Traditions have always played a large role in Sweet Briar College’s long and rich history, it’s a part of what makes the college so unique. These traditions do not appear today in the same forms as those in the past. The pressures of external and internal forces have changed them. Some of the most extensive changes have come from strife at Sweet Briar during the Vietnam war and integration of the college. A recent paper written in 2007 but Alaina McKee argues that a change in the nature of traditions happened in the early 1940’s but research I have conducted suggests otherwise.
McCandless argues that even up until the late 1930’s southern women were held to strict standards including restrictions on attire, outings, and even males. She calls this standard the pedestal. After analyzing scores of editions of The Briar Patch from the 1930’s up through the mid 1970’s it is clear that a change was happening; beginning with the mid-to-late 1960’s that moved away from this pedestal she describes. McCandless discusses the importance of traditions in all-women’s colleges in both the North and the South; but also recognizes that southern women’s colleges held onto these ideologies longer than their northern counterparts. May Day is just one example of an important tradition that was held closer to the heart of the women in the south. While northern colleges were making way for new ideas colleges in the south still clung to the ideas of the past. For example, when May Day
Throughout this essay, I will be examining the effects of one of the most controversial university enrollments. James Meredith paved the way for African American acceptance into a historically all White University. No matter how much adversity Meredith would encounter, he would not give up or give in to institutional racism. The want to keep Ole Miss segregated by those there did not hinder his success. In an attempt to end racial segregation, the Supreme Court ordered the admittance of James Meredith to the campus. This action was a clear defiance of racial segregation. This resulted in an abundant amount of not only riots but also casualties. Meredith paved the way for other African-Americans
“The two-year college has been a distinctively American creation, and nowhere else has it attained such prominence” (Brint & Karabel, 1989). Once commonly called
Caroline Janney's book is to restore the Ladies' Memorial Associations place in the historical narrative by exploring their role as the creators and purveyors of Confederate tradition in the post-Civil War South. Janney examines the reasons why middle and upper class southern white women shaped the public rituals of Confederate memory, Reconstruction, and reconciliation. She is moving into a little studied area to provide a rich vision of how these women shaped the memory of the Confederacy. It is found within these ladies many of the relationships of memory and memorials created within the Lost Cause movement that persists today.
The foundation of colleges for women as well as events at women’s rights conventions intellectually challenged society’s views on women’s traditional roles. As education became more of a public governmental service, the educational
Another challenge to The Dartmouth’s claim of being “America’s Oldest College Newspaper” is its continuity. Many claim that The Dartmouth experienced one or more periods of discontinuity. It has not been published consistently since its inception. It seems wrong to call a newspaper which has stopped and restarted over the 217 years of its supposed existence to dub itself “America’s Oldest College
After studying women and gender history in early America for the past semester, my views about American history have changed tremendously. Having very little prior experience with history, I had many assumptions and preconceived notions from high school history classes. Women were never even mentioned in my previous learning about U.S. history, so I assumed they took on unimportant roles and had little, if any, impact on shaping our country’s history. However, after this semester of delving deeply into the women of early America, I could not have been more incorrect. Although they were not typically in the public realm, we cannot fully understand history without studying women. The following readings uncovered the roles of women in the private sphere and were crucial to my new understanding of the importance of women in American history by bringing women to the forefront.
1. The first essay clearly shows the impact that an ideology of domesticity on women in New England in the 1830’s. The writer at first calls this time period a “paradox in the “progress” of women’s history in the United States”. During this time apparently two contradictory views on women’s relations to society clashed, unusually, those two being domesticity, which essentially limited women, giving them a “sex-specific” role that they must abide to, this mostly being present at the home with their husbands and whatever kids they may or may not have had at that time, and feminism, which essentially tried to remove this domesticity, trying to remove sex-specific limits on women’s opportunities and
Through Women’s Eyes by Ellen Carol DuBois and Lynn Dumenil addresses American History from 1865 until present day. The third edition of this textbook includes visual and primary sources over several centuries. I used this textbook in a history course, “Women in the United States, 1890 – Present;” I found the textbook to be engaging, helpful, and useful throughout the course. The way in which in the information was presented allowed me to learn, assess, and analyze the difficulties women faced.
In this short paper, we will speak about the role women had in society in the antebellum south and how it was affected.
“The subject of the Education of Women of the higher classes is one which has undergone singular fluctuations in public opinions” (Cobbe 79). Women have overcome tremendous obstacles throughout their lifetime, why should higher education stand in their way? In Frances Power Cobbe’s essay “The Education of Women,” she describes how poor women, single women, and childless wives, deserve to share a part of the human happiness. Women are in grave need of further improvements in their given condition. Cobbe suggests that a way to progress these improvements manifests in higher education, and that this will help further steps in advance. Cobbe goes on to say that the happiest home, most grateful husband, and the most devoted children came from a woman, Mary Sommerville, who surpassed men in science, and is still studying the wonders of God’s creations. Cobbe has many examples within her paper that shows the progression of women as a good thing, and how women still fulfill their duties despite the fact that they are educated. The acceptance of women will be allowed at the University of New England because women should be able to embrace their abilities and further their education for the benefit of their household, their lives, and their country.
As a woman myself, it is hard to imagine a time when I would not have been allowed to attend college, let alone be writing this paper. As children most of us heard stories from our grandparent’s about what life was like they were young. I can remember laughing at the thought of “walking up hill both ways” to get to school. With the liberties American Women have today, it is easy to take for granted everything the women before us fought so hard for. It is easy to forget the treatment they suffered in their struggle to bring us to today. In this paper we will examine the lives, struggles, and small victories of women that have led us to
Articles written during a specific period gives the future population an idea of the issues present during that time. Before the United States became independent, woman education was limited to the skill needed to be a good wife and proper mother. Particularly, upper-class woman were the only ones that had the resources to gain an education. Most middle and lower class focus primarily on the education of their males. European education influence Colonial America’s educational system. Since there weren’t any establish convents schools in the colonies, tutors were primarily hired and later on schools were incorporated. During the first years of schooling, new England girls went to a coed school called “dame school”. In the dame school, girls were thought to knit and sew. Many girls got the chance to go to the town school. However, some town school in new England prohibited girls from attending. In the south, girls got the
The reason why movements like the Daughters of the Confederacy believe in the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, an intellectual movement that believes the civil war was fought over honor and ideals instead of slavery, is because Southern Women saw the Civil War as a war on one of the fundamentals that made up their way life. My research paper is about understanding the effects that slavery had on women during and prior to the civil war, and how the absence of slavery effected them. This research will be used in order to paint a picture of how slavery effect all southern women, whether they were rich plantation owners, middle class field owners, or destitute women with little to nothing. My research paper will contain a combination of multiple sources in order to cover all the topics that I will be writing on. My goal here is to gain a better understanding of how slavery affect Southern Women’s domestic lives, and to better understand the birth of Southern heritage movements like the Daughters of the Confederacy.
While attending a Virginia Union University, I am able to further my education while gaining a better understanding of my history. HBCU’s emerged at the conclusion of the Civil War. The constant debate on the importance of educating African Americans was at its peak. Whether it was industrial or liberal education, former slaves knew that it was a vital skill to obtain. Although the government passed the Morrill Act in 1862, providing each state with a facility for higher learning, African Americans were not able to attend these white facilities. It was
“Governor Adlai Stevenson Tells College Women about Their Place in Life, 1955” is an excerpt from a Commencement Address at Smith College in 1955. The speaker tells of how women aren’t just house wives anymore. With men becoming more educated the wife must advance as well. He says that women should keep themselves and those about you straight “not to mention keeping you man straight on the differences between Botticelli and Chianti” (page 334). Basically women at this time were supposed to go to college so they could have intellectual conversations with their intelligent husband. He says, “Once they wrote poetry, now it’s the laundry list” (page 334). Women of this time period didn’t have their