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"Fifty years ago, in October 1951, I arrived at Penn knowing no one except two male freshmen I met at an Alumni Dinner where we were all awarded full tuition scholarships. I was 17, a child who had led a very sheltered life in the bosom of a very matriarchal Southern family. I'd never been on my own before and in choosing to come North, with the encouragement of my high school counselor, was considered very weird. It wasn't enough that I wasn't going to one of the fine colleges in the South to which I had been admitted, I also did not want to be a teacher or a nurse, but to be a scientist. Being different was not encouraged in my family. I was programmed to come home after a year and get on with my life (not my career). Probably the only reason I had enough gumption to stay that first year was the stabilizing influence of Frederick Bentley Igler, the Baptist minister at the Christian Association, and the friendships formed with other students at the Christian Association. They gave me stability in a familiar setting Undergraduate women with a scientific bend were matriculated in the College for Women but attended most classes in the College. Women were not welcomed in the College classrooms College classes were scheduled to allowed time for the twice a week three hour laboratory sessions of many scientific disciplines, College for Women were not. Penn professors did not usually show preferential treatment toward men, but teaching graduate students especially in the sciences sometimes made life very difficult for women. Unless you were very sure of your own goals and worth it was very hard at times to stick it out. I learned some very basic things at Penn: 1) To research information I did not know, organize it, and present it for personal and others use, 2) To trust my own judgment, and 3) To value my education at Penn." -- Jean McLennan, CW'55 "During the 50s there was no official quota but somehow each class of 160 had two women. This was a great improvement over the southern schools of the time, though; Emory, for example, told me that as a woman, they could only take me in their schools of dental hygiene to be a hygienist because that's what woman did in dentistry. In 1955, one of my favorite teachers, Dr. Walt Cohen, was an instructor in Periodontics. He asked me to report to the clinic to assist a visiting clinician doing a demo. The visitor was referred to as 'professor' and when he found I planned to go into pedodontics, he started a running commentary as to why I should go into perio instead of pedo, and kidded me and Walt. When we left, I asked Walt who he was and he replied the man had been Dr. Henry Goldman, who at the time was the country's leading academic periodontist. I gave Walt a 'you rascal' look, and he, ever the gentleman, said, 'I didn't want you to get nervous'. In my third year I took the Inlay Exam. My professor said in front of the patient, 'I would grade this an A, but as you will just get married, have children, never practice, and as you are taking a man's place here, I am grading it a B.' I exited the clinic with my vision clouded by tears and literally bumped into Dean Lester Burkett, who wanted to know the cause of my distress. I hesitated in telling him but he insisted. Two hours later, the professor was seen leaving the school with all his personal effects -- Dean Burkett had fired him. I went on to practice and have just closed my 44-year pedo/ortho office in order to devote myself full-time to research." -- Frances B. Glenn, DDS'56 "I received a Masters degree in economics from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Penn (which is what it was called back in 1946). I called on a dearly loved professor, Dr. Whittlesey, to see which of three jobs that were offered to me in Washington I should accept. It was a Friday morning. I was told I was an 'act of God' -- that the Wharton school was overwhelmed with GIs and that I was to start teaching 'Money and Banking' on Monday! I did! I taught for two years but the Wharton alumni complained. (You understand women were not admitted to the Wharton School at that time.) At the end of my first year Dean Balderston called me in and I went accompanied by Dr. W. (who had tears in his eyes, warning me what was coming). The dean told me I could only teach one more year and then added something about there being a position in Kansas that I might be interested in (I wasn't). I still have a copy of the article that appeared in the Daily Pennsylvanian reporting an interview with me upon my starting to teach, which was reprinted in the newspaper some 25 or so years later." -- Elizabeth Wallace Muller, G'46 "Back in the 30's, Penn was not truly a co-educational school. Women were permitted in the School of Education and a few others; they were expected to go on and become teachers or something respectable like that. I started in the School of Education with plans to major in Latin, but at the time (this was during the Depression) there weren't very many jobs, especially for women. So I started taking science courses and then took Chemistry and fell in love with it! I was going to be another Madame Curie -- until I met my husband and we were married in 1937. Instead of becoming Madame Curie, I became Mrs. Lennox! It was difficult getting my degree, however. I wasn't allowed to take Advanced Calculus, which I needed for the degree so I audited it. It was a tough course but I worked hard and went to every class and I got a B. My professor said that anyone who could get a B while auditing the course deserved to get a real B. So I got the degree. It was fun. I was the first woman to take chemistry and math classes not just with men, but with engineers." -- Anne Merkle Lennox, CW'35, G'36 "My memories: men had to bow to women at Alumni Day ... my freshmen year was the first time women were allowed to go to football games, and we were allowed to cheer (at other schools they said women's voices were too shrill) ... no smoking was allowed for women on campus so we smoked in the ladies room ... I wore pants only to play sports ... we had a 'Pirates Ball' dance where women dressed as pirates and danced with each other. Someone took a picture of a woman in a costume that showed her legs and a prisoner started writing her and that was the end of the Pirates Ball! ... the Gazette devoted an issue to women and men objected so they never did it again ... 'Drink A Milkshake at Daybreak' was a popular song back then so I did, and felt like a true Penn student!" -- Ruth Molloy, ED'30 "I lived at Sergeant Hall when very few women lived there (and most were commuters). I, along with three other women, got on the debate team and I'm almost certain we were the first women on that team. I also worked at WXPN, which was only a few years old and located on the third floor of Houston Hall. Since women were forbidden to sit on the couches and chairs in Houston Hall we used to joke about what would happen if I fainted on the way to the station!" -- Romayne (Lieber) Sachs, CW'52 "I became President Harnwell's secretary when he became president in 1953, and stayed with him until he retired from the presidency, and then worked 11 additional years with him. Then I worked for the alumni office until retirement 14 years ago at age 65. I worked at Penn for 45 years. I remember that women who worked at Penn in 1942 wore 'uniforms': cashmere sweater with pearls, woolen skirt, black stockings, and black shoes with low heels. That was the expectation, and there was pressure to conform. When I worked for President Harnwell, I once apologized for taking an extended lunch hour because the lines were extremely long in the Houston Hall balcony cafeteria. He exclaimed that he never noticed that where he sat downstairs; I pointed out that women weren't allowed to eat there. He said he never knew that, and shortly thereafter, that rule was eliminated. I remember women students were begrudgingly accepted, and had to attend classes for women only, at the College for Women. Also the Dean of Women had a rule that girls in gym clothes must wear a raincoat or otherwise cover up in public." -- Marion Pond, Penn employee, 1942-1987 "Penn has been my wonderful home for the last 33 years -- in my capacity of full-time faculty teaching Science Education at GSE! The Penn of these later years is much different from my undergraduate years. It was, indeed, difficult and sometimes very nasty to be a woman science major among a community of male professors who wished to express dominance. But we fought them and confronted them on their own demanding terms. Imagine a ladies' room in Houston Hall and being able to walk securely down Hamilton Walk, being allowed to enter the once-male-exclusive Wharton and professional schools! Unheard of in the later '40s! Thanks to Althea Hottel and Jean Brownlee, who, as advisors, helped us to beat the system!" -- Ryda D. Rose, CW'50, GRD'71 "My memories: knitting argyle socks and smoking in class ... Eating dinner surrounded by mummies at the initiation for Phi Beta Kappa in the University Museum ... Going to French class in the Romance Annex in a small upstairs bedroom of a tiny rowhouse, where the charming French instructor arrived on a motorcycle and told us we talked like Norman peasants!" -- Margaret Fisher Beck, CW'51 "It was a special time for growth in my life ... I shall never forget the excellence of the teachers and the great friendships. Another memory: having to wear long coats, even in June, to cover our legs as we walked along the streets to Phys Ed at the tennis courts. Phys Ed was required for four years. I took a lot of modern dance. Our instructor was Malvena Taiz, who, wearing a long leotard and exotic skirt, beat a drum while shouting, 'Leap, girls, leap!' I'm sure things have changed over the years, but we did it all in those faraway days and hardly questioned why! Now I would question, but not then! It was a time that no longer exists, but I'm sure other challenges have replaced those of '46-'50." -- Paige Campbell Kerr, CW'50 |
