16. G. A. Harrer to W. J. Robinson, Newark, Delaware, November 11, Archives. 1913, Wa rner Scrapbook, University of Delaware Archives. 18. On the development of Home Economics as a "Women's Field" that 17. Wilmington newspaper clipping, undated, Spring 1914, Wa rner allowed women a special but inferior place in science, see Laura Scrapbook, University of Delaware Archives. Shapiro, Pe1jection SaLad, Women and Co oking at the Titrn of the 18. Ibid. Ce ntury (New Yo rk: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1986), and Margaret 19. Ib id. W Rossiter, Women Scientists in America, StruggLes and Strategies in 1940 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982) . 19. Report of the Wo men's College, May 1931, Hullihen Papers, University of Delaware Archives. 20. W]. Robinson to W Hullihen, June 9, 1933, Hullihen Papers, University of Delaware Archives. 140 141 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand ENDNOTES 21. Wo men's College Statement, 1930, DittO Lewis Papers, University of 17. Amy Rextrew to Tr ustees' Committee, August 30, 1944, Sypherd Delaware Archives. Papers, University of Delaware Archives. 22. Amy Rexuew to W J. Ro binson, March 31, 1933, Hullihen Papers, 18. Jeannette E. Graustein to J. Pilling Wr ight, Chairman, Committee University of Delaware Archives. on Salary Scale and University Ad ministrative Structure, September 23. W.]. Ro binson tO A. G. Wilkinson, September 13, 1934, Hullihen 1, 1944, Sypherd Papers, University of Delaware Archives. Papers, University of Delaware Archives. 19. H. Clay Reed to W 0. Sypherd, September 1, 1944, Sypherd 24. Amy Rexuew report to W J. Robinson, October 4, 1933, W]. Papers, University of Delaware Archives. Robinson Papers, Un iversity of Delaware Archives. 20. University of Delaware Annual Report, 1948, Report of Dean of 25. W J. Robinson to Frank M. Jones, December 19, 1936, W]. Wo men, Amy Rextrew. Robinson Papers, University of Delaware Archives. 21. Inrerview with Anna J. DeArmond, January 16, 1989. 26. Wa lter Hullihen to Dorothy Hawkins, March 22, 1930, Ditto Lewis Papers, University of Delaware Archives. Chap ter Fi ve Co-EDUCATION Chap ter Fo ur MERGER 1. University of Delaware Annual Report, 1946. 2. Gwendolyn S. Crawford Papers, University of Delaware Archives. 1. Wa rner Scrapbook, May 16, 1935, newspaper clipping. 3. Th e Blue He n, University of Delaware Ye arbook, 1946-47. 2. Ibid. , undated newspaper clipping (1938?). 4. William Henry Chafe, Th e American WOman, He r Changing Social, 3. Wa rner Scrapbook, W]. Ro binson speech, April 23, 1938. Ec onomic, and Po litical Roles, 1920-1970 (New Yo rk: Oxford 4. W Hullihen to James M. Hillman, March 1, 1928, Hullihen Papers, University Press, 1972), p. 194. University of Delaware Archives. 5. Ib id. , p. 187. 5. W J. Robinson to Frank M. Jones, December 19, 1936, W J. 6. Ly nn White, Jr., Edu cating Our Daughters (New Yo rk: Harper & Robinson Papers, University of Delaware Archives. Brothers, 1950). 6. Jeannette E. Graustein to Wal ter Hullihen, December 8, 1932, 7. Th e Blue Hen, 1946-47. Hullihen Papers, University of Delaware Archives. 8. Te resa L. Riesmeyer, "Marriage, Career, or Both?: Wo men's 7. Unidentified newspaper clipping, dated April 17, 1931, William Educational Choices in the 1940s," Seminar paper, May 1992, Ditto Lewis file, Universityof Delaware Archives. interview by the author with Frances C. Megson, April 26, 1992. 8. Interview with Anna J. DeArmond, January 16, 1989. 9. Munroe, p. 371. 9. Interview with Elizabeth Bohning, October 31, 1988. 10. Interview with Anna J. DeArmond, January 16, 1989. 10. Horowitz, Alma Ma ter, pp. 196- 197. 11. University of Delaware Annual Report, 1964-65. 11. Ibid. , p. 293. 12. Laurette A. Crum, "Women's Choice ofAcademic Major at the 12. Patricia Albjerg Graham, "Expansion and Exclusion: A History of University of Delaware From 1958 to 1987," Seminar paper, May 1992. Wo men In American Higher Education," Signs, 3, 4, (Summer 13. University of Delaware Annual Report, 1961-62. 1978), pp. 759-773. 14. Bessie B. Collins Papers, University of Delaware Archives. The work 13. Interview with Marilda Wish Hutchison, December 9, 1988. of the co mmittee was featured in an article in Un iversity Ne ws, an 14. Munroe, p. 33 1. al umni publication in September 1963. 15. W. 0. Sypherd to Wa rren C. Newton, August 10, 1944, Sypherd 15. Marion K. Sanders, "A Proposition For Wo men," Ha rper'sMag azine, Papers, University of Delaware Archives. September 1960. 16. Qu aesita Drake to W 0. Sypherd, September 1944, Sypherd Papers, 16. Bessie B. Collins Papers, University of Delaware Archives. University of Delaware Archives. 17. Board of Tr ustees Docket, Fall 1960, University of Delaware Archives. 142 143 Beneath Thy Guiding Hand ENDNOTES 18. Interview with Barbra Frank Andrisani, July 1, 1992. 21. Ibid, p. 25. 19. Munroe, p. 385. , 22. Marina Horner, "Fail: Bright Wo men, P)ychoLogy Today. Novem b er· 20. Ib id. , p. 383. 1969, 3, pp. 36-38, 62. 21. Interview with Ross Ann Jenny Craig, June 29, 1992. . 22. Bessie 23. Co mmiss ion on the Sta tus of WOmen Annual Report to the Prmdent, B. Collins, Dean of Wo men's Annual Report, 1967. April 1975. 24. Ibid 25. Interview with Barbara Kelly, October 1988. Chap ter Six 26. Interview with David Nelson, July 20, 1989. REVIVAL 27. Interview with Mary Ann Hitchens, August 9, 1989 1. Natalie Gittelson, "Co-Ed Dorms," Mc Ca Ll'sMag azine, September 1979, p. 14. 2. Record Group 16, Chapter Seven ''Advisors-Duties" file, Archives. UNFINISHED BusiNESS 3. University of Delaware Annual Report, 1966-67. 4. Board of Tr ustees Docket 1965-66, University of Delaware Archives. 5. Association ofWomen 1. Th e Review, March 6, 1984. Students minutes, January 11, 1967, University of Delaware Archives. 2. Co mmission on th e Sta tus of WomenAnnua lR ep ort to th e p rest"d en t , 6. Th e Blue He n, 1968. 1984-1985. 7. Students For a Democratic Society file, 3. Ibid. University of Delaware · Archives. 4. Statistical tables supplied by Universi ty's 0 ffice o finsnrunona · l 8. Ibid. Research, EE0-6 Summary (full-time only) FY 1975-1985, and 9. Th e Blue He n, 19 Black Students by Ethnic Category and Sex. 68. . . 10. Edward F. Spencer, 5 Laurette A. Crum, "Women's Choice of Academic MaJOr at the rough draft of reportto Stuart Sharkey, " Director of Residence University of Delaware fr om 1958 to 1987." Life, October 26, 1970, papers in posses sion of Stuart Sharkey. 6. Interview with Irma Ayers, December 12, 1988. 11. Ibid. 7. Interview with Barbara Settles, September 12, 1989. 12. Interview with Stuart Sharkey, June 7, 1992. 8. Interview with Edith Anderso n, August 31, 1989. 13. Th e Association, Association 9. Th e Review, April 24, 1992. of Wo men Students Newsletter, December 1968. 10. Ibid. 14. Interviewwith 11. Co mmission on the Status of Wo men Annual Report to th e prest ·d ent , Ross Ann Jenny Craig, June 29, 1992. 15. Hester R. Stewart, et al., 1990-1991. WOmen In Delaware: A Documented Profile, . . December 1988, p. 11. 12. Florence Geis, Mae Carter and Don� Butler, Seemg and Evaluatmg 16. Interview with Mae Carter, August 13, 1987. Peop le, 1982. 17. Th e Decade Ahead, Re 13. Ibid. port of the Co mmunityDesign Planning . . . Co mmission, University of Delaware Archives, 14. Alice S. Rossi, "Barriers to the Career Chorce o fEngmeenng, 1971, Vo l. II, , _ Part I, p. 15 or Science Among American Women, 111 Jacquelyn A . Medicine _. 18. K. H. Dahl, "Report on Wo men Mattfeld and Carol G. Va n Aken, WOmen and the Science ProfessiOns at the University of Delaware," 1971. 19. Ib id, p. 6. (Cambridge, MassachusettS, M.I.T. Press, 19�8), PP· 108-1 11, _ 20. "Women at the University of quoted in Laurette A. Crum, "Women's Cho1ce of Academic Delaware." Report to the President from the Advisory Committee Majors," seminar paper, May 1992. on Po licies, Programs and Services Affecting Wo men Student 15. Interview with Barbara Kelly, October 1988. s, Faculty and Staff,January 13, 1972. 144 145 Born in Wilmington, Delaware, Carol E. Hoffecker graduated from the University of Delaware in the Class of 1960 and completed a Ph.D. in history at Harvard University in 1967. She returned to her home state in 1968 and has taught at the University of Delaware fo r more than 20 years while writing books and articles on a variety of subjects related to Delaware's history. Dr. Hoffecker, Richards Professor of History, has also served terms as chairperson of the Department of History and as the University's Associate Provost fo r Graduate Studies. OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR Readings in Delaware History Wi lmington, Delaware: Portrait of an Industrial City, 1830-1910 Brandywine Village: The Story of a Milling Community Delaware: A Bicentennial History Wi lmington: A Pictorial History Corporate Capitol: Wi lmington in the Twentieth Century Books, Bricks, & Bibliophiles: The Un iversity of Delaware Library Delaware, Small Wonder Delaware, The First State Federal justice in the First State: A History of the Un ited States District Court for Delaware