Tag Archives: Racial equality in education

Maids, Porters and the Hidden World of Work at Bryn Mawr College: Celebrating Stories for Black History Month

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From the Bryn Mawr College Archives

We have previously referred to the maids and porters who worked at Bryn Mawr College in other posts and here we reflect more on their presence and significance at the college as part of our celebrations of Black History Month at Bryn Mawr College. If you haven’t already, make sure to check out the Tri-Co Chapter of the NAACP on Facebook and on Tumblr for details of their events throughout the month of February. We have been working with them to assist in their research and their exciting program should not be missed.

From the Bryn Mawr College Archives

From the Bryn Mawr College Archives

We are interested in the campus as a space, one that housed different groups across the years and one that is often remembered due to its distinctive architecture and beautifully kept grounds. In thinking more about campus communities and space, it seemed appropriate to examine what evidence we had on those who were integral to maintaining it: maids and porters, the majority of whom historically were African American.

One finding we have made from the research we have conducted at The Albert M. Greenfield Center for the History of Women’s Education on maids and porters at the college is that despite the fact that they were often incredibly close to the students, they rarely feature in the memorializing students did of their lives here. Why is this? Were they so fundamental to the experience of living in the dorms that it was almost too obvious to acknowledge their presence in their reminiscences? Were many maids and porters shy about getting their photos taken? How would they describe their experiences if we could speak with them today? Although we have many questions, we do know, however, through scrapbook evidence, that the maids and porters produced a theatrical show every year and the College Archives contain some photographs of the ways in which students and maids and porters interacted in the dorms.

From the Bryn Mawr College Archives

We also know that there was a night school, a Sunday School and a Maid’s Club which offered classes to interested maids. The Maid’s Club kept a library in their club room and it was reported in the College News of November 15, 1922 that the maids were ‘particularly enthusiastic about singing’ and often sewed while they met (see Offerings to Athena page 103 for more on maids at Bryn Mawr).

From the Bryn Mawr College Archives

From the Bryn Mawr College Archives

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the Bryn Mawr College Archives

From the Bryn Mawr College Archives

 

 

Jen Rajchel’s exhibit on our site examines dorm cultures at Bryn Mawr and Jessy Brody’s work on scrapbooks has revealed their virtual absence from the photograph albums and scrapbooks she reviewed – over one hundred in total – that span the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This is despite the fact that students and the staff who looked after their domestic needs in dorms across campus had multiple daily interactions, either in person or through the transmission of goods or services. Seeking out their experiences has required a little more detective work and a stronger reliance on source material from oral histories, memoirs and personal letters, rather than traditional documentary sources that can be used in the construction of ‘important’ historical figures, or those who maintained personal archives.

From the Bryn Mawr College Archives

One such example is a wonderful interview with Fleta Blocker, which you can listen to in its entirety here. Blocker began at the college as a bell maid, a position that revolved around answering the telephone in dormitories, but she progressed in her roles at the college, ending her four-decade career as a Hall Manager, a role previously only held by white women. Her life was rich and full: active in her church, she traveled the world, inspired by the Bryn Mawr environment to see places such as Oxford and Africa. We included a link to this interview in the new exhibition Taking Her Place at the Rare Book Room Gallery in Canaday Library (on view until June 2nd 2013) in the Broadening the World of Bryn Mawr section, as there was a connection between maids at the college and the women who attended the Summer School for Women Workers. (A digital exhibit on the latter group is coming to the site soon!) The women at the Summer School, many of whom worked in poor conditions in factories across America, were moved to complain about the living conditions they saw the maids had, living in the attics of dorms without proper ventilation in the heat of summer. This was an issue that resurfaced again and the ‘living in’ arrangement was eventually phased out.

From the Bryn Mawr College Archives

We also learned from an interview with alum Jane Drucker (whose interview, along with many others, will be available later this year on the Tri-Co digital repository Triptych), that it was a student rather than a member of the staff who headed the Maids and Porters Association for their dorm. This was not a staff association as such, and Drucker recalls her main responsibility as being to organize end of year gifts for the staff who looked after her dorm. It was not, therefore, despite its name, an association to advocate for staff. Looking back, Drucker thought this was odd, but at the time it was the norm that women students would fulfill such a role.

From the Bryn Mawr College Archives

Photographs of the work that maids and porters did, however, are a feature of the college archive collections and many personal scrapbooks and photograph albums. The immaculately kept dorm rooms appear regularly in scrapbooks, catalogs and what appear to be college commissioned photographs so their importance in the life of the college cannot be underestimated. Many of the photographs show elaborately decorated rooms that imitate parlors in houses where ladies would sit; it is obvious that much effort has been put into creating environments that are comfortable and appropriate for college women. It’s worth considering, therefore, the people who worked to maintain such homely environments.

At The Albert M. Greenfield Digital Center for the History of Women’s Education we are interested in representing the diversity of experiences in education and illuminating the world of women at Bryn Mawr and other colleges in the past. Examining the lives of those who helped them to focus more intently on the ‘life of the mind’ rather than domestic concerns is another angle of vision on past worlds. As we uncover more information through our research activities, we will be adding it so keep watching the site. In the meantime, this great timeline about the “Invisible Women” in domestic service in US history created by Mother Jones is well worth visiting.

Finally, if you have memories you would like to share or any comments, make sure to add them below!

Berea and Bryn Mawr College: Virtual collaboration in the History of Women’s Education

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Courtesy of Berea College Special Collections and Archives

We here at The Albert M. Greenfield Digital Center for the History of Women’s Education at Bryn Mawr College are delighted to let you know about a new collaborative initiative between us and students at Berea College. As you know from our Mission Statement we are dedicated to creating resources, discussion and teaching across the wide spectrum of interesting narratives in the history of women’s education and the connection with Berea college is our first foray into connecting with other universities and institutions interested in exploring their own stories of women’s educational experiences in the past.

Former CLIR (Council on Libraries and Information Resources) fellow and editor of the wonderful history of Bryn Mawr College, Offerings to Athena, Dr. Anne Bruder, is now a professor at Berea College in Kentucky. She has been introducing her students to digital methods in historical research and as part of her class students worked on producing an Omeka based exhibit which we will proudly feature on our site. The site is due to go live in a beta version later in June and this exhibit, ‘At School, at Work, at Play: Gender Complexities at the First Southern Coeducational College’, will be among our first (but not of course our last) experiments into building collaborative relationships with those working on the history of women’s education. This fits with the aim of the Digital Center to reach out beyond the walls of Bryn Mawr and to encourage and facilitate links with other institutions that have interesting histories to share about women’s education in the past.

Berea College's first class. Courtesy of Berea College Special Collections and Archives

Berea College was founded on religious principles that stressed equality between people and advocated for the right for all to be educated. It recognized that not all students would have the economic means to obtain higher education, and thus it provided labor opportunities to help students pay for their education but also to gain valuable work experience (for more on the history and the mission of the college see Berea’s website). The students’ exhibit details the gender dynamics in its student population, academic program and behavioral expectations. As the exhibit details, from the inauguration of the school in 1855, there was a distinct definition of gender roles envisaged for its staff and student population. For while Berea provided educational opportunities for both men and women there are many examples of Berea encouraging and even enforcing specific gender roles on its students. Men were directed to pursue vocational education that would equip them to earn a living while women were encouraged to purse courses of study that would enhance their abilities within the home or traditionally female careers. Berea also provided opportunities for students to pay their way through college with work, and the same gender divisions again emerged in the college’s labor program. Its positions for men and women were decidedly different, re-enforcing the woman’s role as mother and the man’s role as provider.

Courtesy of Berea College Special Collections and Archives

As detailed in the exhibit, while Berea was known for racial equality, it still upheld traditional gendered expectations of men and women undertaking higher education. This is in contrast to the emphasis within Bryn Mawr College on female students attaining the highest academic standards comparable to the Ivy League colleges for men, with a diminished emphasis (in comparison to other women’s colleges) on domestic science. Although many students from Bryn Mawr College did marry (some before finishing their degrees) M. Carey Thomas was particularly concerned that Bryn Mawr be perceived as a serious site of academic study for women. Students here did not make their beds or attend to other domestic duties in the early decades of the college, relying on maids and porters for assistance in the dorms.

We are thankful to Dr. Bruder, her students, and the staff of Berea College Special Collections and Archives for their help in putting together this exhibition. Keep checking this blog for details of when the exhibit is made live!