The Transformation of Women’s Collegiate Education : The Legacy of Virginia Gildersleeve

135 Pages·2017·3.282 MB·English

by  Patrick Dilley (auth.)

’
The Transformation of Women s
Collegiate Education
PatrickDilley
The Transformation
’
of Women s
Collegiate Education
The Legacy of Virginia Gildersleeve
PatrickDilley
SouthernIllinoisUniversityCarbondale
Carbondale,Illinois,USA
ISBN978-3-319-46860-0 ISBN978-3-319-46861-7(eBook)
DOI10.1007/978-3-319-46861-7
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A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would not have been able to undertake this project without the help of
manyotherscholars.Iwanttothankfirstmygraduateresearchassistants,
Travis Gibler and Jon Gorgosz, a fine historian in his own right. They
carried out much of the leg work during the first stage of data collection
for a different project that eventually became this one. Thanks to James
SotoAntony,whoaidedmebyaccessingandphotographingsomeofthe
Elizabeth Reynard Papers, housed at Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library.
Special thanks to Kristen Renn, who found, during one of my crisis
moments, ahalf-rememberedcitation wediscussedsome 15years ago.
I appreciate my colleagues in the Department of Educational
Administration and Higher Education at Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, particularly Judith Green and Saran Donahoo, both of
whom covered various duties for me while I was producing this work.
I also thank Saran for her approval of funding research for this project;
I am indebted to the department’s Marybelle Keim Student Travel
Award Fund and the EAHE Emeritus Faculty Scholarship.
This monograph developed from a series of papers I presented at the
annual conferences of the Association for the Study of Higher Education
and the History of Education Society. I am particularly grateful for the
encouragement and support of a number of colleagues from those orga-
nizations,includingLindaEisenmann,JackieBlount,KarenGraves,Lucy
Bailey, and Andrea Walton. Mary Ann Dzuback provided a thoughtful
response and commentary on an early paper from which this book devel-
oped.Ialsowanttonotescholarswhohavepreviouslyexaminedaspectsof
Gildersleeve and her work: Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Andrea Walton,
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Ruth Rosenberg, Robert McCaughey, Nancy Woloch, Lynn D. Gordon,
andLinda Eisenmann;I amindebted tothem fortheir work.
The bulk of the data on Virginia Gildersleeve from which I draw is
housed in the Barnard Archives and Special Collections at Barnard
College, as well as the University Archives at Columbia University.
Jocelyn Wilk at Columbia University Rare Book & Manuscript Library
wasveryhelpfultoanoverwhelmedresearcherwhoonlyhadthreedaysin
NewYorkCitybutneededmoreoff-sitematerials.Similarly,TaraC.Craig
of Columbia University Rare Book & Manuscript Library and Rebecca
HaggertyofColumbia’sPreservationReformattingDepartmentwerevery
reassuringandpromptinrespondingtoaharriedrequestforphotographs
of Gildersleeve. Shannon O’Neill and Martha Tenney at Barnard were
incrediblywelcomingoverthecourseofseveralyears,firsttomyassistant
Travisandthentome.Theirknowledgeoftheirholdings–andtheability
to access related items – was phenomenal. Martha continued to aid with
my last-minute requests until the manuscript was turned in; I sincerely
thankher forherpatienceandsupport.
I owe Annie Abbott a debt of gratitude for her encouragement and
support of this project. A special thank-you is due my editor, Mara
Berkoff, who believed in this project from my first attempts to describe
it. I also thank the anonymous reviewer for Palgrave Macmillan, who
provided good suggestions and an impetus for an additional trip to the
archives,andPalgraveeditorialassistantMilanaVernikova.Finally,Ithank
HelenLefkowitzHorowitzforherscholarshiponthehistoryofAmerican
collegesandcollegestudents;herworkfirstintroducedmetothesubject
thatwouldbecome the largestpart ofmy scholarlylife.
C
ONTENTS
1 Introduction 1
2 Gildersleeve’sEarlyEducation andEarlyWomen’s
HigherEducation 7
3 DeanGildersleeve: Redefining aWomen’s College 23
4 Progressivism,Race,and Feminism 55
5 Educational Philosophyandthe Responsibility
ofCitizenship 77
6 HigherEducationand the War 95
7 TheLegacy ofVirginia CrocheronGildersleeve 111
Index 129
vii
CHAPTER1
Introduction
Abstract A brief overview of the life and accomplishments of Virginia
Crocheron Gildersleeve (1877–1965), Dean of Barnard College at
Columbia University (1911–1947), U.S. delegate to the United
Nations Conference on International Organization, the only woman to
sign the U.N. charter, instigator of women's paid military service in the
UnitedStates,andprogressiveadvocateforwomen'shighereducationin
the U.S. and internationally.
Keywords VirginiaCrocheronGildersleeve(cid:1)BarnardCollege(cid:1)Columbia
University
Letusbehonestwithyouthandtellthemthatthereisnoonemagicformula
of education for war or peace, no fruit of the tree of knowledge which,
swiftly eaten, can make us wise as gods, knowing good and evil. Even in
these critical days, when educated persons are so desperately needed, the
processofeducationrequirestimeandworkandstriving.1
VCG1954
VirginiaCrocheronGildersleeveisanearlyforgottenfigureinthehistory
ofhighereducationintheUnitedStates.Certainlyherplaceasoneofthe
first women faculty members at Columbia University is noteworthy, as is
her work in establishing the Seven College Conference of Women’s
Colleges (colloquially called the “Seven Sisters”). Gildersleeve’s interest
©TheAuthor(s)2017 1
P.Dilley,TheTransformationofWomen’sCollegiateEducation,
DOI10.1007/978-3-319-46861-7_1
2 THETRANSFORMATIONOFWOMEN’SCOLLEGIATEEDUCATION
in women’s education across national borders led to her co-founding the
International Federation of University Women, as well as to aid in estab-
lishing the American College for Girls in Turkey. In the United States,
Gildersleeve was a public academic at a time few women were even
collegiately educated: she helped transition the American Association of
Collegiate Alumni to the American Association of University Women, as
well as serving in various capacities within the American Council on
Education – including as its chairperson. She was the only educator (and
only woman) delegate from the United States to the San Francisco con-
ference at which the United Nations was negotiated; she was the only
woman to sign the U.N. Charter. It was as dean of Barnard College,
however, from 1911 to 1947, that Gildersleeve was most influential in
determining the scope and shape of higher education for women in the
UnitedStates;it wasGildersleeve’sphilosophyof aliberalartseducation,
rooted both in a particular Progressive context, that formed the basis of
the pathsofstudy forwomenin the twentiethcentury.
WithinGildersleeve’sphilosophy,awomancouldnotbeacitizenofthe
worldwithoutbeingfullyawareoftheopportunitiesandneedsofsociety
at that time, nor without being allowed the opportunity to learn and to
serve in the same areas as men. Further, after the effects of war upon
womenandtheirfamilies,Gildersleevewasconvincedwomenneededthe
abilitytosupportthemselvesandtheirfamilies,iftheysoneededorchose.
Her feminism was less overt, perhaps, from other public advocates for
women’srights,those“whofeltitnecessarytocallattentionfrequentlyto
women and to their problems and to run in the fact that they were
women.”2 Gildersleeve’sfeminismwasfirmlyshaped byanon-egalitarian
notion of meritocracy and civic responsibility that would lead toward
cultural understanding.
Gildersleeveisaparadox:whilecertainlyanacademicelitist,shestrove
to provide opportunities for girls to be educated to their height of
their “natural abilities.” She was responsible for persuading her male
colleagues to open programs of academic study to women at Columbia
University, yet maintained the necessity of Barnard College as an envir-
onment in which academically talented young women could enjoy the
benefits of an autonomous liberal arts college, apart from men. Barnard
under Gildersleeve promoted equality in higher education through
a dual strategy: removal of the female undergraduate from repressive
attitudes of collegiate women espoused by some, though not all, of
Columbia’s older male faculty; and the inclusion in advanced and/or
1 INTRODUCTION 3
professionalprogramsofwomenwhoseacademicmeritwasequal,ifnot
superior, to their male peers at Columbia.
Gildersleeve advocated for women’s equality in the academy without
“battering the doors from without, but working from within,”3 yet she
usedherpositiontobecomeoneofthemostwell-knownpublicacademics
of her time – perhaps the only academic to share a spot advertising the
New York Times with a movie star. Gildersleeve’s views on higher educa-
tionforwomenpermeatedtheU.S.Media,frompublicspeechestoradio
addresses, from literary journals to print journalism, but she is practically
unknowntoday.Hereducationalphilosophy–thateducation,particularly
aliberalartseducation,wasnecessaryforbecomingacitizenoftheworld,
and thus for becoming an agent of peace – was the backbone of the
majority of her public comments from 1911, when she assumed the role
of Dean at Barnard College, through the late 1950s. During World War
II, Gildersleeve – through her professional connections in academia and
the national government, and through her media savvy – promoted
specific professional and educational opportunities for female college
graduates. Gildersleeve promoted the advent of women in the sciences
and mathematics, for the good of the war; it was she who crafted the
curricula (and publications) for women’s education that were adapted
throughout the United States during the war and after; it was she who
alsoseizedtheopportunitypresentedbythewartocreatethefirstsystem
of enlisting andtraining(paid) womenin the U.S.military.
InTheTransformation ofWomen’s CollegiateEducation: The Legacyof
VirginiaGildersleeve,ItrytoconveyGildersleeve’sviewsandphilosophies
as she expressed them herself. I draw extensively from notes of speeches
shegave,essaysshepublished,andcorrespondenceshesentwhiledeanat
Barnard. I also utilize her reflection of those times in Many a Good
Crusade, her 1954 memoir, which went through at least three printings
from a popular publisher – an impressive feat for a memoir from an
academic, althoughit isno longerin print.
I present Gildersleeve in this fashion in order for the reader to obtain
morefullyherpersonality,thewayshestructuredherthoughts,thepublic
persona she constructed. I wish personal letters to or from Virginia
Gildersleeve were extant, toprovide a more intimateunderstanding ofher
life. Alas, most of the correspondence she left (housed in the archives at
Barnard College and Columbia University) was more professional than
personal. In addition, I briefly touch on the lives of other women who
influenced,orwereinfluencedby,Gildersleeve,throughsharedprofessional