February 27, 2008

Feburary 27, 1918: The Flat Hat

To again quote from Laura Parrish's M.A. thesis When Mary Entered with Her Brother William: Women Students at the College of William and Mary, 1918-1945:

The Flat Hat, the student newspaper and chief forum of student opinion at the College of William and Mary, did not comment on the Strode Bill until after it had passed the Senate. On February 27, the paper discussed the effects of coeducation in negative terms. It saw the necessary enlargement of the physical plant and of the faculty as being of questionable value and as a step that would not "help our tradition in the least." The article, or editorial as it may have been, suggested making another college coeducational or upgrading one of the women's normal schools. It concluded with the hopes that if coeducation became a reality, the students would "make the best of it," and "that our environment--socially and in every other way [would] be benefited by coeducation."



The Strode bill had passed the Virginia Senate by a vote of 19 to 13. The necessary physical plant improvements at the College included expanding certain departments (more faculty) and adding more dormitories and in the short-term completing the remodeling of existing dorms to accommodate "such a new addition to our student body." The Flat Hat's editors seem to have accepted the eventuality of coeducation at their College by this date.



For additional information about the first women students at the College of William and Mary see: When Mary Entered with her Brother William: Women at the College of William and Mary, 1918-1945 by Laura F. Parrish; "The Petticoat Invasion": Women at the College of William and Mary, 1918-1945; The Martha Barksdale Papers; and the Women at the College of William and Mary page on the Special Collections Research Center Wiki.

February 21, 2008

February 21, 1918: The Virginia Gazette

So what did the local press have to say about coeducation at the College of William and Mary?


The Virginia Gazette included an article about the progress of the Strode Bill on page 1 of the February 21, 1918, issue. About half of the article was dedicated to the "details of caring for women students" such as living quarters for fall 1918 and beyond. Click on the image at right to enlarge the article.

Laura Parrish noted in her M.A. thesis When Mary Entered with Her Brother William: Women Students at the College of William and Mary, 1918-1945:
"On 21 February 1918 the Virginia Gazette damned the Strode Bill with faint praise, noting that coeducation would probably turn out well--after all, other states had survived the ordeal. The editorial also noted that women sought coeducation "at the price of the womanhood Virginia had cherished as a sacred thing," thus expressing the age-old belief that higher education was somehow beyond the capabilities of women and would lead to the destruction of their physical, as well as their mental, health."





Here is the complete editorial for your reading pleasure. Click on the image to enlarge the article.













Laura Parrish's thesis is available online as part of the Petticoat Invasion online exhibit and of course you are welcome to visit the Special Collections Research Center to read the paper copy anytime we are open. The Virginia Gazette is available on microfilm on the ground floor of Swem Library. We do have paper copies here in the SCRC, but you might find the longer hours and printer/scanners in the microforms area more convenient.



For additional information about the first women students at the College of William and Mary see: When Mary Entered with her Brother William: Women at the College of William and Mary, 1918-1945 by Laura F. Parrish; "The Petticoat Invasion": Women at the College of William and Mary, 1918-1945; The Martha Barksdale Papers; and the Women at the College of William and Mary page on the Special Collections Research Center Wiki.

February 19, 2008

February 19, 1918: The Flat Hat

The February 19, 1918, issue of The Flat Hat shared more details of the activities of the previous week's meeting of the College of William and Mary's Board of Visitors, including mention of the endorsement of the Strode Bill. There was no commentary from the student newspaper on the BOV's decision at that time.

The Flat Hat is a rich source of information, announcing events taking place on campus as well as reflecting student opinion. It began publication in October 1911 and, except during the fall of 1918, has been continuously published ever since. Until a few years ago, library staff indexed the The Flat Hat (as well as the Alumni Gazette and the William and Mary News) by subject and personal name. This index is still available as a card file in the Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) for public use. All three of these publications are available in the SCRC in Swem Library on microfilm and in paper format. Contact the staff of the SCRC for further information or search assistance (spcoll@wm.edu or 757-221-3090).

The Flat Hat
is available online from the Special Collections Research Center. All issues from September 1939 through May 1950 and most issues from August 2004 through February 2007 are available for browsing and keyword searching online. The remaining issues from 1911 through April 1990 and August 1992 through March 1999 are available for browsing only at present. Current issues of The Flat Hat can be found online at http://www.flathatnews.com/.



For additional information about the first women students at the College of William and Mary see: When Mary Entered with her Brother William: Women at the College of William and Mary, 1918-1945 by Laura F. Parrish; "The Petticoat Invasion": Women at the College of William and Mary, 1918-1945; The Martha Barksdale Papers; and the Women at the College of William and Mary page on the Special Collections Research Center Wiki.

February 12, 2008

February 12, 1918: The Flat Hat

The Flat Hat's page 1 coverage (see the bottom of the page) of the February 12, 1918, meeting of the Board of Visitors made no mention of the endorsement of the Strode Bill revealing simply: "The Board of Directors of the College met today to discuss and decide some important things to be carried through in the near future." Further information would follow in the next issue of the student newspaper.



For additional information about the first women students at the College of William and Mary see: When Mary Entered with her Brother William: Women at the College of William and Mary, 1918-1945 by Laura F. Parrish; "The Petticoat Invasion": Women at the College of William and Mary, 1918-1945; The Martha Barksdale Papers; and the Women at the College of William and Mary page on the Special Collections Research Center Wiki.

February 12, 1918: Board of Visitors Endorsement

On February 12, 1918, the Board of Visitors of the College of William and Mary adopted a resolution of support for the Strode Bill, the legislation which would open William and Mary to women. The Board of Visitors' resolution passed with three dissenting votes: Rector Robert M. Hughes, Samuel W. Williams, and H.F. Hutcheson.

College President Lyon Gardiner Tyler was a long-time supporter of women's rights speaking on the issue numerous times including off campus in 1911 and 1912 (see page 4).

Proposed by Senator Aubrey E. Strode of Amherst County, the varying versions of legislation to establish a women's college in Virginia had been proposed at each session of the General Assembly since 1910. In the version of legislation submitted by Strode in late 1917, making the College of William and Mary co-ed was included.


For additional information about the first women students at the College of William and Mary see: When Mary Entered with her Brother William: Women at the College of William and Mary, 1918-1945 by Laura F. Parrish; "The Petticoat Invasion": Women at the College of William and Mary, 1918-1945; The Martha Barksdale Papers; and the Women at the College of William and Mary page on the Special Collections Research Center Wiki.

February 11, 2008

About Mary Comes to the College with William

In September 1918, twenty-four women enrolled at the College of William and Mary making it the first state-supported four-year college in Virginia to admit women. This blog will follow the first academic year women were admitted to the College of William and Mary--90 years later. Mary Comes to the College with William begins with the endorsement of the proposed legislation to make the College co-ed by the College's Board of Visitors on February 12, 1918, and will continue to publish through June 1919-the end of the first academic year women were enrolled.

As Laura Parrish noted in her M.A. thesis When Mary Entered with Her Brother William: Women Students at the College of William and Mary, 1918-1945, by 1918, "Virginia was the only state in the union which was not providing its women residents the opportunity to obtain four years of public higher education. There were several two-year normal schools, but women desiring more than these had to offer, including graduate and professional education, had to attend either private colleges or other states' universities, both expensive alternatives." Further, "William and Mary had been a small college for many years, but admission of women began a period of unprecedented growth in the student population, academic departments, faculty, and the physical plant."

This blog will build on previous online exhibits created by Swem Library's Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) about the first women students at the College of William and Mary, "The Petticoat Invasion": Women at the College of William and Mary, 1918-1945 and The Martha Barksdale Papers. My thanks to Susan Riggs, Lisa Goldstein, Laura Parrish, and the work of the various students who helped make these online exhibits possible. Naturally, much of the same factual information will be presented, we simply hope to present it in a new manner as well as adding reproductions of even more content. A brief introduction to women at the College, including some of the sources we will be using for this project, is available at the SCRC Wiki.

Credit for the inspiration for this project is owed to the blog WW1: Experiences of an English Soldier, which is providing transcripts of the letters of Harry Lamin from the first World War 90 years after they were written. After hearing about that blog I began thinking about content held here in the SCRC that might lend itself to a similar method of delivery. I thought. And thought some more. Finally, the 90th anniversary of the admission of women to the College of William and Mary came to mind and the idea for this blog was born. Coincidentally, in recent months the need to update the look of the exhibits already online had been discussed. While the information about women students at the College of William and Mary as presented remains as useful to researchers as ever, the web design does show its age after over a decade on the web.

I am very fortunate to have the work of previous online exhibits and published sources to draw upon and look forward to bringing even more material from the SCRC's collections to our audience here in the months ahead.

Update: Jordan Ecker, a graduate student in the American Studies Program and an apprentice here in the Special Collections Research Center for the 2007-2008 academic year, will be contributing a number of posts in the year ahead including her first for April 24, 1918, where she compares the reaction of William and Mary's student body to the decision to go co-ed to that of her alma mater, Drew University, which went co-ed in the 1940s. My thanks to Jordan for her interest in this project and we look forward to her perspective!

Update (9/18/2008): Kate Hill, a graduate student in the Department of History and an apprentice in the Special Collections Research Center for the 2008-2009 academic year, will also be contributing a number of posts for the academic year ahead including her first which is additional work on the post for the first day of classes for the 1918-1919 school year, September 19, 1918. Welcome Kate!


Update (2/2009): Jeffreen Hayes, a graduate student in the American Studies Program and an apprentice in the Special Collections Research Center for the 2008-2009 academic year, is also contributing posts for the academic year that remains ahead including her first published on February 11. Welcome to Jeffreen for rounding out the trio of graduate students working on this group effort!


Amy Schindler, University Archivist