Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T02:50:56.219Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Time of Quiet Activism: Research, Practice, and Policy in American Women's Higher Education, 1945–1965

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Linda Eisenmann
Linda Eisenmann*
Affiliation:
John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This exploration of American women's post-World War II higher education begins with three stories. These narratives reflect issues women faced when, as educators, they tried to plan curricula and programs for female students, and when, as professionals, they tried to manage their own careers in an era that frequently sent mixed messages about women's roles and opportunities. They also reveal a quiet type of activism practiced by postwar women educators, an approach which often pales in comparison to the firmer efforts of postsuffrage and World War II activists, or to the lively and boisterous work of late-1960s feminists. However, I will argue that this more muted style, when combined with the era's predilection for individualized solutions to women's concerns, marks a particular postwar approach to advocacy that may be different from other eras but that suited the contextually complicated postwar period.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , Spring 2005 , pp. 1 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 by the History of Education Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Information about Meyer's life is drawn from Sicherman, Barbara and Green, Carol Hurd eds., Notable American Women: The Modern Period: A Biographical Dictionary (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1980), 471–473, and Graham, Katharine Personal History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997).Google Scholar

2 Graham, Personal History, 173.Google Scholar

3 Ibid., 252, 27.Google Scholar

4 Mueller's story is told in Kathryn Tuttle, “What Became of the Dean of Women? Changing Roles for Women Administrators in American Higher Education, 1940–1980” (Ph.D. diss., University of Kansas, 1996), chapter 4.Google Scholar

5 Mueller, Kate Hevner Educating Women for a Changing World (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1954).Google Scholar

6 See Tuttle, “What Became of the Dean of Women?”; and Robert Schwartz, “Reconceptualizing the Leadership Roles of Women in Higher Education: A Brief Note on the Importance of the Dean of Women,” Journal of Higher Education, 68: 5 (September-October 1997): 502–22.Google Scholar

7 Turtle, “What Became of the Dean of Women?“ especially 167–195.Google Scholar

8 The lawsuit, as well as AAUW's experience with racial issues, is discussed in Susan Levine, Degrees of Equality: The American Association of University Women and the Challenge of Twentieth-Century Feminism (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995), especially chapter 6.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., 33.Google Scholar

10 Jones, Beverly “Mary Eliza Church Terrell,” in Clark Hine, Darlene, ed., Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia (Brooklyn: Carlson Publishing, 1993), 1157–1159.Google Scholar

11 Washington Branch of American Association of University Women v. American Association of University Women et al, 79 F. Supp. 88, July 16, 1948; American Association of University Women et al v. Washington Branch of American Association of University Women, 85 U.S. App. D.C. 163, 175 F.2d 368, 1949.Google Scholar

12 A discussion of four prominent postwar ideologies – patriotic, economic, cultural, and psychological—appears in Linda Eisenmann, “Educating the Female Citizen in a Postwar World: Competing Ideologies for American Women, 1945–1965,” Educational Review 54:2 (June 2002): 133–141.Google Scholar

13 During the war, women held nearly 30 percent of all higher education teaching posts, having gained a few points with men's wartime absence. In 1944, women constituted 50 percent of all undergraduates, although their proportions declined with the advent of G.I. Bill of Rights recipients. See National Education Association, “Teacher Supply and Demand in Degree-Granting Institutions, 1954–55,” Research Bulletin of the National Education Association, 33:4 (1995): 127–162; National Center for Educational Statistics, 120 Years of American Education: A Statistical Portrait (Washington, DC: Office of Educational Research and Improvement, 1993), 76.Google Scholar

14 For general discussions of the era, see Kaledin, Eugenia Mothers and More: American Women in the 1950s (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1984); May, Elaine Tyler Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (New York: Basic Books, 1988); Chafe, William The Paradox of Change: American Women in the Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford Press, 1991); Sara Evans, Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America, 2d ed. (New York: Free Press, 1997).Google Scholar

15 A good discussion of college campuses during the height of the era, G.I. Bill which pays particular attention to women's roles, is Clark, Daniel “‘The Two Joes Meet—Joe College, Joe Veteran': The G.I. Bill, College Education, and Postwar American Culture,” History of Education Quarterly, 38: 2 (Summer 1998): 165–189.Google Scholar

16 A good discussion of how cultural demands translated into curricular confusion for women is Paula Fass, Outside In: Minorities and the Transformation of American Education (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), especially chapter 5, “The Female Paradox: Higher Education for Women, 1945–1965,” 156–188.Google Scholar

17 See Chafe, The Paradox of Change; Evans, Born for Liberty; Kaledin, Mothers and More; May, Homeward Bound; and Kessler-Harris, Alice Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982).Google Scholar

18 A noteworthy exception is the anthology by Meyerowitz, Joanne ed., Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945–1960 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994). Its various articles discuss women's activism in politics, race relations, organizations, culture, and sexuality. Little mention is made of education, however. For a small but growing historiographic investigation of the era, see also Gabin, Nancy Feminism in the Labor Movement: Women and the United Auto Workers, 1935–1975 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990); Ware, Susan “American Women in the 1950s: Nonpartisan Politics and Women's Politicization,” in Tilly, Louise and Gurin, Patricia eds., Women, Politics, and Change (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1990), 281–299; Miller, Melody Moen, Phyllis and Dempster-McClain, Donna “Motherhood, Multiple Roles, and Maternal Well-Being: Women of the 1950s,” Gender and Society, 5:4 (December 1991): 565–582; Lynn, Susan Progressive Women in Conservative Times: Racial Justice, Peace, and Feminism, 1945–the 1960s (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992); Breines, Wini Young, White, and Miserable: Growing Up Female in the Fifties (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992); Scher, Abby “Cold War on the Home Front: Middle Class Women's Politics in the 1950s” (Ph.D. diss., New School for Social Research, 1995); and Hartmann, Susan The Other Feminists: Activists in the Liberal Establishment (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998).Google Scholar

19 Fass, “The Female Paradox.“Google Scholar

20 See Reclaiming the Incidental Student: Higher Education for American Women, 1945–1965 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, forthcoming).Google Scholar

21 Allen, Lucile 26 May 1952 memorandum, American Council on Education, Commission on the Education of Women, collection B-22, box 1, folder 2, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University.Google Scholar

22 Significant Commission publications include: Hottel, Althea How Fare American Women? (Washington D.C.: American Council on Education, 1955); The Education of Women: Signs for the Future, ed. David, Opal (Washington D.C.: American Council of Education, 1958); The Span of a Woman's Life and Learning (Washington D.C.: The Commission on the Education of Women of the American Council on Education, 1960); and Education and a Woman's Life, ed. Dennis, Lawrence (Washington D.C.: American Council on Education, 1962).Google Scholar

23 Work on motivation is best covered in How Fare American Women? and Signs for the Future. The Commission relied heavily on work by psychologist Elizabeth Douvan of the University of Michigan.Google Scholar

24 Hottel's discussion of this research is presented in How Fare American Women? Google Scholar

25 See especially Tiedeman, David “Career Development of Women: Some Propositions,” in Signs for the Future, 64–74.Google Scholar

26 Sanford, Nevitt “Motivation of High Achievers,” in Signs for the Future, 34–39.Google Scholar

27 Fass, Outside In, lays out the parameters of the curriculum debate. My work differentiates among three approaches to curricular decisions: cultural conformism, economic utilitarianism, and equity-based planning. Exemplars of advocates of each approach include, as a cultural conformist, White, Lynn Jr. Educating Our Daughters: A Challenge to the Colleges (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950); as an economic utilitarian, Wolfle, Dael America's Resources of Specialized Talent: A Current Appraisal and a Look Ahead (New York: Harper and Bros., 1954); and, as an equity-based planner, Komarovsky, Mirra Women in the Modern World: Their Education and Their Dilemmas (Boston: Little, Brown, 1953).Google Scholar

28 The Commission's pamphlet, Span of a Woman's Life and Learning, as well as the book, Education and a Woman's Life, best outline their thinking about “lifespan” education. Continuing education for women became a significant movement after 1960, with its attempts to reclaim the educational careers of women who had dropped out before completing college. See, for example, Astin, Helen S. ed., Some Action of Her Own: The Adult Woman and Higher Education (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1976); and Eisenmann, Linda “Advocacy, Research, and Service: The Pioneering Origins of the University of Michigan's Center for the Education of Women,” University of Michigan, Center for the Education of Women Research Paper Series, Winter 2001.Google Scholar

29 See American Women: The Report of the President's Commission on the Status of Women and Other Publications of the Commission, eds. Mead, Margaret and Kaplan, Frances (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1965).Google Scholar

30 A good discussion of the President's Commission is Harrison, Cynthia E. On Account of Sex: The Politics of Women's Issues, 1945–1968 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).Google Scholar

31 Harrington, Michael The Other America: Poverty in the United States (New York: Macmillan, 1962); U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Policy Planning and Research [Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1965); Coleman, James S. et al, Equality of Educational Opportunity (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1966).Google Scholar

32 Harrison, On Account of Sex, covers this strategic shift in depth.Google Scholar

33 Committee on Education, “Summary of Report of Committee on Education” (27 March 1963), box 6, folder 41, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard Library, Cambridge, Mass.Google Scholar

34 Mead, and Kaplan, American Women, 25.Google Scholar

35 Ibid., 23.Google Scholar

36 The Education Committee of the President's Commission was chaired by Mary Ingraham Bunting, president of Radcliffe College, who had chaired the ACE Commission on the Education of Women just prior to assuming her college presidency. As Bunting left the ACE Commission, it was focusing closely on the idea of lifespan education. Several of the people whom Bunting and Esther Peterson chose as members of the Education Committee (especially Esther Raushenbush of Sarah Lawrence College and Virginia Senders, formerly of the University of Minnesota) were well-known advocates, and even programmatic founders, of women's continuing education.Google Scholar

37 The origins and history of AAUW are discussed in Levine, Degrees of Equality; for NADW, see Gangone, Lynn “Navigating Turbulence: A Case Study of a Voluntary Higher Education Association“ (Ph.D. diss., Teachers College, Columbia University, 1999).Google Scholar

38 Hottel's efforts as national AAUW president, as well as the wider story of race in the organization, are found in Levine, Degrees of Equality, especially chapter 6.Google Scholar

39 Brett, Ruth Calhoun, Edna Piggot, Lucille Davis, Hilda and Bell-Scott, Patricia “A Symposium: Our Living History: Reminiscences of Black Participation in NAWDAC,” Journal of the National Association of Women Deans, Administrators, and Counselors 33 (2): 3 (Winter 1979), 49–51.Google Scholar

40 The story of the NACW is in Carter, Mary “The Educational Activities of the National Association of College Women, 1923–1960“ (masters thesis, Howard University, 1962), and Perkins, Linda “The National Association of College Women: Vanguard of Black Women's Leadership and Education, 1923–1954,” Journal of Education 172:3 (1990): 65–75. For “the Colored Deans of Women,” as members often called it, see Hilda Davis and Patricia Bell-Scott, “The Association of Deans of Women and Advisers to Girls in Negro Schools, 1929–1954: A Brief Oral History,” Sage 6:1 (Summer 1989): 40–44; Hine, Darlene Clark ed., Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia (Brooklyn, New York: Carlson Publishing, 1993), 1157–1159; and Brett, Calhoun, Piggot, Davis, and Bell-Scott, “A Symposium.”Google Scholar

41 For discussion of the early deans’ work, see Nidiffer, Jana Pioneering Deans of Women: More than Wise and Pious Matrons (New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 2000).Google Scholar

42 Schwartz, “Reconceptualizing the Leadership Roles of Women.“Google Scholar

43 Roberts, Eunice “Keynote Speech,” Journal of the National Association of Women Deans and Counselors 22: 4 (Summer 1959): 152–153.Google Scholar

44 Schleman, Helen “The Committee's Report of the AAUP as Viewed by the Dean of Women,” Journal of the National Association of Women Deans and Counselors 27: 4 (Summer 1965): 147–148. See also Blanding, Sarah “The Dean's Contribution to the Life of Our Times,” Journal of the National Association of Deans of Women 9:4 (Summer 1946): 148; and Hilton, Eunice “‘The Feminine Mystique': A Special Message to Counselors of Women,” Journal of the National Association of Women Deans and Counselors 27:2 (Winter 1964): 61–62.Google Scholar