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Guide to the Mary Bennett Ritter Diaries, 1919-1937

Processed by Deborah Cozort Day. Scripps Institution of Oceanography Archives University of California, 9500 Gilman Drive , California 92093-0219 Phone: (858) 534-4878 Fax: (858) 534-5269 Email: [email protected] URL: http://scilib.ucsd.edu/sio/archives © 2000 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.

Guide to the Mary Bennett Ritter MC45 1 Diaries, 1919-1937 Guide to the Mary Bennett Ritter Diaries, 1919-1937

Collection number: MC45

Scripps Institution of Oceanography Library

University of California, San Diego La Jolla, California Contact Information: Scripps Institution of Oceanography Archives University of California, San Diego 9500 Gilman Drive La Jolla, California 92093-0219 Phone: (858) 534-4878 Fax: (858) 534-5269 Email: [email protected] URL: http://scilib.ucsd.edu/sio/archives Collection Processed By: Deborah Cozort Day Date Completed February 2000 © 2000 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.

Descriptive Summary Title: Mary Bennett Ritter Diaries, Date (inclusive): 1919-1937 Collection number: MC45 Creator: Ritter, Mary Bennett, 1860-1949 Extent: 4 volumes Repository: Scripps Institution of Oceanography Library. University of California, San Diego La Jolla, California 92093 Shelf location: For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the library's online catalog. Abstract: The Mary Bennett Ritter diaries comprise four volumes. Volume 1 begins on January 1, 1919 and ends December 31, 1923. Volume 2 begins January 1, 1924 and ends December 31, 1927. Volume 3 begins January 1, 1928 and ends December 31, 1932. Volume 4 begins January 1, 1933 and ends December 31, 1937. The diaries record the daily activities and observations of Mary Bennett Ritter. Language: English. Provenance Bernadine H. Woodworth (Mrs. L.A. Woodworth), a niece of Mary Bennett Ritter, met Scripps Institution of Oceanography professor Denis L. Fox socially in 1961 and mentioned that she had three diaries by her aunt. Dr. Fox expressed interest in them, and Mrs. Woodworth sent them to Dr. Fox on July 24, 1961 with a letter that said, "As I told you in May, I had then three diaries of Aunt Mary. This past Saturday a fourth was found but it is a later one and much of it is illegible due to the fact that she was losing her sight." Dr. Fox wrote to Mrs. Woodworth on February 1, 1962 assuring her that they would be deposited in the Archives of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. They were received by the SIO Library in 1961 and were housed in the Rare Book Room. Custody was transferred to the Archives of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1976. Access Collection is open for research. Publication Rights

Guide to the Mary Bennett Ritter MC45 2 Diaries, 1919-1937 Copyright has not been assigned to The Regents of the University of California. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Archivist. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Archives as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader. Restrictions Student and personnel records are restricted in accordance with law and university policy. Preferred Citation [Identification of item], Mary Bennett Ritter Diaries, MC45, Scripps Institution of Oceanography Library, University of California, San Diego. Biography Mary Elizabeth Bennett Ritter was born June 7, 1860, the daughter of farmer William Bennett (d1894) and Abigail Noble Bennett (1836-1898) in Salinas, California. She graduated from Gilroy School in 1877. She taught school at Peachtree, San Juan and Fresno from 1877-1883. She studied medicine with Euthausia S. Meade of San Jose, California 1883-1884 and then entered Cooper Medical College, San Francisco, where she received an M.D. degree in 1886. She interned at Children's Hospital, Berkeley. She took over the general medical practice of Sarah I. Shuey of Berkeley in the late 1880's and practiced medicine until 1909. Dr. Ritter married University of California zoologist William Emerson Ritter on June 23, 1891 and they became an active couple in university affairs. Dr. Ritter met University of California Regent and philanthropist Phoebe Hearst with whom she shared an interest in women students at the university. In 1891, a group of women students approached Dr. Ritter to ask her to give them free medical examinations, a prerequisite set by the university for use by women of the gymnasium. "I sometimes felt as if the masculine powers-that-be thought that women were made of glass," Ritter noted in her autobiography. Dr. Ritter agreed and provided medical examinations gratis to women students for several years until Mrs. Hearst arranged for Dr. Ritter to be appointed the first regular medical examiner for women at the University of California. Hearst paid Ritter's salary to ensure that women students had the same access to care as men students. Hearst and Ritter extended their interest in women students to their living conditions and became concerned about women living in off campus boarding houses. It was at the Ritter residence in 1900 that a group of women students founded the Prytanean Society, an organization of women students in their junior and senior years established to create cooperative residences. The society later named its first dormitory Mary Bennett Ritter Hall in her honor. The University of California acknowledged Dr. Ritter's work as unofficial first dean of women when it conferred an honorary doctorate upon her on May 18, 1935. Dr. Ritter resigned her medical practice and moved to La Jolla, California in 1909. Her husband, William E. Ritter, was founder and first director of the Marine Biological Station in La Jolla (later Scripps Institution of Oceanography) and E.W. Scripps the benefactor of the station, felt that the station could grow only if the director was resident during the entire year. The Ritters lived on the La Jolla campus, first in a makeshift apartment in the laboratory, and beginning in December 1913, in a two story wooden cottage built for them on campus. Dr. Ritter became active in community affairs and women's organizations. She was closely associated in her work with philanthropist and San Diego obstetrician Charlotte Baker. Ritter gave lectures on social hygiene to local schools and, during the first World War, to soldiers and sailors in San Diego under the auspices of the Interdepartmental Commission of the federal government. She was a member of the Social Hygiene Board of Washington, D.C. She served on the boards of the YMCA, Pacific Coast Branch, the State Federation of Women's Clubs, and other organizations. She was president of the La Jolla Women's Club, chairman of Traveler's Aid Committee for California, chairman of the Social Service Department of the Civic Center, San Diego, and she served as a delegate to the National Convention of the League of Women Voters held in Richmond, Virginia in 1925. She traveled widely both with her husband and alone. For instance, she accompanied her husband on a trip to Japan in 1906 and the couple spent four months in Washington, D.C. in 1921. In 1923, William E. Ritter retired as director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the couple returned to Berkeley, California. They had no children. Dr. Ritter published her autobiography, More than Gold in California (Berkeley: Professional Press, 1933). Dr. Ritter's eyesight failed in 1933, and after her husband's death in 1944, she moved in with the family of her nephew, Robert L. Cody She died in Mountain View, California, in 1949. References: Ritter, Mary B. More than Gold in California. Berkeley: Professional Press, 1933. Ritter, Mary B. "Medical Student and Intern," in: Recollections of Cooper Medical College (1883-1905), by Mary B. Ritter, George Blumer, Louis F. Alvarez, and Walter C. Alvarez. Palo Alto: Stanford Medical School, Mary 1964.

Guide to the Mary Bennett Ritter MC45 3 Diaries, 1919-1937 Arrangement The collection is arranged chronologically. Scope and Content The collection consists of four volumes of diaries of Mary Bennett Ritter. Volume 1 is 5 1/2 X 41/2 inch leather bound diary recorded in a War's A Line A Day diary book. It contains entries dated January 1, 1919 to December 31, 1923. This diary also includes Mary Bennett Ritter's reading notes and accounts in a memorandum section at the end of the volume. Volume 2 is a 5 1/2 X 4 1/2 inch buckram bound diary recorded in Ward's A Line A Day diary book. It contains entries dated January 1, 1923 to December 31, 1927. While entries at the beginning of this diary are dated 1923, this appears to have been an error, as entry dates are corrected to 1924 at the end of January. The diary includes reading notes, accounts, and a list of family anniversaries, a Christmas address list and other information on the flyleaves and in a memorandum section at the end of the volume. Volume 3 is a 5 1/2 X 4 1/2 inch leather bound diary recorded in a preprinted Five Year Diary book. It consists of entries dated January 1, 1928 to December 31, 1932. The title page is inscribed, "To Mary B. Ritter from her sister Laura A. Warner Christmas 1927." The diary includes reading notes, a 1929-1930, a Christmas card address list, a list of names, addresses and phone numbers, notes on hypothyroidism, a list of Oriental rugs owned by the Ritters, and a list of automobile license plates and insurance information on the flyleaves and in a memorandum section at the end of the volume. Volume 4 is a 7 X 5 1/2 inch leather bound diary recorded in a preprinted Five Year Diary book. It includes entries dated January 1, 1933 to December 31, 1937. The diary includes a list of automobiles and license plates on the back flyleaf. These are the only known diaries of Mary Bennett Ritter, although it is clear that she kept diaries before 1919. Dr. Ritter notes in her autobiography that a box of her lecture notes and diaries was lost when she moved from La Jolla to Berkeley in 1923. The Ritter diaries record the daily activities and observations of physician Mary Bennett Ritter, wife of the founding director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Dr. Ritter generally wrote a brief paragraph each day and summarized events at the end of each month. The first diary records details of events at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and information on Ritter's activities as a lecturer, an officer of the La Jolla Women's Club, and an activities in the San Diego community. The diary records social and political activities in La Jolla, California. It mentions friends and frequent visitors including Ellen Browning Scripps and E.W. Scripps. The remaining three diaries document Dr. Ritter's life in retirement at Berkeley, California. The Ritters socialized with University of California faculty and consequently record campus life and faculty activities. For instance, Ritter describes the scene and her feelings on March 23, 1933 when her husband received an honorary doctor of letters degree from the University of California on Charter Day. The diaries record family visits and trips. They describe the health, activities and relationship of the Ritters. The diaries record the effects of the Great Depression in Berkeley, California. Dr. Ritter's eyesight began to fail in 1933, and entries in the fourth volume of her diary are increasingly difficult to read until they become almost illegible in 1937. Throughout this period, entries are quite brief. Related Collections The William E. Ritter Papers at the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley and the William E. Ritter Papers at the Archives of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD (MC 4), include additional documentation on the life of Mary Bennett Ritter. The Archives of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD includes a small collection of Bennett Family Papers (MC 48) which includes a Bennett Family genealogy and family photographs including several images of Mary Bennett Ritter.

Diaries 1919-1937

Box 1 Diary 1, January 1, 1919-December 31, 1923 Box 2 Diary 1, January 1, 1923-December 31, 1927 Box 3 Diary 1, January 1, 1928-December 31, 1932 Box 4 Diary 1, January 1, 1933-December 31, 1937

Guide to the Mary Bennett Ritter MC45 4 Diaries, 1919-1937