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The student cultures of athletics and smashing Smith College, 1890--1905

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The student cultures of athletics and smashing Smith College, 1890--1905

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Content THE STUDENT CULTURES OF ATHLETICS AND SMASHING SMITH COLLEGE, 1890-1905 by Karin Louise Huebner A Thesis Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF ARTS (HISTORY) May 2004 Copyright 2004 Karin Louise Huebner Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 1421771 INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI UMI Microform 1421771 Copyright 2004 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am glad to finally have the opportunity to express my deep felt gratitude to my colleagues, friends and family who have helped see me through this project and the master’s program at U.S.C. Lois Banner, my advisor, mentor, and friend, has been immeasurably gracious in the time and support she has given to my work. Carpooling with Lois has afforded me the opportunity to become intimately acquainted with a woman of brilliance, sensitivity, and wit, and I count myself blessed that our lives have intersected. Professors Richard Fox, Phil Ethington, and Elinor Accampo have greatly challenged and impacted my understanding of history and my professional career will forever bear their stamp. Their investment in my work has meant so much to me. I also want to thank Peter Mancall for reading my manuscript, and I look forward to our work together. Finally, I want to thank Joseph Styles. He offered me tremendous support, the kind of which sees one through the toughest days. Lastly, I am so grateful to my family and friends who have sustained me through this process. My mom and dad have been so supportive over the course of this endeavor and this makes me love them even more, if that be possible. My nieces and nephews — Kaelin, Chase, Zoe, Noah, and Hallie — have each in their own special way brought me the needed love and joy to keep me going and sane. They help me maintain a beautiful perspective of life. Also, my dear friend Monica has been such a great support over the years and I sincerely thank her. Finally, I want to express my deepest love and gratitude to Michele. You have brought warmth, fun and joy to my life — our relationship has been such a wonderful refuge. Your love, support, and patience are truly sublime, and the thought of the future brings a smile to my heart. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. m TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments ii Abstract iv Introduction 1 Chapter One The World Around Smith 19 Chapter Two A Space for Subversion or Symmetry?: 46 Social Life at Smith College Chapter Three Passion and Prominence: 74 The Student Athletic Culture at Smith College Bibliography 114 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. IV ABSTRACT This thesis focuses on issues of gender and sexuality within the discourse on student- culture at Smith College from 1890 to 1910, with attention on the student culture of athletics. This thesis establishes a relationship between athletics with the culture of smashing, a nineteenth century homoerotie culture which flourished at elite Eastern women s colleges. At an all-female college such as Smith, late nineteenth-eentury heterosexual gender constructions were necessarily negotiated in the homosocial life, where some students occupied masculine roles as leaders, and more significantly, in relationship to other women. Within the athletic culture, the subversion of gender roles was particularly pronounced. In the minds of late nineteenth-eentury cultural and social elites, underlying these troubling issues were more alarming concerns — women who attained prominence on the all-female campuses through their athletic accomplishments captivated the hearts and minds of their college peers. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Introduction In 1892, Josephine Dunlap Wilkin, a freshman at Smith College, wrote an enthusiastic letter home about a new experience she had had in her gymnastics class. "Friday afternoon at the Gym," she wrote, "we played a game, instead of going through the ordinary performances." Josephine continued: "Two waste-paper baskets were hung, one on either side of the gym, about three feet above our heads. Two of the girls chose sides, and on one side were (sic) distinguished from the other by handkerchiefs tied on their arms. Three girls from each side were sent over to the other, and the game began. We had a football which was to be touched only with the hands and the object was to get it into your opponent’s basket, and keep it out of your own. When it was sent over to one side, the girls on that side who had been sent from the other, tried to get it and throw it into the basket while the rest tried to catch it and throw it back to their helpers on the other side. See? It was great fun, and very exciting; especially when we got knocked down, as frequently happened."' The "ordinary performances" Josephine referred to in her letter involved calisthenics and gymnastic exercises, including deep knee bends, work with bar-bells, and rope climbing. Smith College’s curriculum required all freshmen and sophomore students to participate four days a week in afternoon physical education classes. The new and exciting game Josephine described broke the monotony of the women’s daily physical activities. It involved physical contact, aggressive play, and competitiveness, experiences which were novel and unconventional for the white, middle to upper-class students at the ' Wilkin, Josephine Dunlap; Smith College, class o f 1895; letter of March 6, 1892; box 1512 correspondence. Smith College Archives. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 all-female college. What Josephine’s letter home described was women playing the game of basket ball.^ Senda Berenson, Director of Physical Education from 1891 to 1911, introduced the game of basket ball to Josephine’s gymnastics class with the intention of developing desirable character traits in the female collegians under her charge. Invented by James Naismith in January 1892, basket ball was originally designed as a class exercise for boys. It was meant to be a less violent alternative to the increasingly popular, but extremely rough, game of football being played at most of the men’s colleges. Berenson read about Naismith’s new game in a Y.M.C.A. training school magazine, and she quickly decided that the sport had great possibilities for women. Berenson believed that gymnastic work remained "the most important form of exercise for the development of health and endurance of the student," but she also thought that "carefully supervised games bring out, as no formal gymnastics may, certain characteristics that are so necessary to the modem woman: — such as, self-reliance, quickness of mind and body, self control, the sacrifice of the individual to the team - the cause and elements that make for character."^ She also realized however, that the game had disturbing potential to undermine Smith College’s foundational aim of preserving its students’ femininity. "Just as basket ball may be made an influence for good so may it be made a strong influence for evil...It is a well known fact that women abandon themselves more readily to an impulse than men...This shows us that unless we guard our athletics carefully in the beginning, many objectionable elements will quickly come in." Berenson continued: "It also shows that unless a game as exciting as basket ball is carefully guided by such mles as will eliminate roughness, the ^ Throughout this essay I use the late nineteenth-eentury spelling o f "basket ball" which separated the two words, unless a source cited specifically uses the hyphenated "basket-ball," or "basketball" spelling. ^ Senda Berenson, Dec. 11, 1906 letter to Moses True; folder 25, box 679; Smith College Archives. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 great desire to win and the excitement of the game will make our women do sadly unwomanly things.'"* Wilkin’s letter and Berenson’s treatise on women’s participation in basket ball are representative of an extensive and complex late nineteenth-eentury discourse concerning female participation in sport. This master’s thesis focuses on issues of gender and sexuality within the discourse on student culture at Smith College from 1890 to 1905, with particular emphasis on the student culture of athletics and its relationship to the culture of smashing, a homoerotic culture which flourished at the elite Eastern women’s colleges. In an all-female college such as Smith, late nineteenth-eentury heterosexual gender constructions were necessarily negotiated in the homosoeial life of the college, with some students filling traditional male roles in leadership positions and in relationships with other women. In the social life at Smith College, the various dimensions of the student culture provided an arena for female prominence and leadership, which in late nineteenth century middle to upper-class American society were particularly masculine prerogatives. Women who assumed these masculine roles among their college peers challenged female gender prescriptions which advocated demure and self-composed behavior as the feminine ideal. In the minds of late nineteenth-eentury cultural, social, and medical elites, underlying these troubling issues were even more alarming concerns - women who occupied these prominent positions on the all-female campuses were captivating the hearts and minds of their fellow collegians. Aspects of the student culture on the Smith campus fostered emotional intimacies among female collegians that were compromising, even threatening to their construction of their selves as heterosexual “ Senda Berenson, "Signifieance of Basketball for Women," in Line Basketball fo r Women, Senda Berenson, ed. (New York: A. G. Spalding, 1901). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 beings. This essay focuses specifically on the athletic culture and how it facilitated the culture of smashing among the student population at Smith College. The smashing culture at the women’s colleges was part of a broader mid to late nineteenth century culture of romantic friendships among middle and upper-class women.^ During the Victorian Era girls and women were given broad parameters for passionate, homoerotic expression with same-sex friends and intimates. These relationships were tolerated, even encouraged by moral and social elites, who viewed them as preparation for marriage. In addition, it was thought that these same-sex romantic friendships served as protection from the risks of sexual improprieties in premarital heterosexual relationships. Nonetheless, nineteenth century "cultural scripts" found in romance novels and advice manuals mandated that girls be guided beyond these romantic same-sex relationships toward marriage, culminating in their gender completion in heterosexuality.® Recently unearthed letters and diaries have illuminated the romantic friendship culture, yet these sources offer no categorical evidence that the relationships were sexual in nature. The letters do, however, reveal an emotional intensity that resembled, and in some instances even exceeded, heterosexual unions. Although they did not self-identify as lesbian (lesbian identity is a twentieth-century development), female intimates wrote passionately about kissing each other, holding each other close in bed, and professing love * Lois W. Banner, Intertwined Lives: Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Their Circle (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003) chapters 1-4; Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, "The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations Between Women in Nineteenth-Century America," in Disorderly Conduct: Visions o f Gender in Victorian America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985) pp. 53-76. ‘ Banner, Intertwined Lives: Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Their Circle, p. 98. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 to one another that sometimes surpassed their love for men/ Nonetheless, because Victorian propriety forbade the use of explicit sexual language, this allowance for intense, romantic expression makes it difficult to ascertain the degree to which some of the relationships may have, in fact, involved sexual contact. At the very least, the language in the letters and diaries affirms a strong homoerotic quality to these relationships. Within the homosocial environment of the late nineteenth century elite women’s colleges, the romantic-ffiendship culture naturally flourished. Among the female college population, a student was "smashed upon" when she felt deep affection for a fellow female student or a faculty member. A late nineteenth-eentury clipping from a Smith publication titled, "Slang of College Girls," spells out the protocol for such relationships (also identified as "crushes"): "A distinctly woman’s collegiate word is "crush," expressing a relationship between two girls hard to define. One girl, generally an underclassman, and usually a freshman, becomes much attached to another girl, ordinarily an upper-class girl. The younger girl is "crushed" on the other, sends her flowers, and tries in various ways to give expression to her admiration. The "crush" soon passes over, the admirer finding some flaw in her idol, or else, as is often the case, the "crush" at length loses its youthful sentimentality, and settles into a good friendship."* These relationships imply a construction of mentorship which created additional reassurances for safety and innocence. However, the subordinate/dominant construction of the smashing culture just ’ See Smith-Rosenberg, "The Female World of Love and Ritual," Disorderly Conduct, pp. 57-58. For the history o f the emergence o f lesbian identity see Lois Banner, Intertwined Lives: Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict and Their Circle (New York: l&iopf Publishing, 2003); Lillian Faderman, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History o f Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990); Leila Rupp, "’Imagine My Surprise’: Women’s Relationships in Mid-Twentieth Century America," Hidden from History; Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past, ed. Martin Duberman, Martha Vicinus, and George Chauncey, Jr. (New York: Meridian, 1990). * "Slang o f College Girls," author/date unknown; <http://cliofivecolleges.edu/smith/ women/index.shtml?>. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6 described was not the only form these relationships took. The sources also suggest that smashes occurred between women who were in close proximity both in terms of their academic class and age. It was this second construction of the smashing culture that was particularly problematic in the minds of late nineteenth-eentury cultural spokesmen and raised deep concern over the issue of the higher education of women and all-female collegiate institutions. Some of the strongest evidence that the smashing culture on the all-female campuses may have involved sexual expression is found in the contemporary social and moral elites’ critiques of women’s colleges, particularly those referring to the activities at Vassar.’ The founders and administrators at Smith were aware of a strong culture of smashing that had developed at Vassar, the first elite Eastern women’s college to have been founded — in 1865, some ten years before Smith. Above all, the founders of Smith College sought to avoid its development among the female student population. Drawing on sources eoneeming the student cultures of athletics and smashing at Smith College, my aim in this essay is to illuminate the intersection of these cultures as they developed in the all-female college life. The sources examined demonstrate that Smith’s female athletes occupied prominent positions in the college’s social hierarchy, garnering a great deal of attention from fellow students. I contend that these female athletes became objects of affection among their college peers. Consequently, I argue that the culture of athletics cultivated and facilitated the culture of smashing within the college life at Smith. I further suggest that these developments had broader social and cultural implications connected to emerging ideas at the turn of the century with respect to female sexuality. ’These same concerns were also raised about Mt. Holyoke, founded in 1836. Originally a women’s seminary, Mt. Holyoke did not become a member of the elite "Seven Sisters" women’s college network until 1893. See Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women's Colleges from Their Nineteenth-Century Beginnings to the 1930’ s (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 Among cultural and medical elites, sport was increasingly being constructed and divided along lines of gender and sexuality. The materials examined for this essay suggest that tum-of-the-century sport had multiple functions for middle to upper-class men and women: sport served as an instrument to masculinize men, yet in other capacities sport served as a means to enhance the health of both sexes, and was seen as a vital component in the strengthening of the nation. Within the context of this broader and complex cultural arena of sport, the women at Smith constructed their own culture of athletics, negotiating around and through the implications of gender and sexuality. From the college’s founding in 1875, the development of the student culture at Smith was dynamic and spirited, resulting in the formation of innumerable clubs and organizations. Besides the many official events scheduled by the administration throughout each term, the students constructed an elaborate system of clubs and societies, dances, daily unofficial student gatherings and activities, and inter-house and inter-class athletic competitions. Within this complex social system, the athletic culture emerged to become a dominant feature of the college life at Smith. By the turn of the twentieth century, athletics had become a social and cultural space the women carved out for themselves, sometimes in concert with, and sometimes in conflict with, the goals of the administration. Utilizing sources such as college administrative documents, school and public newspapers, college novels and student letters, I draw a distinction between physical culture, which was a part of Smith College’s official curriculum, and athletics, which was a part of the student culture. I will argue that athletics was a self-consciously moral and gendered instrument in late-Victorian America. The evidence shows that the participation Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8 of women in athletics was a multidimensional phenomenon, with many competing interests. Senda Berenson sought to avoid "unwanted tendencies" that were linked to masculine characteristics such as competitiveness and roughness; she also recognized a social/gender positioning — among the college athletes and their fans — that developed from uncensored play. The sources suggest that Berenson’s primary concerns were that the game of basket ball had the troubling potential to bring prominence to individual women, as well as to create an unwomanly environment of excitement and passion among both the athletes and the student spectators. In late nineteenth-eentury United States, athletic prominence was a masculine prerogative and in the minds of the administration and faculty these were not proper aspirations for the female students at Smith College. During the twenty-year framework of this study, the traditional image of the "ideal woman" that had developed out of the Victorian Era was being challenged and transformed, as new and competing forms of what it meant to be ’feminine’ and remain ’womanly’ were emerging in many cultural arenas, not the least of which was sports. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, women who engaged in certain pursuits and activities from which they were previously restricted emerged as an example of the "New Woman," — a term widely used in this era to designate women’s changing roles and relationships — as they moved out of the world of Victorian domesticity into the public world of education, the professions and occupations, and sports. The New Woman challenged the existing gender conventions of the previous generation, and she delayed or repudiated the traditional role of wife and mother that was expected of white, middle to upper class women. She became identified with dress reform, political action, higher education, and professional career opportunities, and she greatly improved her health. And the New Woman became quintessentially identified with athleticism. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9 Multiple and complex images of the New Woman emerged at the turn of the century that ranged from positive to negative; one representation, the Gibson Girl, was a healthy, athletic, non-sexualized image that hung in nearly every college woman’s dorm room. However, just as women began expanding beyond social convention, alternative images of the New Woman emerged that were less flattering. The "Mannish Lesbian" was a sexually charged image, threatening and dangerous, presented as an example of women who went too far and began to act like men. Analysis of how the students, administrators and society negotiated these images within the college setting at Smith shapes the theoretical framework of this master’s essay.'” The pursuits associated with the New Woman included first and foremost higher education, and within that arena, competitive team sports such as basket ball. Most of the sporting activity in which the middle to upper-class white woman engaged during the last quarter of the nineteenth century was either as a spectator watching the men play or social in nature, like tennis, archery or croquet, where the latest fashions could be displayed. Either way, female sporting activity was viewed as a space that promoted heterosexual interaction. This changed in the homosocial world of the women’s colleges. In the same-sex environment of Smith, the student athletic culture created its own social and relational constructions, where prestige, accomplishments, and intense adoration amongst the girls supplanted the traditional heterosexual social constructions. Through my analysis of female participation in physical culture and athletics at Smith, I argue that the New athletic Woman of the late nineteenth century, a figure who was predominantly formed at the women’s colleges, bore conflicting sexualized images For images o f the New Woman, see Lois Banner, Women in Modem America: A B rief History, (United States: Wadsworth Publishing, 1995) pp. 19-27; Smith-Rosenberg, "Bourgeois Discourse and the Progressive Era: An Introduction," and "The New Woman as Androgyne: Social Disorder and Gender Crisis, 1870-1936," Disorderly Conduct (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985) pp. 176-7; 245-253. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 10 ranging from adored to abnormal and vilified, depending upon the sources one looks at. The negative images ultimately led to a connection between the culture of athletics and the culture of ’smashing’ — which was also increasingly diagnosed as dangerous and pathological. Romantic friendships between girls and women had been accepted during the early to mid nineteenth century American society. But as this culture developed on the women’s campuses in what was called ’smashing’ or ’crushing,’ the writings of sexologists, academic administrators, social and moral critics, and students began to demonstrate real concern over this sexually charged issue. One final aim of this thesis is to expose the subversive nature of the student culture of athletics at Smith and suggest that athletics contributed to an internalization of individual and corporate power among the female collegians. For one, students wrote letters home that they felt better about themselves and their bodies through intense physical activity. The sources also suggest that aspects of the student athletic culture at Smith were subversive on a collective level and often pushed beyond limits set by the administration and social convention. Both of these factors suggest that the students who engaged in sporting activities experienced empowerment on two levels — in their individual bodies and their collective consciousness. Scholarly attention to the history of women’s athletics has thus far been limited in terms of sophisticated historical analysis. Until the early 1980s, the historiographical literature on women’s sport history contained mostly narrative and/or descriptive studies. In "Gender Relations, Women’s History and Sport History: A Deeade of Changing Inquiry, 1983-1993," Patricia Vertinsky recognizes the field’s early lack of sophistication, but she praises sport historians for employing gender theory in more current work, especially Joan Scott’s notion of gender as a historical category for analysis. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 11 Vertinsky also suggests that women’s sports historians should view the Victorian period as a particularly crucial area of study because of the simultaneous formation of distinct gender roles and the introduction of women into the realm of sport. "Within this context, the rise of modem sport could be explored," explains Vertinsky, "as a major vehicle for defining and reinforcing gender differences - differences which were supported by a scientific and medical discourse that idealized women as reproductive vehicles and focused upon limitation and disability. Indeed, the Victorian preoccupation with female bodies, the range of fluidity of thought between science and medicine in matters of health, exercise and sport has become a seductive focus of inquiry for those seeking to understand the nature, meaning and determinants of the social and cultural restrictions which were constracted around the female body at different stages of the life cycle."" Within this theoretical framework offered by Vertinsky, the late nineteenth-eentury college woman is a particularly insightful figure for analysis. According to Victorian prescription she was at the height of her marriageable, reproductive stage of life; she was situated in a homosocial environment; and she was located within a space where her own agency was realized. Nonetheless, the number of works that incorporate gender theory into a study of nineteenth-eentury women in sport remains slim.'^ Kathleen E. McCrone’s Playing the " Patricia A. Vertinsky, "Gender Relations, Women’s History and Sport History: A Decade of Changing Inquiry, 1983-1993," Journal o f Sport History, vol. 21, No. 1 (Spring 1994) pp. 13-14. Insightful studies on the history of women’s participation in sport which incorporate the theoretical categories of gender and sexuality into their analysis include, Kathleen E. McCrone, Playing the Game: Sport and the Physical Emancipation o f English Women, 1870-1914 (Kentucky: The University of Kentucky Press, 1988); Susan K. Cahn, Coming On Strong: Gender and Sexuality in Twentieth-Century Women’ s Sport (The Free Press, 1994); Michael A. Messner & Donald F. Sabo, eds.. Sport, Men and the Gender Order: Critical Feminist Perspectives (1990); J. A. Mangan and Roberta J. Park, eds.. From 'Fair Sex ’ to Feminism: Sport and the Socialization o f Women in the Industrial and Post-Industrial Eras (1987); Roberta J. Park, "Physiology and Anatomy are Destiny!?: Brains, Bodies and Exercise in Nineteenth-Century American Thought," Journal o f Sport History, vol. 18, no. 1 (Spring, 1991); Nancy Struna, "Beyond the Mapping Experience: The Need for Understanding the History of American Sporting Women," Journal o f Sport History, 11:1, (1984). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 12 Game: Sport and the Physical Emancipation o f English Women, 1870-1914, is representative of the modem turn in women’s sport history. Consequently it is a study that has significantly informed my own work. McCrone sees sport as a "complex phenomenon" which is at the same time an important agent of both social control and social change. McCrone argues that "Sport creates and reflects tensions surrounding definitions of sex and gender roles, and perhaps more clearly than any other institution reveals how status, functions and power are assigned on the basis of biological differences. As an essentially male preserve related to other forms of patriarchal control, sport embodies and recreates the principles and practices of gender inequity and male dominance and privilege in other realms of life. Susan Cahn’s 1994 work, Coming On Strong: Gender and Sexuality in Twentieth- Century Sport, is less ’thick’ than McCrone’s, but her use of primary source material is helpful, especially her use of late nineteenth century educational and medical journals and of popular press articles. In Coming On Strong, Cahn employs a gendered analysis, stressing the soeio/medical identification of homosexuality with the female athlete beginning at the turn of the century up to the present. However, her construction of a dominant American perception of women who participated in sports as a singularly mannish and Amazonian figure does not reflect the complexities in the history of women in sport. Most late nineteenth eentury soeial and moral critics, as well as the educators of female higher education, claimed that sporting activity was a positive pursuit, but for different reasons. Women’s bodies were such a charged site of meaning production that multiple and conflicting positions on women’s partieipation in sport can be identified.'" McCrone, Playing the Game, p. 2. " I am indebted to Richard Fox for his insights on the late-nineteenth-century female body as a charged site of meaning production, (personal correspondence, March, 2002). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 3 For insight into the construction of ideals of manliness within the rise of sport during the second half of the nineteenth century I rely on Kim Townsend’s Men At Harvard: William James and Others, a work which profoundly informed my thinking on issues of gender, particularly masculinity, during this period. Understanding contestations over ideals of "manliness" is imperative for understanding the multiple and contested ideals of "womanliness" at Smith College. Townsend’s treatise centers on a debate raging at Harvard during the last quarter of the nineteenth century over ideals of manliness and what it meant to be a man, in which he focuses much of his argument on sports. Two competing ideals existed at Harvard: one valorized a gentlemanly, physically fit, balanced, sporting man; the other a combative, rough, competitive, martial type of athlete. Townsend argues that by the last quarter of the nineteenth century this latter ideal of manliness, championed by Theodore Roosevelt, became dominant at Harvard. Competitive, rough sports like football were the primary avenues which fostered such manliness. Finally, Townsend suggests that on a national level Harvard’s influence on the ideal of American manhood was unmatched by any other institution. The founders and administrators at Smith College were intimately associated with Harvard’s elite and were influenced by these ideals. The debate that existed at Harvard eoneeming athletics, physical culture, and manliness is evident in the early discourse surrounding Smith, with an additional element, that of fostering "womanliness" among the all-female student population. The founders and administrators of Smith pointedly addressed these issues in their construction of the college curriculum. The students’ sources also suggest that in the shaping of their own college culture, the female collegians were themselves cognizant of these issues. During this time, both women and men of the middle and upper-classes deepened their sense of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 14 what it was to be, in fact, men and women. The arena of sport during this period, located within the men’s and women’s colleges, was one cultural site where multiple meanings of manliness and womanliness were constantly being constructed, reconstructed, and challenged. College women had to balance the traditional Victorian feminine ideal with the new manliness that found its expression in physical culture and athletics. This coalescing of femininity with manliness, expressed in a new female athleticism, was inextricably linked with the emergence of the New Woman - a figure intimately identified with the women’s colleges of the late nineteenth century.'^ Sports discourse becomes how to define an acceptable masculine femininity, one that will allow women to be modem. In my analysis of the sources I found it is a discourse where collegiate women defined their own sense of womanhood. The most informative survey of the ’seven sisters’ women’s colleges is Helen Horowitz’s Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women’ s Colleges from Their Nineteenth-Century Beginnings to the 1930’ s f Although Horowitz’s work includes all the Eastern elite women’s colleges, she provides a useful framework for a more detailed study of Smith College. Her analysis of the geographic setting of the women’s colleges, their architectural designs, and the constmction of the female smdent cultures on the various campuses provides important insights for my study. L. Clark See lye, a Smith College founder and the instimtion’s first president, wrote a treatise on Smith’s history which I use both as a secondary and primary source. In The Early History o f Smith College, 1871-1910, Seelye provides empirical data and historical context, as well as insights into the philosophical and ideological underpinnings of the Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, "The New Woman as Androgyne: Social Disorder and Gender Crisis, 1870- 1936," 'm Disorderly Conduct, p. 247. Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women's Colleges from Their Nineteenth-Century Beginnings to the 1930’ s (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 5 college. Other sources delineating President Seelye’s philosophy concerning the higher education of women include a speech given in 1874, "The Need of A Collegiate Education For Women," and an 1888 paper of Seelye’s, "The Higher Education of Women: Its Perils and Its Benefits."” Both works were responses to Edward C. Clarke’s 1874 book, Sex in Education; or, A Fair Chance For The Girls, which warned of a supposed mental strain and eventual masculinization in girls who pursued a higher education, or an education similar to that offered to boys or men.'* To gain an understanding of Smith’s roots, I turned to two works dealing with Amherst College: William S. Tyler’s, A History o f Amherst College During the Administrations o f its First Five Presidents From 1821 to 1891 written in 1895, and Thomas Le Due’s Piety and Intellect at Amherst College, 1865-1912 written in 1946.” For important men at Amherst were involved in Smith’s founding, and the geographic proximity between the two colleges — both situated in the Connecticut Valley in Western Massachusetts, Smith College located at a site only 15 miles from the all-male college of Amherst — contributes significantly to my analysis, both in terms of the ideological underpinnings of Smith, as well as the formation of college life.'^" Leading men at Amherst formed the core of the board of trustees at Smith during the entire period of my study. Amherst men occupied " L. Clark Seelye, The Early History o f Smith College, 1871-1910 (Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1923); Rev. L. Clark Seelye, President of Smith College for Young Women, "The Need o f A Collegiate Education for Women," a paper read before the American Institute o f Instruction at North Adams, July 23, 1874; Reverend L. Clark Seelye, D.D., President of Smith College, "The Higher Education of Women: Its Perils and Its Benefits," (1888), located at <http://clio.fivecolleges.edu/smith/writings/ 1887-88/1888seelye/index.shtml?>. Edward C. Clarke, Sex in Education; or A Fair Chance For The Girls (1874). ” William S. Tyler, A History o f Amherst College During the Administrations o f its First Five Presidents From 1821 to 1891 (New York: Frederick H. Hitchcock, 1895); Thomas Le Due, Piety and Intellect at Amherst College, 1865-1912 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1946). “ Additional works that provided limited, but important information on college life at men’s and coeducational colleges are, Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End o f the Eighteenth Century to the Present (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987) and Patricia Palmieri, In Adamless Eden: The Community o f Women Faculty at Wellesley (Yale University Press, 1995). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 16 administrative positions at Smith, including College President, while many of the original professorships were Amherst alumni. The works by Tyler and Le Due emphasize Amherst’s foundational tenets of religious orthodoxy and the training of men in the ideal of manliness. Both works shed light on Smith’s conservative and gendered educational philosophy in comparison with other women’s colleges, such as Wellesley and Vassar. In addition, Tyler and Le Due provided a detailed portrait of the male student culture at Amherst which informed my construction of college life at Smith. For instance, both works identified a subversive male student culture at Amherst, and their analysis gave me the insight to recognize a similar subversive element within the women’s student culture at Smith. Scholarly work on the culture of "smashing" is limited. Lois Banner’s work on smashing in her recently released book. Intertwined Lives: Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Their Circle, based on the relationship between Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict, identifies smashing at Vassar and Wellesley as an important aspect of the colleges’ student life. The sources I have examined for this essay suggest that the culture of smashing was equally important at Smith. Along with Nancy Sahli’s article, "Smashing: Women’s Relations Before the Fall," Banner’s treatment provides a workable framework for my study on the culture of smashing at Smith and how it intersects with the culture of athletics." For insight into the culture of "smashing" I particularly relied upon Lois Banner’s, Intertwined Lives: Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Their Circle, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf Publishing, 2003) chapters 1-4, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg’s, "The Female World o f Love and Ritual: Relations Between Women in Nineteenth-Century America," in Disorderly Conduct: Visions o f Gender in Victorian America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985) pp. 53-76, and Nancy Sahli’s, "Smashing: Women’s Relations Before the Fall," Chrysalis 8, (1979). Other insightful works on nineteenth-eentury romantic friendships inelude: Marylyime Diggs, "Romantic Friends or a ’Different Race o f Creatures’: The Representation of Lesbian Pathology in Nineteenth-Century America," Feminist Studies 21, no. 2 (Summer 1995) 317-340; Lillian Faderman, Surpassing the Love o f Men: Romantic Friendships and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present (New York: Morrow Publishing, 1981). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 7 My primary aim in this master’s essay is to reconstruct the student culture at Smith College, with particular emphasis on the athletic culture, utilizing a diverse and complex collection of source materials. Smith College newspapers, public commentaries in magazines and newspapers, administrative writings, and letters written by students make up the bulk of sources for this thesis. Nearly all of this material was gathered from the Smith College Archives in Northampton, Massachusetts. In addition, the late nineteenth century "college novel" has also informed my thinking on gender construction of the period at the women’s college campuses. The college novels examined for this essay include Smith College Stories, written by Josephine Dodge Daskam in 1899, and a series of books written by Margaret Warde from 1904 to 1911: Betty Wales, Freshman; Betty Wales, Sophomore; Betty Wales, Junior; and Betty Wales, Senior. Both authors graduated from Smith College, and their accounts, although fictional and prescriptive in style, accurately detail the college experience, particularly the students’ social life. The intent behind the college novel was to show a concerned public that the college life at women’s colleges was not a threat to their daughter’s femininity; on the contrary. Smith College would prepare them for more fulfilling lives as wives and mothers. But these novels are also revealing in their implicit portrayal of the subversive elements of college life. My analysis of these novels is indebted to two studies of late nineteenth century women’s college fiction: Sherrie limess’s Intimate Communities: Representation and Social Transformation in Women’ s College Fiction, 1895-1910, and Shirley Marchalonis’ College Girls: A Century in Fiction.^^ Finally, this master’s essay incorporates analysis of materials from nineteenth century sexologists as they pertain to smashing, especially the relationship these sexologists “ Sherrie A. Inness, Intimate Communities: Representation and Social Transformation in Women’ s College Fiction, 1895-1910 (Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1995); Shirley Marchalonis, College Girls: A Century o f Fiction, (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1995). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 18 fashioned between female inversion and a proclivity toward athletics. For insight and understanding of this material I relied on three articles: George Chauncey’s, "From Sexual Inversion To Homosexuality: Medicine And The Changing Conceptualization of Female Deviance;" Lisa Duggan’s, "The Trials of Alice Mitchell: Sensationalism, Sexology, and the lesbian Subject in Tum-of-the-Century America;" and Margaret Gibson’s, "The Masculine Degenerate: American Doctors’ Portrayals of the Lesbian Intellect, 1880- 1949.“ Lois Banner’s Intertwined Lives also provided critical insight into the sexologists’ writings, particularly Havelock Ellis’s work. According to Helen Horowitz, athletics dominated college life.^‘ * The evidence suggests that the athletie culture at Smith was a secluded, proteeted, and homosocial space where women as individuals and as groups both challenged and disregarded gender expectations and regular standards of femininity. Prominence, competitiveness, cooperation, and leadership — what Horowitz identifies as "masculine routes of power" — were what the New athletic Woman learned and appropriated in her sporting experience at Smith. But the college’s stated aim for the female student was ultimately the training and maintenance of ’true womanhood.’ The sources suggest that the student athletic culture at Smith College was a conflicted, contested space, where female participation was of intense interest, investment and consequence among the students, administrators, and public. This essay examines why this was so. " George Chauncey, "From Sexual Inversion To Homosexuality: Medicine And The Changing Conceptualization of Female Deviance;" in Salmagundi, no. 58-59 (Fall 1982 - Winter 1983) pp. 114-146; Lisa Duggan, "The Trials of Alice Mitchell: Sensationalism, Sexology, and the Lesbian Subject in Tum- of-the-Century America;" in Signs, vol. 18, no. 4 (Summer 1993); Margaret Gibson, "The Masculine Degenerate: American Doctors’ Portrayals of the Lesbian Intellect, 1880-1949," Journal o f Women’ s History, vol. 9, no. 4 (Winter 1998) pp. 78-103. Horowitz, Alma Mater, p. 159. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 9 Chapter One: The World Around Smith In 1875 the Smith College "experiment" began. Higher education for women in the Eastern elite women’s colleges had begun a decade earlier at Vassar College, and it signaled a significant challenge to the historically masculine privilege of higher learning. Smith College was surrounded and influenced by an educational, social, and cultural environment that was in place prior to the college’s opening. This chapter will examine the impact that Amherst College, various intellectual elites, and the existing women’s colleges had on the shaping of Smith College’s philosophical and ideological underpinnings, giving context to an emerging and powerful student life. Amherst College: A bastion o f orthodoxy, morality, conservatism, and progressivism Smith College, located in the small Western Massachusetts town of Northampton, was the first of the nineteenth-eentury female institutions of higher learning endowed by a woman, Sophia Smith. But it was a circle of men, all closely tied to Amherst College, who determined the college’s ideals and philosophical foundations. Only fifteen miles apart, both Smith and Amherst were (and still are) situated in the fertile Connecticut River Valley near the broad and winding Connecticut River, and both are surrounded by the beautiful, gently sloping Berkshire Mountains. Smith’s original board of trustees, its first president and many of the original faculty were made up of men from Amherst College. What informed the men at Amherst informed the educational philosophy at Smith. Amherst’s history was deeply intertwined with the founding of Smith College. Smith inherited a mix of eonservative and progressive philosophies from Amherst, over whieh the founders and students negotiated and contested. When Smith College opened its doors to sixteen young female collegians in 1875, Amherst’s complex Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 20 ideological history was evident in Smith’s curriculum, its architectural design, and its philosophical tenets. What is the province of the College? It is by instruction, discipline and all good influences, to make men, especially Christian men, and most of all ministers of Christ,... When the sons of Connecticut Puritans founded Amherst College in 1821, their stated mission was to protect religious orthodoxy against Harvard College’s heretical turn toward Unitarianism.^* Congregationalists of the Connecticut Valley, their faith re-ignited by the Second Great Awakening, were concerned over what they perceived as spiritual decline at major colleges such as Harvard and Yale. They wanted an institution of higher learning that would prepare men for the evangelical ministry and missionary work. "Here at work was a genuine folk movement, vigorous and creative... for the Classical Education of indigent young men of piety and talents, for the Christian ministry. It is altogether plain that the establishment of Amherst College was consciously designed to fill the gap created by the apostasy of Harvard."^’ William S. Tyler, Amherst College’s late nineteenth- eentury chronicler and its renowned professor of Greek from 1836 to 1893, and the first president of Smith College’s Board of Trustees, plainly stated: "[Amherst] was bom of the spirit of revivals and missions. Revival was a central component in the life of the all-male college. During the nineteenth century, Amherst’s "outpourings" of the Holy Spirit were meticulously “ Amherst President William A. Steams to Samuel Williston, January 30, 1856, cited in, Tomas Le Due, Piety and Intellect at Amherst College, 1865 - 1912\ (New York: Columbia University Press, 1946) p. 11. “ Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women’ s Colleges from Their Nineteenth-Century Beginnings to the 1930’ s-, (2nd ed. Amherst: University o f Massachusetts Press, 1993) p. 72. Le Due, Piety and Intellect at Amherst College, 1865 - 1912', pp. 2, 4. William S. Tyler, A History o f Amherst College: During the Administration o f its First Five Presidents, from 1821 - 189F, (New York: Frederick H. Hitchcock, 1895) pp. 266-7. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 1 recorded, the first occurring in the spring term of 1823.^ Significantly, all but one of Amherst’s revivals occurred during the winter/spring term/" By the 1850s, 60s, and up to the founding of Smith, the rise of a powerful student culture dominated by fraternities and athletics, coupled with an influx of secular ideas from Europe, presented a challenge to Amherst’s spiritual character. Writing at the close of his life, W.S. Tyler could lament how athletics and social engagements had so completely occupied the seasons suitable for revival According to Tyler, the rise in physical activity and sports in the mid-1800s became a hotly contested issue between the students and faculty over which winter/spring activities would dominate, the secular or the spiritual. In his 1895 treatise of Amherst’s history spanning the nineteenth century, Tyler lamented that athletic fervor had supplanted the revivalist spirit of the student body. "In those times of great and blessed revivals, there was one term set apart and consecrated especially to the religious interest of the colleges. But now foot-ball has taken possession of the first term, and base-ball of the third term, and the junior promenade and the like social pleasures,...and no time is left for special attention to that which is the chief concern of individual students and the vital interest of the whole college. Amherst’s official aim for physical education was to strengthen the student’s bodies so that "they might better serve and worship their Lord."” Tyler noted with irony that the increase of the student’s physical vigor and commitment to intercollegiate competitions ” William S. Tyler, A History o f Amherst College, pp. 266-292. “ ibid., p. 276. Le Due, Piety and Intellect at Amherst College, 1865 - 1912, p. 131. “ William S. Tyler, A History o f Amherst College, p. 276. “ Le Due, Piety and Intellect at Amherst College, 1865 - 1912\ p. 131. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 22 coincided with the decline in religious revival on the campus. In a 1946 historical account of Amherst, Piety and Intellect at Amherst College, 1865 -1912, Thomas Le Duc stated that, "Students turned to their fraternities and their athletic fields, for a frank enjoyment of pleasure hitherto discouraged."^'* The first intercollegiate base-ball game was played between Amherst and William’s as early as 1859 and the student and public interest was phenomenal. While baseball remained the preeminent game, a "boating craze" also hit the campus between 1869 and 1875 where competition between Amherst, Yale, and Harvard was fierce. Concern arose among the faculty at Amherst that "temptations and dangers would be the consequences from the intercollegiate competitions, and that Amherst would be better served to keep all athletic activity within the bounds of the college. The rise in popularity of the fratemities and sports coincided with another ominous thing happening at the college. Amherst was becoming worldly. "More emphasis was put on scholarship" wrote Le Duc, "and less on piety."” During the first four decades of Amherst’s history, the original principle that "learning should be subservient to religion" remained in place.” But by the 1860’s, Helen Horowitz identifies a "tempering of Amherst’s religious zeal with Romanticism and a new emphasis on learning."” This period witnessed the influx of German scholarship and new scientific research, two developments which had transformative effects on Amherst’s religious orthodoxy. New faculty hired during this period were products of this novel scholarship, and they opened the doors of Amherst to alien, secular ideas. Brothers Julius and Laurenes Clark Seelye, both core founders of Smith College, represented of an ” Le Duc, Piety and Intellect at Amherst College', p. 12. " ibid., p. 15. “ ibid., p. 22. ” Horowitz, Alma Mater, p. 72. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 3 increasingly liberal cultural and intellectual ideology at Amherst during the late 1850s and 1860s/^ By the 1870s, the intellectualism of European universities became an established part of Amherst’s ideological character and the college’s emphasis on religious orthodoxy began to wane. As religious fervor diminished, "the college no longer aimed to produce orthodox Congregational ministers, but Christian gentlemen. Character building assumed more importance and became one of prime objectives of the college. To the new elite at Amherst, "character was chiefly made up of moral principles, right purposes, appropriate emotions and practical wisdom.""" Essentially, the character building at Amherst was the training of "ideal manliness." But among the college elites, both at Harvard and Amherst, what constituted this ideal was ambiguous at best. In 1875, the year Smith College opened its doors, multiple ideals circulated among intellectual elites, social critics, and a progressive minded post-Civil War generation, of what it meant to be a woman or a man. Amherst and Harvard during the 1860s, 70s, and 80s contributed significantly to the national debate over what defined ideal manliness. The intimate association between these male institutions with Smith College suggests that this debate was intricately linked to the construction of a new and contested feminine ideal, particularly within the context of the student culture of athletics. The debates centered around contesting ideals of manliness and womanliness as they were expressed through competitive athletics. In the post-Civil War era, a new ideal of manliness Both Seeley brothers were on the faculty at Amherst during this transformative period. L. Clark Seelye was Smith’s first President in 1874 and Julius became Amherst’s president in 1876. ” Horowitz, Alma Mater, p. 72. Quoted from Amherst president W.A. Steams’ sermon at the opening o f the college session in 1872; cited in Le Duc, Piety and Intellect at Amherst College-, p. 26. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 4 emerged, a manliness that was neither compatible with the traditional male ideal of gentility, nor with developing ideals of femininity. Much of the element of rough play in games comes more from excitement and the desire to win at all and any cost...a great number of the community at large seem to think certain elements in athletics perfectly fair,... ’all is fair in love and war’ we are told; certain games are mimic war.*^ Senda Berenson, Director of Physical Education at Smith College, voiced a prevailing concern among intellectual, education and social elites over what the proper aims for physical/athletic activity among the female student population should be. Berenson’s statement that "certain games mimic war," meant just that to many education reformers and cultural critics of the period. In post-Civil War thinking the athletic field was a substitute for the battlefield, a masculine arena where, in the absence of war, men learned to become warriors. And in certain instances and forms sport developed into a gendered space unequivocally forbidden to women."^ The introduction after the Civil War of athletic games such as football on men’s college campuses "came to mean competition and not mere exercise." Competitiveness and roughness became the new quintessential symbol for manhood.'*^ In fact, among many intellectual and social elites, competitive athletics served not only as a substitute for war, but as preparation for war.'” Traditional Victorian ideals of femininity and masculinity ■"Senda Berenson, "Significance of Basketball for Women," in Basketball fo r Women: As Adopted by the Conference on Physical Training, Held in June, 1899, at Springfield, Mass. Senda Berenson, ed (American Sports Publishing Company, 1900) p.31, located online @ <http://clio.fivecolleges.edu/smith/berenson/ 5pubs/bbalI_women/index.shtml?> (italics mine). Harvard’s football field, constructed in the later part of the nineteenth century, was named "Soldier’s Field." ■'^Anthony Rotundo, American Manhood: Transformations in Masculinity from the Revolution to the Modern Era, (Basic Books, 1993); pp. 239, 243. For the historical development of post-Civil war masculinity see Kim Townsend, Manhood at Harvard: William James and Others. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 5 were not erased from the cultural landscape, but the formulation of this rugged breed of manliness as a new American ideal had to be negotiated by both men and women on the college campuses where sporting activity occupied a prominent place in the student life. The influence that the intellectual elites from Amherst and Harvard had on the ideological and philosophical underpinnings of Smith College’s physical culture and athletics was significant. Leading men at Amherst, representing both the conservative- religious and progressive-secularized ideologies, formed the eore of the Smith College Board of Trustees and occupied most of Smith’s professorships and administrative positions. These men established the stated aims for the college along with its original curriculum. An 1874 prospectus on Smith College’s curriculum, circulated throughout the nation’s newspapers, detailed the school’s philosophy on physical education: "In addition to lectures on Physiology and Hygiene, regular exercises in the gymnasium and the open air will be prescribed." However, the attention to the physical development of the female students served as a means to more crucial ends. "These exercises will be designed not merely to secure health, but also a graceful carriage and well-formed bodies. Seelye and the other administrators were undoubtedly aware of the developing athletic culture at Amherst. The sources don’t indicate where Smith President Seelye fell on the issue of competitive athletics, but unlike William Tyler, Seelye was progressive. Seelye advocated a modem and more secularized scholarship, even for women; nonetheless, he sought to maintain traditional gender constructions and preserve the femininity of the student body (in the minds of many of Seelye’s peers, the higher education of women in and of itself threatened these constractions). At Smith’s first commencement in 1879, Seelye, L. Clark, The Early History o f Smith College, 1871-1910; (Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1923) p. 22. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 26 Harvard President Charles Eliot commended Seelye and the other founders for their foresight in the design of the college and its curriculum: "There are, however, dubitable dangers besetting the experiment of prolonging by several years what has hitherto been the common period of a girl’s education, which prudence and skill may do much to avert; and it is in dealing with this class of dangers that the projectors and governors of Smith College seem to me to have shown more sagacity than has anywhere else been exhibited...The chief danger to be dreaded is the danger to health...Now the precautions against injury to health which has been taken by the founders of Smith College seem to me more effective than have been taken in any other college for women."''® The danger o f women’ s higher education: Dr. Edward C. Clarke and J. G. Holland Both President Seelye and Harvard’s President Eliot were forced to respond to contemporary charges that the "new experiment" of women’s higher education had potentially catastrophic effects on the health and reproductive capacity of women. Yet there was even more at stake than just the female collegians’ health. An underlying concern among both critics and advocates of women’s higher education was the impact an all-female instimtion had on a woman’s femininity and her sexuality. When Sophia Smith’s endowment for a women’s college became a reality, two preexisting all-female academic institutions, Vassar College and Mount Holyoke, were carefully scrutinized by Smith’s Board of Trustees in order to determine to what degree Smith would, or would not, replicate their design. Vassar was founded in 1865 and located in New York State, and Mount Holyoke, founded in 1837, was located in the Connecticut Valley only fifteen miles from Smith’s proposed site. These two women’s colleges had developed a college life that, in the eyes of Smith’s conservative founders and ■•^C harles Eliot, commencement address at first graduating class of Smith, 1879, in L. Clark Seelye, The Early History o f Smith College, 1871-1910, (The Riverside Press, 1923) p. 47. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 7 supporters, endangered the femininity of their students, even as they realized that Smith College needed to replicate part of that life in order to attract students. These all women’s colleges were cultural sites where, because of the absence of men, women appropriated traditional male roles and behaviors. Critics of their homo-social environment raised issues concerning their sexuality and female propriety, and they did so sometimes in unambiguous terms. In this early stage in the history of women’s higher education, social critics, education reformers, and medical elites contended that these institutions were producing "unsexed women, affected, unsocial, and with visionary notions'"'^— qualities which they argued, made women less desirable to men and consequently less marriageable, in addition to threatening their reproductive capacities. In 1873, as the plans for Smith College were coming to fruition, Scribner’ s Monthly editor, J.G. Holland, a close friend of L. Clark Seelye’s and related to him through marriage, wrote an article which flatly stated that there were "some very grave questions in connection with the higher education of women." He warned that, "the system [of single-sex education] is unnatural, and not one young woman in ten can be subjected to it without injury. It is not necessary to go into particulars, but every observing physician or physiologist knows what we mean when we say that such a system is fearfully unsafe." Specifically referencing Vassar and Mount Holyoke, Holland wrote, "Diseases of body, diseases of imagination, vices of body and imagination...are bred in these great institutions."''* Contemporary readers understood what Holland meant — bringing women together to live and study over a four year period could result in masculinization of the female body and soul, and of even greater concern, lesbianism was feared among the John M. Green, personal letter to Sophia Smith, April 28, 1869 (Smith College Digital Archives, Origins Collection. Series 1: "Beginning of Smith College": Original Documents Assembled by John M. Green, 1868-1933) @ <http://clio.fivecolleges.edu/smith/>. J. G. Holland, Scribner’ s Monthly, 1873; p. 748. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 28 all-female student populations at Vassar and Mount Holyoke/’ Thus not only was the claim made that higher educated women were less desirable to men, their desire for men was also in question. Holland’s warnings concerning the dangers of women’s higher education were representative of a widespread apprehension among social critics and medical professionals concerning the new "experiment" of women’s higher education. In 1874, nine years after Vassar opened. Dr. Edward C. Clarke, a prominent Boston physician, wrote Sex in Education; or A Fair Chance For Girls, a damning critique of the higher education of women. Clarke’s work was both widely read and highly influential, certainly among the founders of Smith. According to Clarke, there was a significant drop in the marriage and birth rates among graduates of both Vassar and Mount Holyoke. Clarke argued that the culprit was intellectual over-stimulation, or "over-study," and that the drop in the marriage and birth rates substantiated his further claim of masculinization among female collegians. Clarke’s theory held that overexertion in intellectual pursuits among girls and women would likely result in an aborted reproductive system which then led to neurosis and a multitude of other infirmities, and ultimately if unchecked, the masculinization of the female body. It is important to note that Clarke also felt that intellectual overexertion of boys and men could lead to their feminization. Nonetheless, Clarke asserted that overwork of the brain caused certain injury to the body’s other organs, and was particularly damaging to the female body. If the reproductive system is aborted, there may be no future generations to pay the penalty of the abortion, but what is left of the organism suffers sadly. When this sort of arrest of development occurs in a man, it takes the element of masculineness out of him, and replaces it with adipose The term "lesbian" was not used as an identification for female homosexuality until it became medicalized in the early twentieth-century. Typically, female homosexuals did not self-identify as lesbians until the 1920s and 30s. I use the term here for clarity. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 9 effeminacy. When it occurs in a woman, it not only substitutes in her case a wiry and perhaps thin bearded masculineness for distinctive feminine traits and power, making her an epicene, but it entails a variety of prolonged weaknesses, that dwarf her rightful power in almost every direction.^" The late nineteenth-eentury reader understood this to mean that higher education could make women manly to the point where they lost their capacity to reproduce. In two specific ease studies Clarke asserted that a Vassar student and another female intellectual began their studies in good health, but they ended their academic careers with smaller or non-developed breasts, receded and aborted menstruation periods, and facial skin which became rough, course and covered with acne. There are in individuals of this class less adipose and more muscular tissue than is commonly seen, a coarser skin, and generally, a tougher and more angular makeup.^' In other words, in the mind of Clarke and other social critics, the bodies of college women took on masculine characteristics. Continuing in even more dramatic language, Clarke argued that the higher education of women could lead to "a corresponding change in the intellectual and psychical condition, - a dropping out of maternal instincts, and an appearance of Amazonian coarseness and force. Overworking the female brain sapped female energy from a woman’s reproductive system and this, according to Clarke, explained the drop in both birth and marriage rates. Clarke’s theory, that higher education blurred gender differentiation between men and women, was widely accepted among contemporary intellectuals and social critics. Late nineteenth century advocates for the higher education for women, particularly the “ Edward C. Clarke, Sex in Education; or, A Fair Chance For The Girls (1874) pp. 44-45. ibid., pp. 79, 85. " ibid., pp. 92-93. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 0 founders of Smith, were forced to deal with these issues. How would they avert the dangers posed by Clarke, Holland, and others and assure parents and the public that Smith would be a safe place to send their daughters? Holland, Seelye, and the founders of Smith believed that the flaws in these other colleges rested in their architectural design, their location, and their philosophical approach toward college social life. Both Vassar and Mount Holyoke had a single, large structure that housed all of the students under one roof. Both colleges were located in isolated and secluded environments, and student interaction and social life was limited that one same-sex group. These factors resulted in the development of an autonomous student culture which was, according to historian Helen Horowitz, "characterized by independence and intense friendships" — two powerful agents that contributed to the public perception of manliness and sexual impropriety among the female collegians." Thus for the protection of the female collegians’ "true womanhood," Holland strongly advocated that the women live under family like domestic arrangements and in proximity to public, heterosexual influence. "We are free to say," advised Holland, "that no consideration would induce us to place a young woman— daughter or ward— in a college which would shut her away from all family life for a period of four years. Insist that there shall be a real family in every house, and it will not be hard for every young woman to feel that, for the time, she is a member of it."" Holland was equally adamant that contact with mainstream society, outside the campus environment, would prove eminently healthful to the girls for it would avoid the secluded, homosocial model set by Vassar. The Board of Trustee’s response to the concerns regarding what was going on at Vassar and Mount Holyoke shaped the fundamental tenets of Smith’s institutional ” Helen Horowitz, Alma Mater, p. 5. J. G. Holland, Scribner’ s Monthly 6, (Oct. 1873) p. 749 (author’s emphasis). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 1 structure. However, in comparison to the more conservative critics of female advancement in education, both President Seelye and Holland held progressive attitudes on the higher education of women. Both men held the conviction that academic and intellectual opportunities should be offered women equal to that offered men. They insisted that the academic standards at Smith be as high as those demanded at the all-male institutions of Harvard and Amherst. Seelye’s argument for the higher education of women had a religious basis as well: an advanced education enabled a woman to better comprehend God’s creation and thus better serve others and fulfill her wifely and motherly duties. In an 1873 paper defending the higher education of women Seelye wrote, "Women’s chief and most comprehensive need of a collegiate education, is, that she may truly know that all-perfect Mind."” Seelye supported women entering the professions (presumably teaching, possibly medical and law) and doing literary work. Recognizing that woman’s "ordinary sphere will be in the family, and her duties mainly those which belong to wifehood and maturity," Seelye still argued that higher education was beneficial, even in the domestic arena. "Why may not intelligence be as profitable in cooking and housekeeping as in other things? Cooking and housekeeping," wrote Seelye, "are closely allied to the fine arts."” He also argued that the educated woman would make a better wife and mother — as helpmeet and companion to her husband, and educator of her children. "But ordinarily a man, with a mother well trained in mind and body, starts a generation ahead of his contemporaries."” Rev. L. Clark Seelye, President of Smith College for Young Women, "The Need o f A Collegiate Education for Women," a paper read before the American Institute of Instruction at North Adams, July 23, 1874, p. 16; Smith College Archives. “ Seelye, "The Need of A Collegiate Education for Women," p. 18; Smith College Archives. ” ibid., p. 20. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 2 For Holland, and Seelye, and the founders of Smith, it was critical to design an environment that would avoid the dangers that academic demands and over-study could bring upon the women. The evidence suggests that these men saw the development of a "social life" at Smith as a crucial element in averting the dangers of masculinization brought on by over-study. Balancing the académie ehallenges with a vital social life was their answer to the issues raised by Dr. Clarke and other critics of female higher education. The sources also suggest that emphasizing the social element of the college experience would give parents certainty that sending their daughters to Smith would not turn them into the dreaded "blue-stocking" figure or Amazonian monster of Clarke’s imagination. Rather, Seelye’s aim and assurance to the parents was that when a woman graduated from Smith, her femininity and social graces would be enhanced. In 1874, a year before the college opened, the trustees issued a prospectus which detailed the "character of the educational work"— this prospectus emphasized that feminine refinement was as central to the students’ edueation as were the academics: It is the wish of the Trustees to realize as far as possible the idea of a literary family, in which young women may not only enjoy the best facilities for intellectual discipline, but may also receive a social refinement and culture, which will enable them to feel at home in the best society, and to conduct themselves with graee and propriety in any sphere of life... President Seelye’s inaugural address assured parents and a concerned public that Smith College was a safe place to send their daughters: We wish it to be distinctly understood, that is neither the aim nor the tendency of the higher education to make woman less feminine, or less attractive in those graces peculiar to her sex. It is to preserve her womanliness that this College has been founded.^'’ L. Clark Seelye, The Early History o f Smith College, p. 23. ibid., p. 29 (italics mine). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 3 Nonetheless, the social life that Seelye, Holland, and others advocated for the Smith collegians did not include the men from Amherst. In fact, the evidence suggests that except for one or two events, heterosexual interactions between the two institutions were discouraged through virtually the entire academic term. In Seelye’s mind the risk of heterosexual impropriety was too great. In an 1873 speech Seelye addressed his concerns of bringing men and women together in a collegiate setting: "There is always danger from animal passion, and we are being taught in many a fearful tragedy that it is folly to ignore it tt6 o M tell us that co-education is in the line of nature; brothers and sisters are brought up together in the same family, and young people associate freely in the same communities. But the young men and women in college are not generally brothers and sisters; nor do young people in our communities usually associate with the freedom and familiarity which characterize college life. The college is family life on a large scale. There is danger... of making it productive of unspeakable evils, by admitting both sexes to the same institution."®' This reasoning was used for arguing against making Amherst a co educational institution. Instead, the instruction in social refinement and culture the girls were to receive would come from female upperclassmen, house mothers, and through association with Northampton families. Holland’s satisfaction with the outcome of the "experiment" was apparent in an 1877 article written two years after the college had opened. Smith, located at the edge of the town of Northampton, stood apart from the prevailing tradition of women’s colleges in both "its social and domestic arrangements."®^ Holland reiterated the unwillingness of “ Seelye, "The Need of A Collegiate Education for Women," p. 28; Smith College Archives. " ibid., p. 31. “ Author unidentified; J. G. Holland, editor, Scribner’ s Monthly, May 1877 to October 1877; p. 9 (It is probable that Holland, as the magazine’s editor, was the author of this article). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 4 Smith’s founders to sacrifice the contemporary Victorian feminine ideal, which advocated that women remain distinct from men. "It is not forgotten that it is a woman’s college. The students are not treated as if they were simply intellect or as if they were men. Regard is had to womanhood, and the mode of life and buildings are adapted to woman’s wants and capacities. In light of Seelye’s the administration’s, and Holland’s conservative aims to preserve the students’ femininity, how did the social environment at Smith play itself out in the years to come? Did the social life serve the administrators’ desire to bring balance to the lives of their students? Specifically, how did the student athletic culture, one of the more dynamic elements of Smith’s social life, develop within the context of the administration’s aim of preserving the womanliness of its student population? The sources suggest that within the secluded, homosocial environment on the Smith campus, the student life did not always fall in line with the aims of the administration. The physical and athletic cultures among the existing elite women’ s colleges From its beginnings. Smith followed the existing women’s colleges — Vassar and Mount Holyoke — in requiring physical exercise of its students. At Mount Holyoke the students were required to take one mile walks daily and to enroll in courses in calisthenics; at Vassar they had to perform three to four hours per week of outdoor exercise and gymnasium work.^'' Matthew Vassar’s physical designs for his college included spacious grounds for walking, a lake for rowing, and a long, well lit corridor in the main building for exercise in inclement weather. These requirements were in line with the widespread cultural concern, spurred by Clarke’s Sex in Education, of masculinization “ ibid., pp. 15-16. “ Alice Katherine Fallows, "Athletics For College Girls," Century Magazine, (May 1903) p. 63. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 5 among college women. Smith College had expansive grounds for outdoor gymnastics and walking and a lake for boating and ice-skating. As early as 1879 Smith built its first gymnasium equipped with gymnastic apparatuses, ropes, vaults, and bar-bells, for what appears to be fairly intensive exercises. For the students’ enjoyment, a bowling alley was constructed on the gymnasium’s second floor. In the spring of 1881 the first tennis court was marked out. At the same time, however, students across the women’s campuses began to demonstrate interest in other sports, ones more competitive and strenuous than calisthenics, walking, or rowing. In the 1860s, baseball was the nation’s new popular sport and when Vassar College opened in 1865, it took only one year for the game to capture the imagination of the college women and for club teams to form and begin regular competitions. In an 1895 article on college women’s first athletic experiences, Sophia Foster Richardson, a student at Vassar during the early 1870s, recalled that she and her fellow students played regardless of public concern. "The public, so far as it knew of our playing, was shocked, but in our retired grounds, and protected from observation even in these grounds by sheltering trees, we continued to play in spite of a censorious public."*^ They wore baseball caps and long-sleeved, full-length dresses (the women made good use of the folds of their skirts for stopping grounders), with the team name — such as, the Abenakis, Laurels, or Resolutes — attached to a band that was rapped around the waist. “ Sophia Foster Richardson, "Tendencies in Athletics for Women in the Colleges and Universities," Popular Science Monthly 1 (1895) p. 517-526. “ Gai I. Berlage, "Sociocultural History of the Origin of Women’s Baseball at the Eastern Women’s Colleges During the Victorian Period," Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and the American Culture, Alvin L. Hall, ed.; ( (New York: Meckler Publishing, in association with The State University of New York College, Oneonta, 1989) p. 100. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 6 Smith College had intramural teams by 1879, Mount Holyoke by the 1880’s and Wellesley College had formed teams by the mid 1890’s .® ’ Outside the secluded college environs and among middle and upper-class social circles, baseball was predominately a spectator sport for women. Jane Hunter in How Young Ladies Became Girls, a study of American girlhood, writes, "girls played baseball in informal family games during the late century, but organized team competition was less common. The college women who played the game at Vassar, Smith and Wellesley, according to Hunter, set precedents for high school girls. Mid to late century high school athletics were specifically gendered: "From the beginning," writes Hunter, "boys and girls had distinct relationships to school sports. Boys played and girls cheered.The elite women who played baseball when they arrived at college likely learned the game from watching their gentleman friends and brothers play at exclusive cricket, polo, and lawn tennis clubs. With their newfound autonomy, beyond parental and public view, the female collegians immediately formed teams and took to the fields. Consequently, the students’ participation in baseball, as well as other athletic activities and games that were traditionally reserved for men, did not go unnoticed or uncontested. The formation of athletic clubs and teams by the college women reflected an emerging student culture that very early in the college experiment subverted gender norms and challenged feminine ideals. On par with academic requirements. Smith College’s 1874 prospectus, advertised in various newspapers across the country, included gymnastics, calisthenics and other forms " Other women’s colleges, Mills College in Berkeley, and Wells, Goucher, and Stanford also formed their own women’s baseball clubs before the end of the nineteenth-century. “ Jane Hunter, How Young Ladies Became Girls: The Victorian Origins o f American Girlhood (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002) p. 237. ibid., p. 235. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 7 of physical exercise as part of its official curriculum. For Seelye and the founders and administrators of other elite Eastern women’s coW Q gQ S, physical culture was viewed as an antidote to the charge that overexertion in intellectual pursuits led to serious illness and masculinization in women. Distinct from physical culture, athletics developed as one aspect of an emerging student culture which included a dynamic dramatic culture, secret and semi-secret societies, student government, festivals, dances and a myriad of other activities which comprised the college life. According to Horowitz, college students at the "Seven Sisters" shaped their student culture in varying ways which significantly diverged from traditional feminine ideals and expectations of those in their charge. "The evangelical spirit of Mount Holyoke, Wellesley, and Smith," writes Horowitz, "assumed that students shared their college’s official understanding of the way and that they desired to do good. College life created a different standard, one that was secular and hedonistic."™ In other words, what the public, administration and parents expected of their students and daughters were often at odds with what the women actually did. The argument can be made that the location of the women’s colleges significantly informed the construction of students’ extracurricular activities and was a determining factor in the degree to which they deviated from the contemporary feminine ideal. The all-female colleges of the late nineteenth century, secluded and isolated from the public view, gave women greater autonomy to shape their social life which — and specifically in terms of the growing student interest in athletics — established a contested ground where student and administration aims were often at odds. Gai Berlage, in her essay on college women’s baseball, suggests that isolated colleges such as Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, and Mount Holyoke "provided greater opportunities for women to participate" [in ' Horowitz, Alma Mater, pp. 148-149. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 38 competitive athletics]. Sophia Richardson noted that the "retired grounds" and "sheltering trees" of Vassar’s campus provided her baseball club a feminine space set apart, protected from the public [and masculine], gaze. Berlage points out that competitive sports did not develop as quickly at women’s colleges that were not so secluded. "Barnard and Radcliffe," Berlage argues, "in close proximity to male colleges and their ability to watch the women, hindered such opportunities.'”' In the minds of Vassar’s founders, the location of the campus in an isolated, rural countryside was intended to promote healthfulness and to protect feminine chastity. Situating Vassar in the country provided access to outdoor activity, "spacious play grounds, extensive walks,...gymnastics in the open air.'”^ While the isolation provided greater opportunity for women to engage in more masculine behaviors, this space also enabled the administration and faculty to hide from the public what was, in fact, happening — that college women acted like men. "Exposure threatened to reveal the most carefully guarded secret of the women’s colleges," writes Horowitz, "that in a college composed only of women, students did not remain feminine. Through college organizations they discovered how to wield power and act collectively; through aggressive sport, to play as a team member and win; through dramatics to take male roles. In a society in which gender differences attributed aggression, strength and directness to men, the ’all-around girl’ of the women’s colleges learned how to act as a man.'”^ The student life at these women’s colleges suggests that both conservative and subversive elements were at work. Sherrie Inness integrates into her work on turn of the ” Berlage, "Sociocultural History of the Origin o f Women’s Baseball at the Eastern Women’s Colleges During the Victorian Period;" Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and the American Culture; p. 104. ” Horowitz, Alma Mater, p. 32. ” ibid., p. 163. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 9 century college novels Turner’s thesis of "three phases of initiation" — separation, liminality, and reinitiation — for her analysis of college culture. Inness writes, "College became what Victor Turner named a ’ritual space,’ in which the student is freed temporarily from normal gender and cultural expectations."^" Inness’ analysis is helpful in that she suggests that the college experience for women situates them into the ’liminality’ phase where they go through a transformation, ultimately to be reinitiated into society as a new creature. Where Inness’ theory is problematic is that Turner’s theory operates on the assumption that the phases are controlled by those already having made the transition. I see within the ’ritual space’ of women’s colleges during the late nineteenth century, a student athletic culture shaped and controlled by the ’liminaT college women — women who had yet made their transition to the "reinitiation" phase. In this space, away from the control and purview of the public, the school administrators, and their families, college women transformed themselves. Women’s college administrators’ and physical educators’ intentions behind compulsory physical exercise was to cultivate what contemporaries called "symmetry," or balance, among the student population - a check to the dangerous imbalance brought on by academic overexertion and thus avoid the dire mental and physical consequences. Alice Katherine Fallows in an 1898 article on Smith College wrote, "For a symmetrical, well rounded woman, in every way developed as the need of her own personality dictated, has been their [the administrators’] hope for the alum na.This was accomplished, the experts agreed, through regular, systematic, exercise. Agnes Patton, class of ’01, wrote in ” Sherrie A. Inness, Intimate Communities: Representation and Social Transformation in Women’ s College Fiction, 1895-1910; (Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1995) p. 13. ” Alice Katherine Fallows, "Undergraduate Life at Smith College," p. 41; located in box 39, "articles about Smith," Smith College Archives. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 0 The Smith College Monthly of the importance of exercise in maintaining proper balance: "If we want to preserve the proper equilibrium between mental and physical development, to possess active minds and energetic bodies, we must exercise."’* In a 1903 article in Century Magazine Alice Fallows, writing on athletics in women’s colleges, maintained her philosophy that exercise served to balance out the strain of academics: "Whatever her college, the bookish girl may not sweep into a breakdown unchecked. Required ’gym’ work meets her at the outset, only providence in the guise of the doctor’s excuse can save her from it. So much of a safeguard every college provides."” The "bookish girl" was the student who over-studied and risked physical, emotional and mental breakdown, which the required exercise — "a safeguard" — would avert. "As colleges for women have grown in years and experience, they have come to recognize more and more the need of physical training for their students, to keep pace with the mental. As a result, courses on hygiene have become a compulsory part of the curriculum."’* Fallows wrote that the athletic girl, "glorying in her strength and muscular skill," was welcome at any of the woman’s colleges. "Her influence is recognized as a balance that keeps the intellectual emphasis from swinging past the danger-line."” However, Fallows also recognized that college women needed and wanted more inspired forms of exercise than simply the rudimentary, mundane gymnastic work. "Required gymnastics, however valuable they may be, will hardly arouse, of themselves, the enthusiasm for physical activity which makes preeminently studious girls healthy as well as wise. That is why all the colleges for girls provide opportunities for physical ™ Agnes Patton, "About College: Athletics," The Smith College Monthly, vol. 8, No. 2 (Nov., 1900) pp. 22-23. ” Alice Katherine Fallows, "Athletics For College Girls," Century Magazine, (May 1903) p. 59. ibid. " ibid., p. 58. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 1 recreation as well as for physical work."*® While provision was made by college officials for physical recreation, the women appropriated and shaped this space as their own — the student athletic culture. By the end of the nineteenth century, all of the women’s colleges had annual athletic events, athletic associations and athletic clubs, which were mostly founded and managed by the students. Most colleges had some sort of ’field-day’ where several different athletic contest were played between classes. Alice Fallows describes the athletic annuals held at the "Seven Sisters" and the import that these events held for the students. "In the larger significance of athletics for girls each college has developed its own picturesque climax and test of physical ability." Rarely, if ever, were men invited these events. "At Wellesley, field-day in the fall is a fillip for the enthusiasm of the girls whose interest is in field-sports. Basket-ball is popular among the seven "organized" sports, which collectively claim a membership of three hundred and fifty students."*' These numbers meant that a large portion of Wellesley’s student body participated in the athletic culture, and it can be assumed that many those who didn’t participate, spectated. The women competed in tennis, golf, field-hockey, low-hurdling, relay-racing and basket-ball. However, at Wellesley rowing was the preeminent sport among the students. Float Day, distinct from Field Day, marked the climax of the college year at Wellesley, and students who made the rowing team were the pride of the school and held in high esteem among their peers. "The preparation for float," wrote Fallows, "is arduous. It means winter exercise in the gymnasium, tiresome preliminary practice at the rowing-machine before the candidate is permitted to touch an oar to water, and, lastly, practice on the lake. But practice plus ability wins the girl the right to row with the other seven for the glory of her ibid., p. 59. * ' Alice Katherine Fallows, "Athletics For College Girls," Century Magazine, (May 1903) p. 63. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 2 class.Float Day was an extremely competitive event with a minimum of six month’s preparation behind it. Vassar’s field-day, held in the spring, was also the culmination of an entire year’s hard work. Fallows wrote of the excitement the event ignited in the student body. The grassy Circle, hedged in with evergreen, is the arena, and gathered to watch the struggle are throngs of chattering college girls brandishing their class colors, dozens of alumnae hardly less excited, and a sprinkling of mothers, little sisters and other feminine guests.*^ Vassar’s ’Field Day’ events included the one-hundred-yard dash, 220-yard dash, relay race, running high jump, running broad jump, standing broad jump, fence vault, basket-ball throw, base-ball throw and putting the shot. Breaking a school record wins the athlete a pink ’V ’ on her sweater, which "the athletic freshman longs for...with all her soul."*'' The wild excitement of a female student-body and the pursuit of prominence among college peers were not peculiar to Vassar. Passion, excitement and distinction were characteristics found in student athletic cultures across all of the women’s campuses. This kind of behavior did not fit well with feminine deportment envisioned by most school officials and was beginning to raise concerns. But it was basket ball, introduced in 1892, that caught the imagination of collegiate women more than any game they played. Immediately upon its introduction basket ball invoked uneasiness among administrators and faculty. Concerns expressed by school officials centered around the game’s roughness, the overzealousness of the players and spectators, and the growing prominence of female athletes among the student body. Shortly after the game was introduced, the rules were modified that kept physical contact to a minimum and ibid. " ibid., p. 60. ibid., pp. 60-61. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 3 discouraged individual standout performance. Basket ball was intended to promote, in game form, the goals of gymnastic exercise — order, symmetry, balance, and cooperative effort. Thus basket ball was viewed by physical culture advocates as a potentially effective means for building the strength and character necessary for the students’ life after college, which in their minds meant wifehood and motherhood. At a 1910 meeting of the Women Directors of Physical Education of the New England Colleges for Women, Miss Homans, Wellesley’s Director of Physical Culture, reemphasized the central purpose of physical exercise for college women: "In closing the morning session Miss Homans laid stress upon the opportunity that Women’s Colleges have to make health the object of the physical activities of their students. The physical training should be of a sort to meet the demands of mother-hood."*^ But for the women who played team sports, and particularly basket ball, what they gained went beyond the official aim. According to Sherrie Inness, team sports such as basketball subverted the correct feminine molding that was the aim of gymnastics.*^ Inness asserts that in the turn of the century college novel, a popular fictional genre of the college experience, a girl is ’normalized’ among her peers if she plays basket ball. An over- studious incoming freshman can guarantee her status as an ’all-round girl’ if she is selected as a sub-guard for her class team. Inness writes, "[t]he girl goes from writing verse...to playing basket-ball, a sport that invariably identifies the most positively portrayed college girls."*’ I agree with Inness, but I think it is even more complex than this. Individual prominence of a female student-athlete among her college peers also went “ "A Meeting of the Women Directors o f Physical Training, and the Presidents of Athletic Associations of New England Colleges," (1910); EAPECW, box 16; Series VIII Meetings; General Folder 253; Smith College Archives. “ Sherrie Inness, Intimate Communities, p. 78. " ibid., p. 61. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 4 against feminine Victorian propriety. Shirley Marchalonis, in College Girls: A Century o f Fiction, writes that "the development of such activities as sport, more opportunities opened up for women to demonstrate superior talents which could and often did lead to becoming a ’prominent girl.’" ® * And prominence translated into power. According to conventional Victorianism, as Barbara Welter contends, the "true woman" was supposed to be balanced in terms of piety, purity, domesticity, and submission. Through athletics, college women learned the "masculine routes of power" - in the scull, on the field-hockey team, and on the basket ball court. Of the various sports the women played, basket ball, according to Helen Horowitz, particularly fostered masculine behaviors among female collegians: "In athletic competition the college woman learned team play, developed strength and endurance, and tested herself in open combat. [They] played rough, competed keenly, and cheered passionately."®^ In addition, through participation in basket ball and other sports, college women established themselves not only as prominent, but also as objects of admiration and affection among their peers. The student sport-culture at the women’s colleges dominated college life. The byproducts of this culture did not always fall in neatly with the aims that the founders and administrators had in their design. Administrators at the women’s colleges made allowances for student athletic culture as long as it was perceived as contributing to the fulfillment of the feminine ideal. Often the faculty and administrators looked the other way and kept the athletic culture hidden from the public when the women’s activities threatened this ideal. While the physical culture at the women’s colleges (under the direct control of the physical education directors), promised to guard against the dangers of sickness and masculinization of the over-studious "bookish girl," the student athletic Shirley Marchalonis, College Girls: A Century o f Fiction, p. 72. Helen Horowitz, Alma Mater, p. 159. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 5 culture, on the other hand, carried no such guarantees. Across all of the Seven Sisters’ campuses, women were empowered emotionally, physically, and socially through their athletic pursuits. In the next chapter I will examine the social life as it developed at Smith College, from its early years to 1910, in all of its dimensions, except for the athletic culture which will be the focus of chapter three. Smith students’ formation of their own student culture was the process through which they engaged in establishing a mature identity at a time when the general social position of women was expanding. Moreover, as Horowitz has pointed out with regard to all the women’s colleges of the Northeast, "womanliness" was redefined almost inevitably at those schools, as the women followed a male model in taking on leadership positions, competing in sports, studies, and other activities. Smith College women were aware of the development of student cultures at the other single-sex women’s colleges like Vassar and Moimt Holyoke, as well as the all-male colleges such as Amherst, thus it is not surprising that they constructed an elaborate system of clubs, social events, societies, organizations, and associations, through which they fashioned their own distinct model of the "true woman." Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 46 Chapter Two: A Space for Subversion or Symmetry?: Social Life at Smith College, 1875 to 1905 By 1910, the social life at Smith College evolved into an elaborate student culture which was sometimes in concert with, and sometimes in conflict with, the aims of the school’s authorities/" Early on, the Smith College administration was aware of the impulses among the student body to create a student life outside the classroom, impulses that they wanted both to restrain and to further. In order to attract a student body, they had to allow the students the leeway to form organizations comparable to those at other colleges. Yet in light of late nineteenth century Victorian prescriptions for female propriety, school officials were concerned with preserving the "womanliness" of the student population at the same time that they wanted to provide a challenging curriculum — and avoid the strain of too much mental work. The administration wanted to produce women as graduates that men would want to marry - and also graduates who could take up a career in teaching if they had to; but they wanted to be certain that their students remained healthy. Above all, they wanted to avoid the development of the culture of "smashing" that had come into existence at Vassar College. Yet the early history of Smith College can be read as an exercise in administrative futility, one in which the students, by accident or design, frustrated the desires of the administration at almost every turn. Besides the many official school events scheduled by the administration throughout the term, there were numerous clubs and societies, dances held throughout the week, inter-house and inter-class athletic competitions, and daily student gatherings and activities. Literary, debating, and drama societies, a glee club, and student publications The terms "social life" and "student culture" fundamentally refer to the same college culture phenomenon, but can have different connotations. "Student culture" implies student agency, whereas the idea of "social life" can be viewed as a cultural space that both the students and administration manipulate for their own purposes. Both terms will be used throughout this chapter, but I will apply the term "student culture" specifically when identifying student agency. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 7 and newspapers were established within the first five years of the founding of the college. Organizations such as the Smith College Association for Christian Work appeared in 1892, and by the turn of the century the Voice, Greek, Mandolin, and Banjo Clubs were established, as well as at least five modem language clubs. The social life at Smith College in 1898, wrote an alumna, included clubs that varied in purpose as widely as "the metaphysical speculations of the philosophical organization and the frivolous occupation of the ’eat-clubs.’" "Among the girls themselves," she continued, "[were] clubs innumerable, those bringing together...sewing circles, reading-clubs, and a hundred others which serve for the amusement of the girls themselves."®' From Smith’s beginning, social life had its meaning for the students and its purposes for the administration. The secluded, all-female environment created the opportunity for the social life at Smith to develop quite early. The social life that the students constructed was a cultural space where they experienced a degree of independence not afforded middle and upper-class women in mainstream society. And it was a space where many of the women subverted and challenged gender roles. Ironically, at the same time, the administration’s allowance of — and even mandate for — the development of social life at Smith was part of their attempt to maintain and preserve the "womanliness" of the student population. This chapter will trace the history of Smith College’s social life and examine the reasons why this cultural space was such a powerful and complex force on the campus and in the lives of the students. Social life at Smith included all activities that fell outside the school’s academic curriculum. Social life included academic clubs like the Biology and Chemistry Clubs; however, most of the social life at Smith involved nonacademic activities such as dances, Alice Katherine Fallows, "Undergraduate Life at Smith College," (1898) p. 52, in ’Articles About Smith,’ box 39; Smith College Archives. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 8 plays, late-night food feasts, semi-secret societies, and athletics. The history of social life at Smith shows that it operated both under the supervision of the college authorities as well as outside of official control and with student autonomy. At Smith various student organizations were responsible for, and involved in, the production of official school events throughout the term, from the Freshman Frolic held in September to Commencement, which took place in June. Under the supervision of the administration and the faculty, the students established student government, clubs, societies, and various other associations. These included the Student Council, the Alpha and Phi Kappa Psi Societies, and the Glee Club. On-campus and off-campus houses each had their own identity and organization, and they functioned much as other campus organizations did, by putting on their own dances, teas, and plays. Weekly activities held by the various houses, clubs, societies, and individual students included private teas, "spreads" (which often involved elaborate feasts in students’ rooms), house plays, dances, and informal athletic games. In addition, the women engaged in other unsupervised ventures such as walking around campus and into town, rowing on Lake Paradise, and riding horses around the countryside. These were all among the daily activities about which the students regularly wrote in their letters sent to their friends and family back home. The structure of the student life at Smith was largely determined by Smith College’s physical layout. In contrast to the dormitory living styles at Mount Holyoke, Vassar, and soon to be opened Wellesley, the architectural plan for Smith was the cottage-system. An 1894 article from The Smith College Monthly, the school’s newspaper, tells the history Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 9 behind instituting the cottage-system at Smith, with clear reference to the concerns raised by Holland and Clarke: The many unpleasantnesses and disadvantages evident in the nature of [the dormitory] system gradually brought about a revolt in popular feeling against it, with a demand for quieter homes, more orderly in management, and with an atmosphere of greater refinement. This of course referred particularly to girls, who were sent to college as an experiment.®^ The trustees of the college purchased two homesteads close to Northampton. The Dewey House served as the dwelling house for the first entering class of students, and the other house became President Seelye’s living quarters. College Hall, a separate facility, was to function as an administrative and classroom building. "Instead of the immense caravansaries, four or five stories high" [as was Vassar’s design], "it was determined," wrote Holland in 1877, "in order to realize both an academic and a home life, to erect one central building for strictly collegiate purposes, and to group around it smaller dwelling- houses which should furnish homes for the students."®^ In contrast to the isolation and seclusion at Vassar, Smith’s close proximity to a town created a familial atmosphere for the college women, exposing them to the heterosocial culture of Northampton, the intention being to keep them from forming too autonomous and homosocial a culture. In praise of Smith’s design Holland wrote: An effort is made, also, to educate her social faculties, and to preserve and increase the refinement and grace which have ever been considered essential to a cultured woman. Instead of being shut up entirely to their own society, they are thus made acquainted with intelligent and refined people of many different classes.®'' Olivia Howard Dunbar, "The Dangers of the Social Element in College Life," The Smith College Monthly, vol. 1, No. 9; (June, 1894) p. 2. ” Author unidentified; Scribner’ s Monthly, May 1877 to October 1877; p. 9. ibid. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 0 Smith College’s dwelling-house system fostered the development of a vibrant student culture. The founders intended the dwelling-house arrangements for student living to replicate as best as they could the traditional family structure and thus ensure the development of ideal women. But from the very opening of the college the cottage- system also offered the chance for a college life to develop, one that was distinct from academic life. In addition, as the number of students continued to increase, new houses were required and the evolving system soon cultivated house loyalties and rivalries. By Smith’s fourth year, class rivalries were firmly established and competitions between the freshmen, sophomore, junior, and senior students became a ritualized aspect of the student culture. From the beginning. Smith had a female director of social culture who fimctioned as housemother and supervised student life outside the classroom. In contrast to the single structure at Vassar, where all the students lived under one roof, the plan at Smith was to have small clusters of women in family-like homes with a mature adult woman to serve as overseer/mother in each home. In September of 1875, sixteen female students arrived and took up residence in the new Dewey House under the care and supervision of Miss Humphrey, Director of Social Culture. While Miss Humphrey remained for only one year, the position of "lady in charge" was permanently established as an officer of the college, supervising the life of the college women. In addition, a faculty member became resident at each of the on-campus dwelling houses. It was then necessary that the home influences should be replaced as far as possible by those of an artificial home, which should receive but a limited number of students, and should have as its head a phenomenal person qualified to impart the desired atmosphere of refinement, to act as friend and adviser to each girl under her charge...’^ ” Olivia Howard Dunbar, "The Dangers of the Social Element in College Life," The Smith College Monthly, vol. 1, No. 9; (June, 1894) p. 2. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 1 For most of the women who entered Smith in the 1870s, 80s and 90s, this was their first experienee living away from home. By replicating the home, the college administrators hoped to convince reluctant parents that sending their daughters to Smith would enhance their feminine qualities. The administration undoubtedly assumed that the new students would develop a life outside of the classroom. In fact, the college officials strongly encouraged it. Aside from the appointment of a director of social culture, the administration instituted only one regulation - the "ten o’clock rule" - by which the women had to be in their rooms with lights out by ten at night. The "ten o’clock rule" remained the only official restriction placed upon the Smith women for over twenty-five years, and it was not until 1906 that a point system was implemented to regulate the amount of extracurricular activities the students participate in. Nonetheless, even while Smith women were free to socialize with each other at will and allowed numerous activities, including dramatic and musical entertainments, rowing on Lake Paradise, horseback riding, and extensive walks around the town and countryside, they were obliged to maintain proper female decorum. In his Early History o f Smith College, Seelye wrote concerning the first class of entering women: "While no rules were published to regulate their behavior, it was impressed upon them from the outset that the unwritten code of good society was to be observed as scrupulously by them as well-bred women elsewhere."’* And what about the men from Amherst living a distance of only fifteen miles from Smith? Or the men from Yale or Harvard? During the late nineteenth century. Smith’s calendar year listed only one festivity where Amherst men were invited to socialize with the women — the Junior Reception. Except on a few occasions, the social life the women experienced while at Smith was predominately homosocial. What accounts for the limited L. Clark Seelye, The Early History o f Smith College', p. 38. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 2 interactions between the women at Smith and the men from Harvard, Yale, and particularly Amherst during this period? Historians of late nineteenth-century college life support the notion that students at the men’s and women’s colleges were key figures in the construction of a sex-segregated social life. According to Horowitz, men at Amherst, Harvard and Yale were protective of their college life and showed disdain for those outside their circle.’^ "Where [women] entered an all-female world in the women’s colleges, they began quite early to develop a college life with many parallels to that of their brothers. Where they penetrated into formerly male preserves, such as the University of Michigan and Cornell, they were as unwelcome as any uninvited guest. College men organized in fraternities rejected them as outsiders.At late nineteenth century coeducational schools, Horowitz found that men dominated the all-important life outside the classroom, with women completely excluded from their extracurricular activities and organizations.®’ In short, college men protected their culture from those who they perceived threatened it — the new college women. College women were protective of their culture as well. According to Lois Banner in Intertwined Lives, the women at Wellesley felt that their all-female company sufficed. Citing an excerpt from the diary of Emily Fogg, mother of Margaret Mead, Baimer suggests that the strong culture of smashing at Wellesley accounted for the dearth of male/female interaction; "Yet because the students at Wellesley were so committed to one another, Emily wrote, the absence of men at the college didn’t bother them."‘ “ Debra Herman, in her 1979 study of the early years at Vassar College, wrote that college women ” Helen Horowitz, Campus Life, p. 13. ibid., pp. 67-68. ' ' ' ' Helen Horowitz, Campus Life, p. 42. " “Lois W. Banner, Intertwined Lives: Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Their Circle, p. 35. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 3 "succeeded in creating a social order where men were largely unnecessary.""” Banner also describes the limited presence of men at Vassar and the accommodations the college women made to fill that void: "Men were permitted on campus only on Sundays; the female students escorted each other to parties and dances, with some of them slicking down their hair and wearing male clothing.'"^ Smith women, in spite of their college’s close proximity to the town of Northampton and Amherst College, constructed a similar sex-segregated culture to that of their Wellesley and Vassar sisters. Harriet Seelye, daughter of the president, described the Freshman Frolic as an example of Smith’s social life where men were not missed "because the women filled the male roles perfectly well.""” This is not to say that Smith women never entertained men. The "walk around," which was later called the "Junior Reception," was the one festivity in the calendar year in which the official protocol of the event was to invite men. There were a few other occasions on which men were mentioned as participating in the life of the college. For instance, in some of the student letters examined for this study, fathers and brothers were noted as having visited the campus. Occasionally, a coed from one of the nearby all-male colleges made a visit to the college, but it seems from the letters and other literatures from the period that this was the exception rather than the rule. In Betty Wales, Sophomore and Betty Wales, Junior, two books in a series of fictional college novels written by Smith alumna Margaret Warde and based on Smith College at the turn of the century, one of the featured character’s brothers visits from Cornell, and on another occasion, a Yale man had " " Debra Herman, "College and After: The Vassar Experiment in Women’s Education, 1861-1924" (Ph.D. Dissertation, Stanford University, 1979) p. 180. Lois W. Banner, ; Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict and Their Circle, p. 33. Dehra Herman, "College and After: The Vassar Experiment in Women’s Education, 1861-1924" (Ph.D. Dissertation, Stanford University, 1979) p. 180. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 4 been invited to the Glee Club concert/” Nonetheless, men were, for the most part, absent from the women’s social life at the college. The development o f Smith’ s student culture While the social life at Smith served the aims of the administration to balance out the dangers of over-study and masculinization, it also became a powerful cultural space for the women where they acted out in masculine ways. Shaped by the women themselves, the student culture at Smith offered many women their first experience in cooperative action and prominence, and in addition, the development of leadership skills. In the clubs and societies women held administrative positions; they were presidents, served on committees, and organized most of the student activities outside the lecture hall. In the sports and dramatic circles, the leading players occupied the most prestigious positions in Smith College society and were greatly admired among their peers. It was within the private space of Smith’s student culture that the women filled traditional male roles, both in their activities and their organizations. In the fall of 1876 Smith’s second year began, and the sources reveal the first evidence of an emerging student culture. Sixteen new students arrived, adding to the first class of fourteen (two students had left the college during the term), and as the rooms at Dewey House became fully occupied, a number of students had to board in Northampton families’ homes. In February, 1877, all the students from the town gathered together with the students at the Dewey House, and the Class of ’79 performed Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. In March a performance of Plautus’ The Captives was given in English.'” This is Margaret Warde, Betty Wales, Sophomore (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1905) p. 207; Betty Wales, Junior (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1906) p. 140. Elizabeth Lawrence Clarke, "Student Life," in L. Clark Seelye, The History o f Smith College, p. 184. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 5 the first mention of the student culture of dramatics, which developed into a powerful and subversive force among the women at Smith. In September 1877, forty-two new students arrived and filled the newly built Hatfield House. The erection of this new on-campus house allowed house loyalties, distinctions, and competitions to arise. Class identity and organization began to form. In 1877, each of the three classes, the freshmen, sophomores, and juniors, elected a class president and held class meetings. The incoming class of ’81 showed especially strong class loyalty and organization — in addition to president, they appointed class officers and chose the color green as their class color. By 1879, four on-campus dwelling houses existed: The Dewey (1875), Hatfield (1877), Washburn (1878), and Hubbard (1879). As these cottages quickly filled up, housing the new students became a serious problem. Between 1879 and 1889 no new houses were built on the campus, but the number of students arriving each fall kept increasing. In the fall of 1879, seventy-five students arrived and rooms became scarce. In 1880, an off-campus house, the Tenny House, was purchased and adapted for student use. In 1884 and 1889, two additional off-campus houses were purchased. The Stoddard and Wallace Houses. By 1889 half of the school’s population lived in off-campus housing. Within the next decade, no less than twelve houses were adapted or built for student living. Most of these were off-campus, and the girls joined them through a network of friends and relatives, much like the sorority rush system. Helen Horowitz describes the selection process among the various houses that was in place by the mid 1890s. "When a group of students set up their own house, renting it and hiring a matron, they created an Invitation ibid., p. 186. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 6 House which chose the next year’s occupants through a formal vote. While never receiving the name "sorority," White Lodge and Delta Sigma, both highly desirable off- campus houses, linked residence and social selection in much the same manner as did the Greek societies on coeducational campuses.During the mid-90s, the Plymouth House, a 64-room apartment house, was erected for the wealthier students, complete with a gymnasium, pool, and stage for dramatics. This brought a new level of extravagance and exclusivity among the college women. By the turn of the century Smith became socially stratified with cliques, separating women both economically and socially by residence and society membership. Smith’s "cottage- system" accommodated the development of a complex and elaborate student life — in addition to the class, club, and society rivalries, house to house loyalties and competitions became central to student culture. The students established their own standard of success and hierarchy. They based much of it on the ideal of symmetry, a term which reflected the ideal of balance so sought after by the Smith administration and faculty. By the early 1890s, the philosophy was well established that balancing the academic life with a vibrant social life fostered the symmetrical development of the students and was essential to the maintenance of their femininity. The "swell," the "all-around girl," the "grind," "dig, and "freak" were identifications the women gave themselves and their fellow students, and cliques were established with "the swells" on top."** The "swell" according to Horowitz, "came with money, clothes, contacts, and a fun-loving spirit. The label "swell" required more than money; it applied to the debutantes attuned to society and its rituals.""’ ’ The "swell" arrived at college with Helen Horowitz, Alma Mater, p. 154. ibid., p. 152. 109 ibid., p. 150-1. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 7 this elevated status, lived at the most prestigious houses on campus, and without any obvious effort, sailed through her classes with ease. "Of all things, don’t be a dig!"”® The Smith student who wrote this article in the Smith College Monthly recalled this as the most valuable advice she received when she entered Smith. The "dig" or "grind" was a student who didn’t dress appropriately or with style; she didn’t go to parties, belong to clubs, or play athletics. It was often the very bright, but shy, student who was labeled a "grind." The "grind" concentrated on her studies at the total expense of social life. In stark contrast to the "dig" or "grind," the type of college woman who increased in popularity with the growing social life at Smith was the "all-around girl;" she embodied the social life at Smith. "That girl is a regular ideal college girl. She’s not a bit of a dig, you know, but an all-around girl. She’s literary and writes a lot for the Monthly, she does good work in all her classes, of course; then she’s a member of the basket-ball team; she’s always on committees and things, and you never go to a dance or anything without seeing her." The student who did well academically, but not too well, who participated in multiple extracurricular activities and filled her days with service to her class and school was the ideal. "Yet if any one supposes that these young women are a set of ’grinds,’ that they all wear glasses and masculine collars, and go about continually talking women’s rights and political economy, he is vastly mistaken. [The Smith girl] blends work and fun in such happy proportions.'"" The article, written in 1899, implies that in the public mind the image of the college educated woman embodied a masculinized, socially and physically unattractive figure, and the most threatening of all — a women’s rights activist. The author H.G.M., "The Ideal College Girl," The Smith College Monthly, vol. 4, no. 6 (Mareh, 1897) pp. 266- 268. Douglas Z. Doty, "Life at a Girls’ College," in Munsey’ s Magazine, (Sept. 1899) p. 865-72 in ’Articles About Smith,’ box 39; Smith College Archives. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 58 suggests that the social life of Smith saved the girls from the dangers of masculinization from over-study. The irony was that it was through the student organizations, societies, and athletics that the women were instructed in the masculine routes to power. Dramatics Each new house contributed to a burgeoning student culture. Elizabeth Lawrence Clarke, class of 1883, commented that by the end of the 1880s, "House dances and receptions alternating with dramatics began to fill the students’ evenings. ...[a]nd with each new house erected on the campus another group was established which must have its yearly reception, dance, and play.""^ For instance, in 1893, the March and June issues of the college paper mentioned that five house plays were given; the Washburn, Hubbard, and Wallace houses each gave dramatic productions in the first quarter of the year, and the Lawrence and Morris houses in the second."^ By 1900, house dramatics was a firmly established tradition in Smith student culture. In The New England Home Magazine, Myrtle May Hartwell wrote about house-dramatics at Smith in her article, "Jolly Days at Smith": Each house gives entertainments, usually of the dramatic order, and each member of the household invites some girl friend. Each of the college houses has the privilege one in every two years of giving a dramatic entertainment in the college ’gym,’ and on these occasions the house which is the host entertains its friends throughout the college in pleasant style."" Early on, the dramatic culture developed into a powerful, central feature of Smith’s student culture. As stated earlier, the first record of dramatics at Smith was a Elizabeth Lawrence Clarke, "Student Life," in L. Clark Seelye, The History o f Smith College, p. 201. The Alpha Quarterly, vol. 1, No. 5, p. 23; vol. 1, No. 6, p. 22. " " Myrtle May Hartwell, "Jolly Days at Smith," The New England Home Magazine, vol. X, No. 9 (February 25, 1900) p. 390. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 9 Shakespearean play performed by the first entering class in 1877. The culture of dramatics was a space where evidence of the subversion of gender norms was especially pronounced. On and off-campus houses regularly put on house-plays, as did the various dramatic societies, and the end of the year culminated in the Senior Play, which was given during commencement week. The dramatic culture had three categories: the public performances, which men were allowed to attend; the campus-wide productions, which were limited to students, administration, and faculty; and finally, private, student-only house and society performances where only seleeted female friends were invited, and men were not allowed to attend."^ Concerning house-plays, Alice Fallows wrote in 1898, "Though much less formal, in the early days of the college the house-plays have always been a feature of its social life. More leeway is allowed now in the matter of costumes, but the doors of the gymnasium on play-nights are sternly shut against any but the feminine sex.""* In the spring of 1883, the first Senior play was given, and in the following year Senior Dramatics became an official part of the commencement exercises. "With the interest in dramatics, and the custom of the students of taking no part in the Commencement exercises, a desire to show their dramatic powers to their parents and friends present at Commencement early began to make itself felt among the undergraduates.""^ From 1884 on, the Senior Class was given official recognition as part of the Commencement exercises and presented a play for both the college and the publie. Along with the Glee Club Concert, the Senior Play was one of the rare college events which men were asked to The sources suggest a fourth category where private plays were given on an impromptu basis, strictly for intimate friends, but further research is necessary to substantiate this. Alice Katherine Fallows, "Undergraduate Life At Smith College," (1898) p. 44; ’Articles About Smith,’ box 39; Smith College Archives. Elizabeth Lawrence Clarke, "Student Life," in L. Clark Seelye, The History o f Smith College, p. 196. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 60 attend. The women actors performed both the male and female roles, but in the public performances the women playing the male parts were not allowed to fully cross dress. "The only odd thing about the affair," wrote Hartwell, "is that the college rules forbid those who take men’s parts from appearing in strictly masculine attire, and as a result the actors have been men as to beards and coats, but that is the extent of the manly apparel, the soldiers and gallants strutting the stage and fighting duels in short skirts.""® Originally the productions were small in scale and offered only to intimate family and friends. Eventually, by the late 1880s, elaborate public productions became the norm and were given at the Northampton Opera House. Although the women had to abide by the restrictions exacted upon them by the administration regarding full cross dressing before the public, within the private space of their own houses they gave dramatic productions which showed much less restraint. "There being no men present, the girls of course dress as the scenes dictate.""’ The subversion of gender roles in the plays did not stop with cross dressing. In the public forum the women were obliged to follow the rules of female decorum, but privately they knowingly subverted even gender roles. Most striking were the dances held after the house-play productions. The ’house-play’ was put on strictly for the entertainment of fellow female students. After the play, refreshments and dancing usually follow, and the actors who have taken men’s parts, wearing their stage costumes, are the partners most desired by the guests,...'^" " * Myrtle May Hartwell, "Jolly Days At Smith: Recreation And Sport Among The College Girls, And An Account O f Their Amateur Dramatics," in The New England Home Magazine, vol. X, No. 9; February 25, 1900; p 387-391; box 39; Smith College Archives, p. 389. " " ibid. ibid. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 61 In these instances, the female actor playing the male part stepped off the stage and continued the gender crossing in real life, taking the male role in relationship to another woman. To reassure the public that the women at Smith did not prefer each other over men, Hartwell finished by reporting that "...although they [the female actors] are not on the whole as good as the real article, for, as one little maiden recently expressed it, ’They don’t have a way of holding you quite right, you know.’"'^‘ In addition to the Senior Play, house-plays, and impromptu dramatics, the records indicate that four formal dramatic societies existed at Smith. The first of these. The Alpha Society, was formed in January, 1878, by the Class of ’81. Initially a literary society. The Alpha, met every three weeks, and in a short time incorporated dramatic offerings into its programs of music, readings, and recitations.’^ ^ In the fall of 1878, the class of ’82 occupied the newly built Washburn house and formed their own society — "The 011a Podrida." The residents of the Hubbard House formed their own society in the fall of ’79 named "The Tertium Quid."’” In 1884, the Tenny and Stoddard Houses, both off-campus student dwellings, imited with the on-campus Dewey and Hatfield Houses and formed a fourth dramatic society, "The Sarm Ganok." It is difficult to estimate just how many plays were produced by these and other societies, clubs, and houses in a given year, but suffice to say that dramatics dominated student life. It was an arena where the women seized opportunities for gender reversals. ibid. Elizabeth Lawrence Clarke, "Student Life," in L. Clark Seelye, The History o f Smith College, p. 188. ibid., pp. 189-191. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 62 Societies and Clubs After 1887, The Alpha Society ceased most of its dramatic endeavors and became a literary society. The society was semi-secret, and appointment to The Alpha was one of the highest honors a student could attain. As the number of students increased at Smith, the prestigious society was unable to claim all of the "desirables" as its own. In 1892 a new society emerged from The Alpha, the Phi Kappa Psi, which quickly became as prestigious as the mother society. Phi Kappa Psi offered readings and recitations at its meetings, and on occasion collaborated with The Alpha to produce a play. "The principle secret societies at Smith are the Alpha and the Phi Kappa Psi, to either one of which a girl may be elected after her freshman year. In order to be eligible an undergraduate must possess decided talent for literature, or else be a general favorite."'^'' Intelligence, charm, success at acting, and athleticism were attributes that won a girl a place in one of these two societies. Alice Fallows, on the ideal type of girl chosen for The Alpha or Phi Kappa Psi, wrote, "The graceful butterfly with an outfit of brain-power, the executive girl who can manage anything form her own account-book to the college itself, the dramatic genius, and the successful athlete, often take a prominent place in Alpha or Phi Kappa Psi, the two literary societies in college.They were large organizations of up to one hundred women; still, to be chosen as a member was evidence of prominence among peers. Beginning in the early 1880s, numerous new clubs and societies appeared, each with it own organization and social functions. Faculty department heads presided over departmental clubs, but the students ran the operations. In 1884, official mention was made of the Biological Club, and in 1887 the Chemistry and Physics Club combined to Douglas Z. Doty, "Life at a Girls’ College," in M m sey's Magazine (Sept. 1899): p. 872; ’Articles About Smith,’ box 39; Smith College Archives. Alice Katherine Fallows, "Undergraduate Life At Smith College," (1898) p. 48. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6 3 form The Colloquium. The Glee Club’s first offieial appearanee as part of the senior eommeneement entertainment was in 1888, but the records show that the club was formed as early as the late 1870’s. During the 1890s the Voice, Greek, Mandolin, and Banjo Clubs formed. The Smith College Association for Christian Work was formed in 1892, and the Missionary, Philosophical, Oriental, and Student Aid Societies were formidable groups by the turn of the century. From 1900 to 1904, at least five modem language clubs emerged. Indeed, the public perception by the turn of the century was that there existed a club, organization, or society for every one of the 1,133 students enrolled at Smith. "If a girl possesses no particular literary ability or other valuable quality which might open to her the delights of Alpha, Phi Kappa Psi, or the Monthly, she can find a measure of comfort in one at least of the many clubs, varying in purpose as widely as the metaphysical speculations of the philosophical organization and the frivolous occupation of the "eat-clubs." Among the girls themselves are clubs innumerable, those bringing together...sewing-circles, reading-clubs, and a hundred others, which serve for the amusement of the girls themselves.'"^ In April, 1878, the Alpha Society initiated the first school newsletter — The Chip Basket. This paper evolved into The Alpha Paper, "the progenitor of all the student publication of the C o lle g e .I n 1881, The Alpha Quarterly emerged, and remained the literary product of The Alpha Society until 1893 when The Quarterly dissolved into The Smith College Monthly. The Smith College Monthly became its own organization, and from the senior class a board of editors was appointed. Alice Katherine Fallows, "Undergraduate Life At Smith College," p. 52. ™ Elizabeth Lawrence Clarke, "Student Life," in L. Clark Seelye, The History o f Smith College, p. 188. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6 4 Festivals, Dances, Teas, and Spreads The dramatic-culture, clubs and societies were spaces where Smith women experienced masculine positions of power and shaped traditions and rituals where they acted like men. Three annual events, The Junior Reception, The Freshman Reception, and The Freshman Frolic, were three additional signature traditions of Smith’s student culture where gender role reversals and gender subversion occurred. The Junior Reception was one of the few events in the women’s social calendar to which men were invited. The festivity was initiated on February 22, 1876, in honor of Washington’s Birthday. Costuming in colonial style, suppers, and sleep-overs marked the early years. By the early 1880s the day became known as the "walk-around" or "Eight mile," and the women went on extensive walks together around the town and countryside. A mid-1880s memorabilia book mentioned that for the first time men from Amherst joined the women in their "walk- arounds.'"^* By 1894 this event had evolved into a dance called the Junior Reception, and men from Amherst, Flarvard, Yale, and Princeton attended as the women’s guests. It was an event, however, in which the women controlled every aspect, from scheduling the day’s activities to determining who would be the men’s dance partners. The junior promenade [later referred to as the junior reception] is essentially the old ’walk around’ suited to present needs. Amherst and the brother colleges throng the campus as of old; they experience the same unique feeling of tables turned when their Smith friends pilot them through walks, drives, and teas, in the afternoon, the same sensations of surprise at the completeness of the arrangements when their hostesses usher them into the gymnasium in the evening and present them with carefully filled dance programs.'^* Similar to contemporary "Sadie Hawkin’s" dances, the tables were turned, so to speak, in which the girl invited the boy. The Junior Reception was the only heterosocial event in ' ibid., p. 211. ' Alice Katherine Fallows, "Undergraduate Life At Smith College," (1898) p. 54. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6 5 the Smith annual calendar. Nonetheless, during this one occasion of male/female interaction, the women took over most of the traditional masculine prerogatives. Like the Junior Reception, the Freshman Reception had its own rituals of gender role subversion. Inaugurated in the fall of 1878, the Alpha Society decided the previous May to hold a reception for the incoming class, "that they might be made better acquainted with each other and with the upper classes than had been the case when ’81 had entered.'"^" The next year the Class of ’82, whose members had been the recipients of the Freshman Reception the year before, arranged a social gathering for the incoming Class of ’83, thus establishing the tradition of the Freshman Reception given by the Sophomore Class."' The invitation read, "The members of the Class of ’82 desire to meet you at Social Hall Wednesday evening, September 17, 1879. Eight to Ten.'"” A memorabilia book describing the evening reported: After donning their Sunday gowns, the Freshmen went over in a body to Social Hall, and at the door of the same were met by Sophomore ushers who pinned a petite bouquet upon each Freshman...After that she was taken around the hall, and then there was dancing, and it was strange dancing...'” By the 1890s the was split into two separate functions; the Freshman Reception and Freshmen Frolic. Every member of the freshman class was invited to the Frolic/Reception by a Sophomore or upperclassman, who would meet her at her room, present her with flowers and gifts, then escort her to the reception/dance, where the Elizabeth Lawrence Clarke, "Student Life," in L. Clarke Seelye, The History o f Smith College, p. 189. ibid., pp. 190-191. ibid. ibid., p. 191. The phrase "strange dancing" is curious. 1 suspect that it quite possible that this comment referred to the pairing up of two women, however, without examining the entire diary, these conclusions remain speculative. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 66 couple would be presented. The freshman was given formal introduetion to all of the upperclassmen by her escort and after an hour or so, the dancing would begin. The Frolic was of considerable importanee for the freshmen, for it established her initial soeial prospects and socialized her into the expected roles and relationships at the school. By the end of the evening she gained "her first lesson in college standards; the college genius, the college beauty, the social belle, the girl bright, as well as popular, who belongs to a dozen societies and clubs, and the quiet girl, whose judgment everyone respects, are all pointed out to her by one or another as worthy of attention and regard.""^ The new freshman learned what it meant to be a "swell," an "all-around girl," a "grind," or "dig," and a "freak." And she was carefully guided — subtly and openly — to understand what type of girl was desirable, both to be and to be with. In the early days of the two events, the records show that the Frolie ended after an hour or so and was then followed by the Sophomore Reeeption. By 1900, the Sophomore Reeeption became a distinct event held weeks after the Freshman Frolic. The event was a ballroom danee in which a freshman assumed the role of the female and an upper-elass student took the male role. "Eaeh freshman is invited to the reception by a sophomore...who makes out her dance program, sends her flower, and escorts her to the gymnasium and safely home again. [s]he will be surprised to find herself whirled about in the waltz, or guided over the floor in two step measure, by a girl in evening dress, almost as well as by a conventional maseuline partner. She will be refreshed with lemonade, fanned, and entertained in the most polite way."‘^ ^ The event, the rituals, even "the couple," demonstrated the elaborate acting out of late nineteenth century heterosocial convention but in an all-female setting. Alice Katherine Fallows, "The Girl Freshman," Munsey’ s Magazine, (1898) p. 820. ibid. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6 7 In October, 1877, the first Mountain Day took place. This day became an annual event which evolved into one of the most beloved traditions among Smith students. The day involved none of the class and house rivalries. Every year, one Saturday in October, often scheduled the day after the Frolic, was designated as "Mountain Day." The women were released from their obligations at school and given the day to picnic together in informal groups, unchaperoned, in and around the mountains of the Connecticut Valley. By 1887 the day was printed in the yearly catalog as a school holiday.'^* An account of Mountain Day in The Smith College Monthly reveals the spirit of the festival in fostering college unity: "All day we forgot the strenuous games of basket ball where we ranged ourselves on each side of the gymnasium track and shouted our own praises to the opposite side. We were rather a big family, out on a picnic."’^ ’ In postscript to Seelye’s The Early History o f Smith College, Elizabeth Lawrence Clarke, class of 1883, wrote about Mountain Day as a harmless event in spite of its unconventionality. "The spirit of freedom is abroad on that day," wrote Clarke, "but, with all due allowances for exuberance of spirits we do not hear of conventions being too greatly disregarded."'^^ Clarke qualifies the "allowances" given to the women with the assurance that female propriety is maintained, most likely to quell parental and societal concerns for the lack of supervision (remember Amherst was only a dozen miles away). In any event. Mountain Day was another occasion where the women exercised an unusual degree of independence, in this case in the public arena. Each house had multiple activities on its calendar: teas, dances, plays, receptions, and inter-house athletic contests, all of which were facilitated by an elected house committee. L. Clark Seelye, The History o f Smith College, p. 210. Emma Dow Armstrong, Class o f ’04, The Smith College Monthly, vol. 10, No. 2, (Nov. 1902) p. 130. 138 L. Clark Seelye, The History o f Smith College, p. 211. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 68 The Smith College Monthly listed weekly house activities that filled virtually every afternoon, evening and weekend. Besides the official listings, the students themselves arranged private social gatherings in their houses and within their rooms. Private teas, late-night spreads, and plays were given on a regular basis for fellow students. Every house, club and society held what the students called "manless" dances; some were planned ahead where special friends were invited, on other occasions dances followed a tea or play. At these private gatherings some of the women took on the male role, even wearing masculine attire. "A student never forgets to tell a friend who is entering college to remember and steal a suit of her brother’s clothes before starting college, because she will need it as soon as she gets into Smith life.'"” Evidently, by the turn of the century, it was established tradition among the college women at Smith to arrive at school with a man’s suit. ’Spreads’ were occasions on which a student held an elaborate feast with friends in her room, often well past midnight, disregarding the ’ten o’clock rule.’ "Many a bold-spirited college alumna has recollections of stealing through inky-black halls full of shadowy terrors to the room of some other girl who was giving a spread. Can she ever forget the ploughedfield (the Smith species of fudge), the olives, dough-nuts, the candy, and the ghost stories, by the dim light of a waning moon?'""" In 1898, Fanny Garrison, class of ’01, wrote to her family about a spread she and her friends had in one of their rooms. "Last Saturday, I went to a spread in Martha Horrey’s room to meet Caroline Rumbold’s sister. Ghost stories were the order of the day and we had some good ones told.'"'" Myrtle May Hartwell, "Jolly Days At Smith," p. 390. Alice Katherine Fallows, "Undergraduate Life At Smith College," p. 56. Garrison, Fanny, Smith College, class of 1901; letter of June 10, 1898; box 1598 - correspondence;’ Smith College Archives. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6 9 Margaret Warde in Betty Wales, Freshman, and Betty Wales, Junior, describes the elaborate spreads put on by college women: The Chapin house girls decided...to turn their "spread" into the common college type, where "plowed field" and chocolate made with condensed milk and boiling water are the chief refreshments, and lighthearted sociability ensures a good time for everybody. The spread was to be in Betty’s room, partly because she owned the only chafing-dish in the house, and partly because eighteen girls— the nine hostesses and the one guest asked by each-could get into it without uncomfortable crowding.'"^ In their junior year, Betty and her friends gather for quite an exotic four course feast, which required not less than four chafing dishes: So there was plenty of space in Madeline’s room for giving an elaborate spread, and most elaborate was the mushroom party. Babbie’s chafing- dish was cooking the cream sauce for the "inky drippers." Madeline’s own chafing-dish, placed on one comer desk, was also lighted. "It is— oyster- mushroom soup," said Madeline, "and it’s the first course. Next come the ’inky drippers’, and then two entrees, giant puff-balls fried in batter, and meadow mushrooms broiled in butter and their own juice. A college ritual that was an established tradition among the women since the early days of Smith, "spreads" were occasions for female subversion of gender norms in two specific ways. According to Sherrie Inness in her examination of college novels, these elaborate feasts and overindulgence in eating at the women’s colleges can be understood as "potentially undermining the socially prescribed proper relationship between women and food; during an era when "ladies" were supposed to eat sparingly, college women are encouraged to eat heartily and take sensual pleasure in fbod.'""" The spread also provided opportunities for gender crossing. In a 1900 magazine article, an account of a spread at Margaret Warde, Betty Wales, Freshman; (Philadelphia: The Perm Publishing Company, 1904) p. 95. Margaret Warde, Betty Wales, Junior; (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1906) pp. 73-7. " " " Sherri Inness, Intimate Communities: Representation and Social Transformation in Women's College Fiction, 1895-1910 (Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1995) p. 22. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 0 Smith detailed the subversion of gender roles among the women in the privacy of a student’s residence. When a small number of girls get together, especially those who cannot feel the dignity of being upperclassmen, the real informal fun is most heartily indulged in. Every time a box comes from home for any one of the girls, the whole house enjoys a ’spread.’ Often to make full the evening’s pleasure, an entertainment of the most informal nature is carried out. Every girl who is the proud possessor of a suit of masculine attire becomes a m an.'^'^ As early as 1884, the administration recognized their lack of control over the activities of the students who lived in off-campus houses. Another concern, which involved the entire student population, was the conflict between the students’ social life and academics. "With the growth of the College, the students had become less homogeneous. More parents perceived it was a good place for their daughters, even when a college education was not desired as a means to a livelihood. Every year there was consequently a larger proportion of students who were perhaps more inclined to amusement than to study. ...Their predilection tended to increase the College festivities and sports, and greater vigilance was necessary to maintain the College standards, when nearly one half of the students lived in off-campus houses.'""^ These two concerns, the problem of controlling and overseeing the off-campus students’ social life and the apparent tilt in balance between social life and aeademics, led to the formation of an oversight eommittee in 1884-85, "to advise and direct all College entertainments."""^ Yet even though the ’official’ activities were under more strict supervision, the social life at Smith showed no signs of waning. 146 Myrtle May Hartwell, "Jolly Days At Smith," p. 391. L. Clark Seelye, The History o f Smith College, p. 63. i U . ' r l « A /I ibid., p. 64. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 71 In 1896, the Student Council formed. It functioned as an advisory body and liaison between the students and the faculty. The Council consisted of ten to eleven students: the four class presidents, three additional counselors from the Senior class, two from the Junior class, one from the Sophomore class, and the President of the Association for Christian Work.''** The main objectives of the Council were to represent the students in their common interests before the administration, to serve as an arbitrator between the classes, and between the students and faculty, and to be a regulatory influence on the student body, with particular focus on their social life. By the turn of the century, the activities of the women had become so extensive that limitations to the number of organizations any one student could belong to were introduced. In 1903 the Council recommended that students limit their membership to three clubs. "It has been felt that too much work has been put upon a few girls, and that several offices in College or Class, whatever they may be, demand more time than should be required of any one person.'""^ In 1906 the Council recommended various suggestions for the limitation of the number of departmental societies to which one student could belong. A point system was implemented to equalize the amount of time spent by the students in extracurricular activities. "The college made a list of the most important and burdensome honors and activities, assigned each of them points on a scale of one to six, and limited a student to fifteen points a semester.'"^® Students who served as heads of student government, in the Christian Association, the school newspaper, and leads in the senior play, received the highest number of points. The Class Presidents, editor of the literary magazine, head of the Athletic Association and the captains of major team sports received a lesser number ibid., p. 207. ibid., p. 206. 150 Helen Horowitz, Alma Mater, p. 156-7 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 2 of points. This attempt to democratize was also a reflection of the school’s abhorrence to individual prominence among the students. The administration, like mainstream society, considered it unfeminine for any one woman to stand out. The point system not only indicated which positions within the social life at Smith were considered the most demanding, but also the most prestigious and influential. To maintain its aim of preserving the femininity of its student body, the administration instituted a system that would discourage tendencies toward individual prominence. On arguably the most conservative women’s college campus at the turn of the century, the social life constructed by the women at Smith provided the arena through which they challenged feminine gender prescriptions. The social life dominated the lives of the women at Smith. In what ever capacity they participated, or even if they didn’t participate, the lives of Smith women were in large part determined, shaped, and transformed by the college life they created. The social life at Smith was an environment where women experimented with authority and leadership, and where they experienced prominence. The social life at Smith — the dramatics, societies, festivals, and private events — proved to be spaces for rebellion and subversion for these college women. Even as the college authorities gave sanction to the social life at Smith as a way of preserving the femininity of the student population, the students constructed their own ’college life,’ with rituals and traditions that turned ’femininity’ on its head. In the next chapter, an examination of the student cultures of athletics and smashing will complete my analysis of the social life at Smith. The athletic and smashing cultures at Smith figured most prominently in college women’s subversion of gender and in their empowerment. It was also within these cultural spaces where the women were allowed great latitude in passionate expression, toward their sports and toward one another. In Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 3 one capacity or another the entire student body at Smith College participated in the athletic culture, and it was within this arena that both passion and prominence were most keenly experienced. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 4 Chapter Three: Passion and Prominence: The Student Athletic Culture at Smith Coliege, 1875 to 1905 In the spring of 1905, freshman Mabel Tilton, class of ’08, wrote a series of letters home to her parents describing some of her new and exciting experiences at Smith College. She talked of skipping Latin class and getting caught, going on long walks at six a.m. in the morning, learning to ride astride for the first time as opposed to the accustomed sidesaddle (which, incidentally, she says was a difficult but positive transition), and the common petition from college students to their parents for more fu n d s.In many ways Mabel’s letters reveal the typical college experience for women at the turn of the twentieth century. What is extraordinary about this correspondence between Mabel and her parents, particularly with her mother, is that her letters reveal an empowering, collective, and subversive female student culture of athletics at Smith. Her letters talk about the festivities she takes part in the day of "The Big Game," an annual basket ball game played between the freshman and sophomores — a signature event at Smith. Whether the women were impassioned spectators, with which Mabel proudly identified, or actively participated in athletic competitions, the student athletic culture served as a space for rebellion against late nineteenth-century prescriptions for proper female decorum and character. Late nineteenth-century materials which address female participation in athletics, suggest that an athletic girl’s rise to prominence among her college peers and the frenzied passion the young female admirers directed toward them was troubling to the parents, the school administrators, and intellectual and medical elites. In addition, the language on female participation in athletics circulating during the 1890s can be identified with an Tilton, Mabel; Smith College, class o f 1908; letter of Feb. 18, 1905; letter of March 22, 1905; letter of June 2, 1905; box 1739 - correspondence. Smith College Archives. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 5 escalating concern toward the end of the nineteenth century over the culture of "smashing." It is my twofold aim in this essay to trace the development of an empowering and subversive student athletic culture at Smith College within the context of turn of the century American society and then to identify a connection between the culture of athletics and the culture of smashing. Thus far, this essay has examined and argued for a vibrant social life at Smith College — one which included multiple activities such as dramatics, student-govemment, clubs, societies, and official school festivities such as the Freshman Frolic, Mountain Day, and Commencement. The women’s calendars were filled with afternoon and evening meetings, house dances and plays, teas, and late-night spreads. These aspects of Smith’s social life occupied a large portion of the women’s college experience. However, another dimension of social life at Smith yet to be discussed was arguably the most dominant feature in the lives of the women at Smith — the student culture of athletics. Early sources suggest that an emerging athletic culture at Smith began to take shape within the first years of the college’s opening. By the turn of the century virtually every Smith student participated in the culture of athletics either as a spectator or participant. One explanation for the general interest in athletics among the women at Smith was that physical exercise was a part of the original college curriculum, and it remained mandatory for every student. Physical activity appealed to the women. Mabel Tilton, an overweight and non-athletic freshman, wrote how positive gymnastics class was for her: "I never worked so hard in my life in gym but it’s such fun!'"” For most of the women who entered Smith the exereise routines were strenuous, at least relative to their past athletic experiences. But the hard work was "fim," and they felt good doing it. In a '^^Tilton, Mabel; Smith College, elass of 1908; letter o f March 28,1905; box 1739 - correspondence; Smith College Archives. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 6 letter to her mother, Lura Bugbee proudly relates that her physical condition has greatly improved over the last two years since she had entered Smith. Her lung capacity increased from 115 cubic inches to 175. "Isn’t that good?" she writes. She talked about swimming, making good plays in ice-hockey (something she writes she had never done before), and going for long walks.’” Lura’s letters imply that she had entered Smith with little or no athletic experience. Yet within two years, she incorporated physical culture and athletic games into her daily routine and she felt better both emotionally and physically. A second explanation for the prolific athletic culture at Smith lies in the fact that from the earliest days of the college, the women showed an interest in athletic games so substantial that they inaugurated the games themselves. And the culture of athletics had a transformative effect on the women at Smith; the impact of sport found expression in the women’s bodies, in their social structure and relationships, and in their consciousness. In this chapter I will trace the history of the student culture of athletics at Smith from the early days of the college when the women first participated in sporting games, to the turn of the century when the culture dominated college life. Their participation in sport engendered serious implications concerning femininity and sexuality, with which the students, school authorities, and the public had to negotiate. By the 1890s, the "athletic girl" at Smith had appropriated two important male prerogatives: she was both prominent among, and desirable to, her college sisters. I will examine the central place that sporting activities occupied in the social life at Smith and conclude that the athletic culture became a powerful social and sexual force in the lives of the Smith College women. '"Bugbee, Lura Alice; Smith College, class of 1907; letter of April, 1905; box 1707 - correspondence; Smith College Archives. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 7 The students’ physical activity while at Smith included two major components — the official physical education curriculum and the extracurricular activities located in the social life of the college. From the college’s beginnings, the official curriculum consisted only of calisthenics and gymnastics. Through the turn of the century gymnastics continued to be compulsory for all the student body. Freshman Mabel Tilton wrote home describing her experience in gymnastics class "I’m mighty glad I elected spring gym. It is great sport, mostly apparatus work. I can climb 2 ropes as high as the gallery now ."'^"* Apparatus work and rope climbing, calisthenics and work with bar bells constituted the curriculum mandated by the Department of Physical Culture at Smith. Physical culture was a philosophy of exercise that had as its singular aim the health and well-being of women which at the same time would not compromise the students’ femininity. Exercise falling within this specification included walking, gymnastic work, calisthenics, or any form of light and noncompetitive sport such as rowing, tennis, golf, croquet, or fencing. Research on the history of physical culture at women’s educational institutions locates the existence of compulsory exercise from as early as the 1820s, reflecting a growing concern in American society about the state of women’s health. Mary Lyon, who founded Mt. Holyoke in 1837, required daily one mile walks and calisthenics from all her students.Physical culture was established at some of earliest of the women’s colleges — Vassar, Smith, and Wellesley — by the founders and administrators as part of the required curriculum for the entire student body. In 1892 President Seelye appointed Senda Berenson as Director of the Department of Physical Culture. A graduate of the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics, Berenson’s Tilton, Mabel; Smith College, class of 1908; letter o f March 28, 1905; box 1739 - correspondence; Smith College Archives. Helen Horowitz, Alma Mater, p. 25. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 8 philosophy on female physical culture was a complex mix of conservative and progressive elements. Dudley Sargent, director and professor of physical training at Harvard and the head of the Boston School of Normal Gymnastics, was Berenson’s mentor. Sargent was a major critic of the development of competitive sport at Harvard, and he greatly influenced Berenson on the issue of women’s competitive athletics. Upon her arrival at Smith, Berenson implemented an evolved version of the "Swedish System," the exercise system that Elizabeth Blackwell and Catharine Beecher introduced and popularized for women in the United States during the 1850s. Noncompetitive and designed to promote health, strength, and vigor, sport under this system served as another antidote to the potential dangers for women who pursue a higher education. Berenson advocated for the strengthening and symmetry of the female body; but certain tendencies in sport, such as rough and intense competitiveness was regarded as particularly masculine and to be avoided at all costs. Sports such as tennis, rowing, fencing, and eventually basket ball, were evaluated by physical culture educators to determine their benefits and dangers for women. And if necessary, the rules and structure of a sport were modified, and the sport made "scientific," so that the stated aims of exercise — balance, symmetry, and ultimately female deportment — would not be compromised. For Berenson and others it became a question of how to negotiate the new masculine competitiveness with the rise in female athletic participation. However, well before Berenson arrived there was already among the women at Smith an established fascination with athletic competitions, just as there was at the men’s eolleges. In the first three years after Smith’s opening, the few extracurricular activities recorded that the women participated in were rowing and skating on Lake Paradise, hiking and snowshoeing in the surrounding hills, and walking around the campus grounds and to the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 9 nearby town of Northampton. By the fall of 1877, Mountain Day, which involved all day hiking around the Hampshire Mountains, became a major annual event for the college. This festivity reflected an intense interest in walking by the students — which had become an important part of the students’ initiation into college life. An 1880 article in the early college newspaper. The Chip Basket, describes an introductory event for the incoming students in the form of brisk walks. These walks likely evolved into two separate annual events — the Freshman Frolic and the Junior Reception. Initially, each new student was "invited by [a member of] the class next higher to an entertainment, nominally a reception, but in reality a walking-match. At ten P.M., physically invigorated, and mentally unwearied, the Freshman leaves the track with delightful anticipations of similar matches, in which Amherst students take a prominent part.'"^* The "similar matches" with Amherst students likely refers to the "walk-arounds" or "eight mile" event which had, by 1883, become an established part of the college’s yearly social calendar and was one of the few occasions for heterosexual interactions. The women did not stroll; their walking excursions were intense activities and they walked fast. In a letter home, Josephine Wilkin described numerous walks she took with friends up Hospital Hill and the surrounding area. "Altogether I have walked three or four miles today, and feel as if I were gaining, as my foot has stood it beautifully.'"” Although Josephine apparently had some sort of foot problem, she recorded no less than four long and vigorous walks within a two day period. "Athletic Exercises of Smith College," The Chip Basket, vol. 1, No. 5, October 16, 1880, pp. 91-92. Wilkin, Josephine Dunlap; Smith College, class of 1895; letter o f March 6, 1892; box 1512 - correspondence, Smith College Archives. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 80 By 1879 there were records of Smith women forming "baseball nines" and playing inter-elass, inter-house, and faculty— student contests.'^* Minnie Stevens, elass o f ’83, contended that she had formed such a team her freshman year. "Perhaps you have never really heard how Smith College happened to get the athletic field... Way back in seventy- nine, I was more or less active and full of fun. It seemed to me that we ought to have some lively games in the way of wholesome exercise, so I got a few friends together and we organized a base ball club. We had no place to play except on the lawn in front of the Hubbard House. It was at that time quite extensive and although not an ideal field, it did very well for beginners. This was probably the first time these women played a cooperative, team sport. It was more common for middle and upper-class women at this time to engage in individual sports like croquet, archery and horseback riding. In the 1860s and 70s baseball became a popular sport among male elites; for most of the middle to upper-class women who attended Smith, baseball was a spectator sport, and it was likely they learned the game from watching their male friends play at upper-class athletic clubs. The female students’ participation in baseball, as well as other athletic activities and games that were traditionally male, was a phenomenon that did not go unchallenged, especially at Smith, with the administrations’ fear of unconventional behavior. Gai Berlage, in her study of women’s baseball at the Eastern colleges writes, "Smith, Vassar, and Holyoke with their Gai I. Berlage, "Sociocultural History and the Origin of Women’s Baseball at the Eastern Women’s Colleges During the Victorian Period," in Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and the American Culture, Alvin L. Hill, ed.; (New York; Meckler Publishing, in association with The State University of New York College, Oneonta, 1989) p. 114. Minnie Stevens, quoted from ibid. p. 114. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 81 separate campuses secluded from the view of outsiders offered a unique environment for women to develop in a world of their own."‘“ Student letters indicate that baseball clubs, house and class teams, and recreational play remained a part of the social life at Smith well into the twentieth century. Students wrote freely in their letters home about the game, but conflicts did exist over their participation. In early May, 1898, Fanny Garrison wrote to her mother that she will take her advise and give up playing base-ball. "I have sworn off base-ball as you and Gerturde both think I had better not, and I see the force of what you say very well. It is not a great sacrifice, either. There is plenty else to do."‘^ ’ Yet just one month later Fanny wrote home again to her family, apparently back at her baseball exploits. "To-day, I indulged in a game of base-ball — playing on a freshman team under May Lewis, against the Dickinson House. We won 13 to 12."'“ Another student, Ruth Lusk, class of 1900 wrote, "The spring of 1898 and 1899— Dickinson House had a baseball team called White Squadron. Other houses had teams too, and we played interhouse games. In a 1904 article in The Illustrated Sporting News, Elizabeth Paine wrote concerning baseball at Smith: "Baseball is played in a happy-go-lucky fashion, without formal organization.'"^ Gai Berlage, "Sociocultural History and the Origin of Women’s Baseball at the Eastern Women’s Colleges During the Victorian Period," p. 104. Garrison, Fanny, Smith College, class of 1901; letter of May 8, 1898; box 1598 - correspondence;’ Smith College Archives. Garrison, Fanny, Smith College, class of 1901; letter o f June 3, 1898; box 1598 - correspondence;’ Smith College Archives. Ruth Lusk, quoted from Gai Berlage, "Sociocultural History and the Origin of Women’s Baseball at the Eastern Women’s Colleges During the Victorian Period," p. 114-15. Elizabeth Paine, "Physical Training in Women’s Colleges— Smith," in The Illustrated Sporting News, (June 4, 1904) p. 17. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 82 The Smith College Monthly reported in 1900 that interest in baseball was increasing among the women: Base ball is fast becoming a rival of tennis. The field back of the Lawrence House is used for the diamond, and directly after supper, the proper time for "scrub" games, a hastily selected nine may be seen playing vigorous base ball, supplying in zeal what they lack in tactics. This impromptu practice is not always strictly scientific, as the rest of the team are often obliged to remonstrate with the girl who remains sitting on first base until her scattered side-combs are properly adjusted, or to reassure her timid sister who shrinks from stealing a base; but the games on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons are really fairly well played, and are excellent exercise. Baseball, as it was played by the women at Smith, was not "scientific." In the sources examined for this study, baseball at women’s colleges was primarily organized in an impromptu and unofficial fashion. Unlike other sports, there were no school wide contests or championships mentioned in any press accounts, the students’ letters, the school newspaper, or in the college novels based on Smith. In a 1908 interview for The New York Herald, President Seelye was asked to comment on the benefits of athletic sports for women. Seelye commended the modem woman for her mental and physical growth over the past quarter of a century, due in large part to her participation in sport. But he singled out baseball as particularly distasteful for women to play: "We believe in athletics of the moderate sort, but there are some things a woman should learn she cannot do. The moment she tries to become a baseball pitcher she loses her greatest charm— grace. Baseball at Smith offers an important window into the student athletic culture at the college. Baseball was sustained by the students in spite of disapproval from parents and Ethel H. Freeman 1902, "About College," The Smith College Monthly, vol. 7, No. 8, (May 1900) p. 463. "A Girls’ Town," New York Herald (Sunday, October 4, 1908. — Magazine Section); writings on Smith, box 39, Smith College Archives. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 83 school authorities. Berlage’s argument that baseball was subversive and hidden from public view is a reasonable conclusion in that unlike tennis, basket ball, or gymnastics, or any of the other sports the women played at Smith, baseball received virtually no press coverage, there were no tournaments, championships, or official school contests, and the president did not support female participation. The women’s participation and maintenance of baseball, from the beginning of the college through the turn of the century, suggests that within the culture of athletics college women had agency — in light of real opposition and disapproval, the female students exacted control over their college life. Tennis was introduced at Smith in 1881, and a court was marked out on the lawn in front of the Hubbard House. Like baseball, this sport did not go without some initial disapproval. In an addendum to L. Clark Seelye’s historical account of Smith College, Smith alumna Elizabeth Lawrence Clarke wrote concerning the introduction of tennis at Smith, "Tennis was just being heard of. A young professor from Johns Hopkins interviewed the President with respect to marking out a court on a part of the campus. Permission was rather hardly obtained — for it was an innovation and perhaps a manly one."’* ^ ’ But permission was granted, and immediately twelve students formed the first tennis club at Smith. President Seelye noted in his memoirs that in June 1881, "12 of Hubbard House buy a tennis net.'"^* Within months three new courts were marked out on the lawn, indicating an increased interest on the part of the Smith women in playing the game. In October, 1882, the first tennis tournament was held. The next month an "open" tournament was held with sixteen entries: fourteen students and two men, one from Northampton and the other a faculty member. Within two years the campus lawns were '"Elizabeth Lawrence Clarke, "Student Life," in L. Clark Seelye, The History o f Smith College, 1871- 1910; p. 192 (emphasis mine). ibid. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8 4 covered with marked out tennis courts where the women played the game. "Small tournaments were held each spring or fall with more or less College recognition — class tournaments developed and the College championship in singles and doubles evolved.'"*’ During the 1880s and the early 1890s the Smith College Tennis Championships became arguably the most important athletic events of the year. An 1892 newspaper artiele reported the event as "one of the most brilliant athletic tournaments of any character that have yet distinguished college annals, either Smith’s or Amherst’s, Wellesley’s or Harvard’s, Vassar’s or Yale’s, as all the expert critics of physical "higher education" who were present agree, some of the most remarkable exhibitions of artistic expertness in scientifie tennis being given by the sixteen young ladies who participated in the tournament, every class being represented.'"™ In 1894, a local newspaper recorded that the annual tennis tournament was played "before a most enthusiastic multitude of the girls and their friends.'"” An 1895 Smith College Monthly editorial mentioned the high level of interest in tennis generated among the college women. "As many of the girls are interested in tennis, a great deal of attention has been paid to the care of the courts. There are now several courts which will be in good condition for playing directly after the spring vacation, so that practice for the June tournament can begin."’™ That same year, senior Josephine Wilkin wrote home to her mother describing every detail of the college tournament. "Yesterday afternoon the first part of the tennis tournament came off. We (’95) had two set of players, our champions Mabel Cummings and Annie Allen, who won ibid., pp. 191-193. '™ "Tennis Tournament at Smith," 1892 article from 1895 records A - R, box 1496; Smith College Archives. 1894 article, author/title unknown; Athletics file, box 1374, Smith College Archives. "About College," in The Smith College Monthly, vol. 2, No. 7, (April, 1895) p. 46. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8 5 the tournament Freshman year, lost it Soph, year, and didn’t play last year on account of Mabel’s illness.'"” Josephine went on to describe the matches almost play by play: In the second game — by this I mean that certain girls had played together, and two on each court had won 2 out of 3 sets, so they were to play with the victors in other events — it so happened that Mabel and Annie were to play against Laura and Jo. The each won a set and the last set was desperately even, when all of a sudden Laura got a cramp in her knee, and had to give up completely.'^" Josephine continued on in her letter, detailing the rest of the tournament for her mother. In the end, Josephine’s classmates, to her great delight, ended up winning the tournament. Fanny Garrison devoted ten pages to the 1898 tennis championship matches in which her class was represented. She gave details of the dresses the players wore, she wrote out the songs the freshmen and sophomores sang to their class players, and she wrote about the great enthusiasm of the students who came out to watch the matches: [t]he tennis tournament of the college... began last Saturday when the match of most interest to us freshmen was the one between two sophomores on one side and two freshmen on the other. At one time it looked as though 1900 would win and their yell rang out,-" 1900, rah, rah, rah, Leese and Morton, See them sportin’, 1900, rah, rah, rah." In return, we prepared the yell, -"May and Julia, Quite peculiar. How they walk on Leese and Morton." Tuesday some more games were played off, a fact which made us spend the whole aftemoon on the campus watching them. Wednesday, however, was the fete day, however of the whole tournament and everyone turned out in their pretty clothes.'” Wilkin, Josephine Dunlap; Smith College, class of 1895; letter o f June 10, 1895; box 1512 correspondence. Smith College Archives. ibid. ibid. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 86 Another student, Marjorie Gane wrote home about a tennis racket she had purchased; "I have bought a tennis-racket with some of my own money and expect to let tennis do for my out-door exercise, in the main.'"’* By the turn of the century interest in tennis among the student body had increased so much that in 1904, when a donor gave Smith College a tract of land of about ten acres, it was decided to build twelve tennis courts, along with a hockey field,'” basket ball grounds, and a small club house.”* According to Alice Fallows in an 1898 article, the Smith woman with tennis prowess could gain advantages among her college peers because of the competition involved. Activities like skating and snowshoeing were pleasures for the women to enjoy, she said, "but tennis practice may mean the championship at the tournament in the spring, and a reputation throughout the college."'” The women at Smith played tennis for fun, for their health, for the excitement of competition, and for prestige. All of the extant sources — the students’ letters, the college newspapers, the public accounts — reveal a student athletic culture that dominated college life. Extracurricular sporting activities became so popular among the Smith women that to gain some control over them, the school authorities in 1893 formed an athletic association, a governing body of students and faculty to oversee all the athletic activity at the college. "In the spring of Gane, Marjorie, Smith College, class of ’01; letter of May 8, 1898; box 1608 - correspondence, Smith College Archives. An Englishwoman, Miss Appleby, introduced the game of field-hockey to American college women in 1901. Field-hockey has very intriguing implications in terms of gender; however, because it was introduced so late within the parameters of my study, I have chosen not to incorporate an examination of the sport into this master’s essay. L. Clark Seelye, The History o f Smith College, 1871 - 1910\ p. 123; Margaret Hotchkiss, class of 1904, "The New Athletic Field," in The Smith College Monthly, vol. 10, No. 9, (June, 1903) p. 610. Alice Katherine Fallows, "Undergraduate Life At Smith College," (1898) p. 46; ’Articles About Smith,’ box 39; Smith College Archives. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8 7 1893, the students of Smith College, realizing that they were in need of a society to promote athletics, organized a club for that purpose.The ’Field and Gymnasium Association’ quickly "rose from a name to a power" on the campus.’* ’ In the first year of its existence, approximately three hundred girls out of a student body of 746, joined the association. By 1895, the association had under its control the tennis, boating, and walking clubs. "Its aim was to increase facilities for athletic sports and to create a more organized interest in them."’* ^ Athletic interest had taken such hold of the student body that most of the physical activity the women engaged in was in addition to the required curriculum and was outside of administrative control. In the 1895 catalogue the Gymnasium and Field Association was listed as "open to all members of the College under the direction of the Department of Physical Culture, the aim of which is to cultivate interest in physical education and outdoor sports."’* * In 1895, with the college student body numbering 787, the walking club alone had over 120 members.’* '* By the turn of the century there were house teams, class teams, and independent clubs for hockey, archery, crew, bicycling, horseback riding, cricket, croquet, swimming, fencing, and golf. A character in Margaret Warde’s Betty Wales, Freshman sighed, "Meanwhile there was no reason for not enjoying life to the utmost. Golf, boating, walking, tennis — there were ten ways to spend every spare minute."’* ^ By the 1890s when athletic competitions became officially recognized by the administration, a student who was a member of an athletic Maud Elliott Jackson, The Smith College Monthly, vol. 3, No. 8, (May 1896) p. 50. Rebecca Kinsman, "The Term," in The Alpha Quarterly, vol. 1, No. 6, (June, 1893) p. 21. "About College," The Smith College Monthly, vol. 2, No. 7, (April, 1985) p. 46. L. Clark Seelye, The History o f Smith College, 1871 - 1910', p. 193. "About College," The Smith College Monthly, vol. 2, No. 7, (April, 1895) p. 46. Margaret Warde, Betty Wales, Freshman (Philadelphia: The Penn Publishing Company, 1904) p. 292-3. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 88 team would even receive an exemption from attending gymnastics class. Otherwise, only a doctor’s excuse could exempt a student from the college’s physical education requirement. The stated purpose of the Athletic Association, that of "cultivating interest" in athletics among the women, was certainly not an issue at this time. It is more reasonable to assume that the increasing interest that the students showed in athletic contests and the overzealousness the women demonstrated in sporting activities might have been the real concern. But one sport more than any other captured the imagination of the women at Smith College. In 1892, Senda Berenson, the newly appointed Director of Physical Culture at Smith College, introduced the game of basket ball to her gymnastics class as a diversion from the regular exercises. More importantly, Berenson introduced the game with the aim to develop qualities that the emerging "new woman" needed in the modem world. Within months of the introduction of basket ball, the women formed basket ball clubs, class and house teams, and they began to play among themselves outside of organized gym class. Senda Berenson continued to view gymnastic class work as "the most important form of exercise for the development of health and endurance of the student," but she also felt that, "carefully supervised games bring out, as no formal gymnastics may, certain characteristics that are so necessary to the modem woman: — such as, self reliance, quickness of mind and body, self control, the sacrifice of the individual to the team - the cause and elements that make for character.'"** "Directors of gymnasia," wrote Berenson in 1899, "saw at once that it [basket ball] was, perhaps, the game they were eagerly seeking— one that should not have the rough element of foot ball, yet should be a *Senda Berenson, Dec. 11, 1906 letter to Moses True; folder 25, box 679; Smith College Archives. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 89 quick, spirited game— should cultivate strength and physical endurance, and should be interesting enough to become a part of the physical training for women as foot ball and base ball are for men."‘* ^ The game served a new generation of educated women and their expanding roles in the public realm. Berenson wrote: But it is because I believe that competitive games are such tremendous forces for good as well as for evil that I would have those elements in them encouraged which bring out the love of honor, courage and fair play, and eliminate those which encourage the taking advantage of laws, cruelty, brutality and unfairness. Games are invaluable for women in that they bring out as nothing else just these elements that women find necessary today in their enlarged field of activities.’* ® Team play, experienced through participation in a game like basket ball, was viewed as the critical avenue through which women learned loyalty and cooperative skills, qualities which were not thought to be natural in females. Dr. Luther Gulick, a major figure in the physical education movement at the turn of the century and who worked closely with Berenson in shaping women’s rules for basket ball, also believed that the sport developed psychological and moral qualities necessary for the modem woman and her changing status. "I desire to call attention," wrote Gulick in 1899, "to the bearings of the psychology of team-play upon some of the more fundamental matters concerning the nature of woman and her place in our civilization. Team-work means the frequent subordination of self interests to the interests of the team. These games demanding team- play are played by Anglo-Saxon peoples, and by these peoples alone, and may thus be said to be a differentiating characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon adolescent male. It is, " * ’Senda Berenson, "Editorial," Basket Ball fo r Women: As Adopted by the Conference on Physical Training, Held in June, 1899, at Springfield, MA (New York: American Sports Publishing Company, 1903), located on line @ <http://clio.fivecolleges.edu/smith/berenson/5pubs/bball_women/indes.shtml?>. '**Senda Berenson, "Significance o f Basket Ball for Women," ibid., p. 33-34. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9 0 ethically, of a higher order than is individual play.'"®’ Women, Gulick argued, were not naturally as loyal or as inelined to organize in groups and societies as men were. Gulick shared the view with Berenson that basket ball, "when it is done in a thoroughly scientific way with primary attention to team-work, it calls for qualities that are rather unusual."™ With woman’s changing status in society the development of these qualities was imperative for success. We are in a time of great unrest in regard to the status of woman. She is entering many lines of work that hitherto have been carried on entirely by men. Whatever may be the outcome of this time of unrest, there certainly must grow among women a kind of loyalty to each other, of loyalty to the groups in which they naturally are formed, that is greater than obtains at present. Loyalty to the team and the playing of team-work appears to me to be no mean faetor in the development and expression of this quality upon which our civilization rests— the capacity for co-operation, the capacity for being willing to set aside a part even o f one’ s own rights in order to win the larger benefits of co-operative endeavor.”' Gulick’s philosophy on women’s participation in a team sport such as basket ball implied that women who learn team-work and cooperation skills support the advancement of the Anglo-Saxon race. I eontend that Gulick’s statement can also be read as a subtle address on the question of women’s rights. Women contribute to the advance of the race by subordinating their own self interests. Learning team-work through a sport like basket ball would influence women to abandon such self-serving pursuits as their own rights. One of the problems that developed after basket ball was introduced at Smith was that the game so captured the imagination of the women that it began to dominate college life and impact the college’s democratic ideals. One of the gravest concerns was that basket Luther Gulick, "The Psychological Effects of Basket Ball for Women," ibid., pp. 13-15. ibid., p. 19. ibid., (emphasis mine). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 91 ball "stars" began to emerge and that students gained great status among their peers and in the college’s social hierarchy through their participation in the sport. Berenson recognized that the game exposed college women to these certain dangers that she wanted to avoid. "Just as basket ball may be made an influence for good," wrote Berenson, "so may it be made a strong influence for evil. It is a well known fact that women abandon themselves more readily to an impulse than men. This shows us that unless we guard our athletics carefully in the beginning, many objectionable elements will quickly come in. It also shows us, that unless a game as exciting as basket ball is carefully guided by such rules as will eliminate roughness, the great desire to win and the excitement of the game will make our women do sadly unwomanly things.'"®^ Berenson, concerned that the game of basket ball was potentially threatening to the students’ femininity, fashioned a modified game of basket ball, dramatically redrawing the rules observed by college men. The "scientific" rules she developed for basket ball restricted players to four basic guidelines. First, the court was divided into three areas and players were restricted to a space based on their position on the team. For instance, the center had to remain within the specified area under her team’s basket; also, a guard was restricted to a space in the middle of the court, divided on the right and left sides, thus limiting her chance for scoring any points. Second, when guarding a player holding the ball, the defender could neither touch the ball nor bat it out of an opponent’s hand. Third, physical contact of any kind was disallowed. Finally, a player could not hold onto a ball for more than three seconds without passing it to a teammate. The new rules kept outstanding players from dominating the game, limited overexertion, and eliminated Senda Berenson, "Significance o f basket ball for Women," Line basket ball fo r Women, Senda Berenson, ed (New York: A.G. Spalding, 1901). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9 2 roughness due to physical contact. In addition, Berenson advocated "careful supervision" of the women’s play so that they would not develop "unwanted tendencies.'"” Berenson’s aim for athletics fell right in line with the college’s philosophy — that of developing important qualities in the "new woman," while preserving her womanliness. It was "roughness," "the desire to win," and "excitement" that worried Berenson — "unwomanly" tendencies she felt jeopardized the students’ femininity. Yet her concern for a loss of self-control in the final analysis, seems directed, not only toward the female athlete, but also toward the impassioned student spectator, the adoring female fan. In response to the immediate and extraordinary student interest in basket ball, Senda Berenson set up a contest between the sophomore and freshmen classes in the spring of 1893, creating a campus-wide event. Within one year this event became the hallmark of Smith College social life. Local and statewide newspapers reported on "The Big Game" at Smith College. One 1894 article, headlined "BRILLIANT BASKET BALL," identified the game as the central event of Smith’s social life: "The event of the college year, amusementwise, was the banner annual in the whole list of social and entertaining features of college life— the Basket Ball tournament of Saturday aftemoon, 17th."'®‘ * Another article reported, "Saturday saw the great basket ball game between the sophomores and the freshmen of Smith college. Even the faculty have watched the various stages of the practice and the outcome of the game with great interest.'"” Every year interest and enthusiasm for the "Big Game" increased. In 1895, one newspaper reported the Senda Berenson, "Significance o f basket ball for Women," in basket ball fo r Women: As Adopted by the Conference on Physical Training, Held in June, 1899, at Springfield, Mass., Senda Berenson, ed. (American Sports Publishing Company, 1900) p. 39. """'Brilliant Basket Ball," 1894 news article, source unknown; located in Athletics/Basket Ball file, box 1345, Smith College Archives. "The College Contest," Daily Hampshire Gazette, March 19, 1894. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9 3 extraordinary high price of tickets to watch the game: "The gymnasium was packed with partisan spectators. In fact seats were in such demand that $15 was paid for a single o n e ." '^ ® In the students’ letters, the college novels, and the school newspapers examined for this study, no college event or aspect of college life at Smith was mentioned more often than the "Big Game" played between the freshmen and sophomore teams. In 1894, freshman Grace Whiting wrote home about the "Big Game" that was to take place in a month and how the campus buzzed with excitement over basket ball. "We are getting very much excited over basket ball as there is a match to come off soon between ’96 and ’97...We are going to practice the 22nd and ’wipe up the floor’ Friday. Really it’s the most exciting thing you ever saw. The teams that aren’t playing get up in the running-track and hang their feet over applauding violently most of the time.'"’’ Josephine Wilkin, who as a freshman in 1892 had written home about the new game of basket ball she learned in gym class, continued through her senior year to write enthusiastically about the game: "Yesterday the Freshman and Sophomores played basket ball against eachother, and it was a wildly exciting game." A decade later in 1904, freshman Lura Bugbee, writing to her family the morning of the "Big Game," is enthusiastic about the impending game: "Dear home:-...Today is the big game and John says it will be close; there will be great excitement today I can tell you."”* In Josephine Dodge Daskam’s Smith College Stories, published in 1900, the opening story ("The Emotions of a Sub-Guard") details the game’s ceremony and traditions, as "The Smith Sophomores Beat the Freshmen in Basket Ball," 1895 news article, source unknown; located in Athletics/Basket Ball file, box 1345. " ”Whiting, Grace, Smith College, class of 1897; letter o f Feb., 18, 1894; box 1537 - correspondence. Smith College Archives. '’*Bugbee, Lura Alice; Smith College, class of 1907; letter of March, 1904; box 1707 - correspondence. Smith College Archives. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9 4 well as the intensity of the contest and the significance that the game and the day held for the students. In the story’s account of the "Big Game," each team has its own mascot and class banners are hung across the gymnasium. Students begin waiting in line outside of the gymnasium hours before the start of the game. When the gym has filled with students, with their legs dangling over the railing, class cheers and songs are competitively bantered between the freshmen and sophomore spectators. The procession of the freshman and sophomore basket ball teams onto the floor raises the level of excitement among the women to a pitch, and finally the presentation of the College President to the event signals that the "Big Game" is about to begin.'*® Daskam’s story begins with a ’green’ freshman, Theodora, who had made her class basket ball team as a sub-guard with no anticipation of playing. But in the middle of the story the shy Theodora is called into the game in front of 1200 of her college mates and she is asked to rescue her freshman team, as well as the freshman class, from certain humiliation. In the end her team gallantly loses to the sophomores, however, because of Theodora’s spark upon entering the game, she and her team are extolled as heroic. Theodora’s freshmen class cheers from the gallery and singing verse to her: Here’s to Theodora Root, She’s our dandy substitoot. Drink her down, drink her down, drink her down, down, down!““ In another college story based on Smith College, Betty Wales, Freshman, the first installment in a series of books that trace the life of a college woman and her friends from their freshman year through their senior year, the central story-line is a buildup to the Josephine Dunlap Daskam, Smith College Stories: Ten Stories, (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1900; 1921 edition) pp. 1-33. ibid., p. 21. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9 5 "Big Game" between the freshman and sophomores. Most of the book is centered around the importance that the "Big Game" has on the life of Betty Wales and the other central characters in the story. "Well, I thought I’d seen some excitement before," declared Betty Wales, "but I was mistaken. Even the rally was nothing to this." The day of the great basket-ball game has come at last. The college has turned out en masse to witness the struggle."^' Betty, a popular freshman, and an "all-around girl" barely missed making her class team. But she is determined to work hard and be chosen to play on her class team the next year. Her roommate, Helen Chase Adams, a bit of a ’grind’ and not much of an athlete, has more modest ambitions — she determines to write a song for the next year’s team. Betty, speaking to Helen ponders on the significance of basket ball in their life: "Isn’t it queer," Betty went on, "we’re not a bit alike, but this game is making us feel the same way. I wonder if the others feel so too. Perhaps it’s one reason why they have this game— to wake us all up and make us want to do something worth while. Just as it was described in the college novels, in preparation for the game the freshman and sophomore classes would decorate the gymnasium with their class colors and banners, and the devoted underclass women wore corsages, ribbons, and sashes in colors representing their team loyalty, and they dressed in their nicest attire for the festive occasion. The juniors coached and supported the freshman team from one side of the gym, while on the opposite side the seniors did the same for the sophomore team. "The spectators, about 1000 girls, were seated in galleries running across and along the sides of the gymnasium. One gallery was tastefully hung with violet, the sophomore team’s color. Margaret Warde, Betty Wales, Freshman-, p. 255 (author’s emphasis), ibid., p. 270. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 96 and the other with yellow, the color of the freshmen."^” Freshman Mabel Tilton, class of ’08, waited nearly three hours in line outside of the gym to be guaranteed a good seat. "At 11 a.m. [we] went over to gym and stood in line from about 11:15 to 2:30 p.m. When the doors opened there was an awful mob, but as we stood in line so long we were among the first ten in."“‘ ‘ The entire college turned out for the game; to miss it occasioned serious condemnation from fellow students. In Betty Wales, Freshman the novel’s antagonist is a girl who didn’t care to go to the game, and her social standing suffered for it. "The Saturday afternoon of the game she (Eleanor Watson) had spent, much to the disgust of her friends, on the way to New York."“^ The disregard Eleanor shows toward her class by not showing up to cheer for the freshman basket ball team is the beginning of the demise of her popularity at college. Except for male faculty, administrators, and a few of the students’ fathers, men were not allowed at the game. Apparently, even male reporters from Northampton and as far away as Boston, who wrote detailed accounts of the game, were not allowed in the gymnasium and had to wait for school representatives to get the particulars about the event. During the game the students would cheer and sing in wild support of their respective teams. Mabel Tilton explained in a letter to her mother that she lost her voice cheering wildly at the "Big Basket Ball Day." "Everybody went crazy and cheered and sang and we had a fine rough-house.Yet the school authorities didn’t like it. What was at issue ^ "No Man In It." The Boston Sunday Globe, Sunday, March 18, 1894; Athletics/Basket Ball file, box 1345, Smith College Archives. Tilton, Mabel, Smith College, class o f 1908; letter of March 22, 1905; box 1739 - correspondence, Smith College Archives. Margaret Warde, Betty Wales, Freshman-, p. 279. ibid. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9 7 for them, and particularly for Berenson, was that the shouting and cheering bordered on unladylike behavior. "Hundreds of violet and yellow flags fluttered violently at the exciting periods of the game. Yelling was prohibited by Miss Berenson, so the girls sang rival snatches of song."^” ’ After the first game, played in 1894, Berenson prohibited the students from cheering. This rule was still in effect for the 1897 game: "Class yells were prohibited by the unsympathetic instructor of gymnastics, but even this mandate could not prevent falsetto squeals of delight or anguish when good or poor plays were exhibited by the teams. If yelling was prohibited, singing was not."^® * In both of the college novels examined for this study, a central figure who is obsessed about maintaining the femininity of the women, particularly the non-athlete spectator, represents Berenson. In both Betty Wales, Freshman and Smith College Stories, the physical education instructor threatens to stop the game if the cheering doesn’t stop. "The freshmen were shouting and thumping as if they never heard that it was unladylike to do so. Miss Andrews (the Berenson figure in the Betty Wales novels) blew her whistle. "Either the game will stop or you must be less noisy, " she commanded, and amid the ominous silence that followed she threw the ball."^“ ® Daskam’s account is even harsher. "Miss Kassan says this must be a quiet game! She will not have that howling!" Later in the story, a freshman player executes an amazing play that electrifies the fans in the gallery. "This feat of Grace’s passed as the most daring of manoeuvres, and received such wild applause that Miss Kassan very nearly stopped the game. "What shall I do? This is terrible. I never heard sueh noise as the freshmen are making!" she mourned, with an "No Man In It." The Boston Sunday Globe, Sunday, March 18, 1894; Athletics/Basket Ball file, box 1345, Smith College Archives. "Smith Sophs: They Win Aimual Game o f Basket Ball." 1897 article, source unknown; Athletics/Basket Ball file, box 1345, Smith College Archives. ™ Margaret Warde, Betty Wales, Freshman-, p. 265. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 98 apprehensive glance at the platform." The president of the College, who represents Seelye, responded, "Oh, nonsense! If you don’t want ’em to howl, don’t let ’em play! the idea-to get ’em all worked up and then say: ’No, you ladies, control yourselves!’ How idiotic! I don’t blam e’em--I’d howl myself— Jiminy crickets! Look at that girl! Good work! Good workV'^^^ After the game the festivities went on into the late evening. In 1905 Mabel Tilton provides a typical account of the post-game revelry. "Afterwards about 60 of us freshmen went down to Copper Kettle to supper and sang some more, then went serenading, first to Delta Sigma, an off campus house where a party of girls live and serenaded the junior president there and she asked us in and gave us all apples and we sat on the floor and sang some more, then we went to Tyler House where all the teams and coaches were having a dinner and serenaded them and went up on the piazza and they opened the window so we heard the after dinner toasts and speeches." The evening continued with a game of ’hide and seek’ and a "romp as they always do after the big game." The next morning she slept till noon, and having lost her voice from all the yelling, she woke up hoarse. "But I never had more fun," she wrote.^" Making the class basket ball team guaranteed a girl access to the highest echelon of Smith society. In 1898, The Smith College Monthly reported three months before the big game, "Never before has such an interest been shown in basket ball as this year. Not only girls who play themselves, but their friends and admirers also, have flocked down to the gymnasium for every game, whether played by the regular teams or the scrub teams, or Josephine Dodge Daskam, Smith College Stories, Ten Stories, p. 26 (author’s emphasis). Tilton, Mabel, Smith College, class o f 1908; letter of March 22, 1905; box 1739 - correspondence. Smith College Archives. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 99 picked Freshmen te a m s.A n article in the 1905 Smith College Monthly titled "The Problem of Prominence in College," noted that making the basket ball team was a path to distinction. "After a few months at college, however, it begins to dawn on her how many ways there are in which to become distinguished. There is the basket-ball girl, whom everyone sings to, vociferously, when she makes a basket."^'^ And the women were aware that basket ball prowess guaranteed a student prominence among her peers. "Two freshmen called to see me this afternoon," wrote Fanny Garrison, class of 1901, in an 1898 letter to her family. "They came dressed in their best, wore white gloves, rang the bell and sent up their cards. It was about five minutes before I had to leave for a basket ball game. They must have been somewhat abashed when I appeared in the parlor in my basket-ball suit and short skirt. But they were not shocked, I guess. Basket-ball always exerts a sort of fascination and when one has played on a class team, she is looked upon with a little awe. That carries farther than you would think. Another instance of individual prominence attained through playing basket ball is in a letter written in 1898 by Ellen Emerson, also from the class of 1901. Ellen was selected as a member of her class basket ball team both her freshman and sophomore years.^'^ She wrote to her family about a practice game she played in: "Last Wednesday’s game was a success, for me, at least. All the sophomores and lots of the juniors were present and 1 feel rather proud as the only two plays they applauded, 1 made. Talking of teas, 1 am invited to still another, - given by the Delta Sigma house a week from tomorrow. That ^'^"About College," The Smith College Monthly, vol. 5, No. 4, (January 1898) p. 195. Marion Codding Carr, "The Problem o f Prominence in College," The Smith College Monthly, vol. 12, No. 6, (March, 1905) p. 339. Garrison, Fanny, Smith College, class o f 1901; letter to her family, Oct. 14, 1898; ’Magic File,’ Smith College Archives. Smith College Monthly, vol. 5, No. 6 (March 1898) p. 291; and vol. 6, No. 6, (March 1899) p. 308. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 0 0 ought to be great fun as there are so many basket ball girls in the bouse that nearly all the prominent basket-ball girls will be present. I know that the girl who asked me, - Florenee Byles, has invited about all the basket-ball girls in 1901."^** At the turn of the century, the Delta Sigma, Dickinson, and Tyler Houses are mentioned as having a number of resident basket ball players. This seems to indicate that the women were invited to join these bouses based at least partially on athletic prowess in basket ball. In Betty Wales, Freshman, campus prominence is not limited to making the class team. A non-atbletie student’s association with the inner circle of female basket ball players was an additional avenue to elevate status among peers. Early in the novel an upperclassman directs the attention of a freshman toward the prominent figures of the college while they are attending morning chapel, implying that it would behoove the freshman to acquaint herself with these women. "Mary Brooks showed her the faculty rows, and pointed out the college beauty, the captain of the sophomore basket-ball team, and other local celebrities."^'^ Another situation involved two of Betty’s friends, who were part of an informal basket ball team. They invited Betty to learn their secret plays and eventually to play with them. "The three plunged into an animated discussion of basket-ball, and Rachel and Katherine, who were on a sort of provisional team that included most of the best freshman players and arrogated to itself the name of "The Stars," showed Betty in the strictest confidence the new cross-play that "T. Reed" had invented. "T. Reed" seemed to be the basket-ball genius of the freshman class. She was the only girl who was perfectly sure to be on the regular team."^‘ * Betty is beside herself when, several days later, she is asked to play basket-ball with "The Stars." ^'^Emerson, Ellen, Smith College, class of 1901; letter of Feb. 4, 1898; box 1598 - correspondence. Smith College Archives. Margaret Warde, Betty Wales, Freshman', p. 23. ibid., pp. 213-214, 219. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 0 1 "T. Reed," the inventor of the new play that Betty was privy to, was the star of the freshman team — her talent on the court was extraordinary. T. Reed was "homely and awkward, she wore dowdy clothes and wore them badly, she was slow and plodding; but there was one thing that she could do, and the girls admired her for it and had instantly made a place for her." Basket ball gained T. Reed entrance to the high levels of Smith society. Without basket ball, T. Reed would have been considered a campus ’freak,’ a girl to be pitied and avoided. But instead, T. Reed was a girl who was envied, admired, and even desired by her college sisters. "Even Betty Wales envied her (T. Reed); she had achieved greatness.""^ Even though Betty Wales is disappointed that she did not make the freshman team, she is determined to make the sophomore team the next year. "I will, I will, I will make them sing to me some day. You’ll see me going at things next term the way T. Reed went at that ball," cried Betty.^^“ But Betty does not play for her sophomore class team. The persistent denial of the rising of Betty’s social standing among her college peers through the more traditional avenues such as basket ball prowess, dramatic talent, or literary success, surfaces as an important theme throughout the Betty Wales series. According to Shirley Marchalonis, college women might become prominent, but they must never strive for it. In fact, the ideal girl is never aware of her status among her peers. "What this means in reality," writes Marchalonis, "is that women must never compete; even on the basketball court, they must play for the team and the class, not for themselves or against their rivals. Warde presents Betty as the ideal "college girl" who gains respect through sacrifice, who always works "for the team" and never herself. Margaret Warde, Betty Wales, Freshman, pp. 247, 274. ibid., p. 274. Marchalonis, College Girls, pp. 72. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 0 2 whose victory is achieved through her denial of all self-interests. In fact, the readers of the novels are privy to a sub-plot where Betty knowingly abandons her own chance for prominence by coming to the aid of the protagonist Eleanor Watson, whose relentless pursuit of recognition and fame at the college leads to her demise. In the short run, Betty’s self-sacrifice robs her of position of distinction among her peers. But ultimately, Warde offers the lesson to her young readers that Betty, through her demure and self- abasing character, serves as the model college woman. Ironically, in Betty, Wales, Junior, and Betty Wales, Senior, Betty, in spite of her sense of unworthiness, is viewed by all — the students, the faculty and the administration — as the woman who has had the most influence in her college. "By the way, Betty Wales, how is it that you always manage to get the things you want?" "I don’t," laughed Betty. "Oh yes you do," insisted Mary. "What I want to know"— Mary went on— "is how you do it. It would be very useful to me in my business if I could wind people around my little finger the way you can." "Please don’t be silly," protested Betty, blushing happily. She would have liked to think that has had an influence over her friends, but she couldn’t believe it. She was only "little Betty Wales," who was not noted for anything in particular, and was always being taken for a freshman. "Let’s call her the ’Power Behind the Throne,’" said Madeline. "That’s what she is."^ Prominence, as it related to athletics, was a powerful element of the social life and hierarchal structure at Smith. Sport offered a woman the opportunity to demonstrate her superior talent, and this often lead to her elevated status among her fellow collegians.^" The culture of "smashing," or "crushing" was another part of the social life at Smith College which found expression through and in the culture of athletics. It is my contention that prominence functioned to bridge the two cultures. ' Margaret Warde, Betty Wales, Junior, pp. 85-86. ' Shirley Marchalonis, College Girls: A Century in Fiction, pp. 72, 77-78. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 0 3 In the introduction, I presented the "crush" or "smash" as terms which defined an intimate and intense relationship between two women. An undated Smith clipping described the ’crush’ as "a distinctly woman’s collegiate word, expressing a relationship between two girls hard to define. One girl, generally an underclassman, and usually a freshman, becomes much attached to another girl, ordinarily an upper-class girl."™ The article stated that there were strict rules and customs of a proper "crush." "The younger girl is "crushed" on the other; sends her flowers, and tries in various ways to give expression to her admiration.The protocol of a "smash" and "crush" determined that it fall within a subordinate/dominate structure; convention held that a smashing relationship was acceptable between a faculty member and a student, or between a younger underclassman and an older upperclassman. Marchalonis writes that as long as the crush was situated between unequals, it was tolerated.^^ It is my contention that school administrators, parents and the public may not have objected to this form of the smashing culture because it gave them the assurance that there would be less chance for emotional and/or sexual impropriety when the woman upon whom the crush was directed was older and more mature. In this structure it was approved as a type of mentoring relationship — the older woman mentored the younger girl in the ways of courtship and other necessary skills that would he useful for her eventual transition to a heterosexual relationship and ultimate marriage to a man. As the student culture developed in the women’s colleges, as it did at Smith, with an increasing distance and antagonism between the faculty and students, smashing became "Slang of College Girls," undated, source unknown; located online @ <http://clio.fiveeolleges.edu/ smith/writings/1873-1922/crush/index.shtml?>. ibid. ™ Shirley Marchalonis, College Girls: A Century in Fiction, p. 148. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 0 4 more and more common between the students themselves. According to Helen Horowitz, "The attachment younger women felt to their elders remained. It shifted downward to become that between upperclassmen and freshmen. Horowitz argues that within the all-female community of the women’s colleges, the gender structure of the outside world was perpetuated within campus life. "In the single-sex society of the women’s college, women re-created the social roles of men and women with their hierarchical relationships. But women took both parts, assuming masculine prerogatives as upper-class students." Horowitz accurately describes one of the forms that the "smash" took, but there is evidence which suggests that the culture of smashing at Smith was not limited to the subordinate/dominant relationship of an underclass student and an upper-class student. There was an alternative social structure at Smith where the culture of smashing found expression. Hierarchy based not on age, but on prominence — through accomplishment in an aspect of Smith’s student life such as athletics — gave a "crush" a new justification and place to thrive. By the early 1890s, there were conflicting opinions among the women at Smith regarding the culture of smashing. A lighthearted story in The Smith College Monthly in 1895 testifies to the ambivalence the student population had toward the culture of smashing. In "My Freshman Crush," a reluctant sophomore escorts a freshman to the Freshman Frolic, enticed only by the possibility that she might generate a crush. "A Freshman crush," ponders the sophomore, "would be a novel and possibly an interesting experience.Evidently, the sophomore saw no real harm in being crushed upon. However, the sophomore completely bungles the evening by attaching herself to a girl she thought was her "freshman crush," but who, as it turned out, was actually a prominent Helen Horowitz, Alma Mater, p. 167. M.R.F., "My Freshman Crush," The Smith College Monthly, vol. 3, No. 2 (Nov., 1895) p. 27. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 0 5 senior. She thus breaks the rules by reversing the hierarchal structure of the smashing culture, and her evening ends in humiliation. Her antagonist in the story is a junior whose disapproval of crushes is well known, and she mocks the sophomore relentlessly for her b lu n d er.^ ^ ’ In a 1901 Smith College Monthly editorial, a junior wrote a more critical article on the culture of smashing at the college; All affection must have its testing time, its period of adjustment. Often it is at this crucial point that a whispered "crush" forces itself into public notice, and what might have developed naturally into a beautiful relationship is distorted or even destroyed. We dare not dishonor the grand old name of friendship by replacing it with a term that at its best is the substitution of false for true and at its worst is sacrilege."" The author of this editorial supports affectionate friendships between women, but if the relationship takes the form of a "crush," what was potentially "beautiful" ends up "distorted or even destroyed." The author identifies this type of friendship as "false" at best. Her use of the term "sacrilege" in connection with a "crush" is interesting in that it infers that this type of relationship is something that goes against God, even nature. This language, I contend, suggests that a perception of sexually aberrant (homosexual?) tendencies in the smashing culture had a wide circulation. The editorial critique of the "crush" in the Smith College Monthly supports the notion that by the end of the century, a negative perception of intense friendships between girls and women was seeping into the public consciousness. "Crushes," writes Shirley Marchalonis, "began to be seen as increasingly deviant and something to be avoided.""' Sherri Inness writes that late nineteenth century sexologists’ writings on sexual perversion ibid., p. 30. Helen Esther Kelley, Class of 1902, "About College," The Smith College Monthly, vol. 9, No. 3, (Dec., 1901) p. 195-6. Shirley Marchalonis, College Girls: A Century in Fiction, pp. 150-151. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 0 6 caused school administrators across all of the women’s campuses to increasingly equate "smashing" with the possibility that these types of friendships between women could lead to inversion, thus re-igniting fears raised a quarter of a century earlier by J. G. Holland and Edward Clarke. Cultural elites’ fear of race suicide and the low marriage and birth rates of college graduates, also influenced the public’s negative perception of "school girl crushes." According to Inness, school authorities began to watch more carefully the relationships of the women in their charge.^^^ Nonetheless, images of college women and their friendships were far from homogeneous and a particularly useful field of literature for exploring complex images of the culture of smashing and its connection with the athletic culture is the women’s college novels. According to historians Inness and Marchalonis, turn of the century women’s college novels fall within the genre of prescriptive literature, instructing young, college bound readers in traditional codes of feminine behavior in the college environment. These novels were also aimed to reassure anxious mothers and a concerned public that college women would remain womanly.^” Marchalonis writes, "All the fiction makes statements about women’s behavior, about rewards and punishments, and about social expectations.In the midst of the social transformation of women’s roles, college fiction provide an important cultural script that, according to Inness, "functions to reassure readers that activities that occur within the institutional frame will not hinder a woman’s progress toward legitimate (heterosexual) monogamy. Common narrative structures in the women’s college novels, such as women’s sports and other aspects of college life, the Sherri Inness, Intimate Communities, pp. 50-51. See Shirley Marchalonis, College Girls: A Century in Fiction, pp. 3-4, 36 and Sherri Inness, Intimate Communities, p. 14. ibid., p. 4. Sherri Inness, Intimate Communities, p. 17. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 0 7 culture of smashing, and the overarching theme of individual prominence, also suggest the strong cultural significance these issues had in the broader public mind. The college novels based on Smith College reveal the complexities of the smashing culture — they show support and tolerance, as well as a growing uneasiness with the culture among the students, their families, and the public. Inness is correct in her analysis of Josephine Dodge Daskam’s Smith College Stories, that this particular college novel portrays smashing in a positive light. In Daskam’s Smith College Stories, "The Education of Elizabeth" is a short story about a freshman who refuses a marriage proposal because she has become so enamored with her college sisters. In a letter to her disappointed male suitor, Elizabeth writes, I am not a man’s woman. I much prefer women. Really, Arnold, it is very strange how men bore me now that I have known certain women. Women are so much more interesting, so much more fascinating, so much more exciting! This will probably seem strange to you, but the modem woman I am sure is rapidly getting not to need men at all! I have never seen so many beautifirl red haired girls before. By the end of the chapter, Elizabeth is transformed and leaves college early for marriage. Her thoughts on female intimacies change as well. "Arnold says he thinks the attitude of so many women is bound to be unhealthy, and even in some cases a little morbid. I think he is quite right, don’t you? After all, girls need some one besides themselves. I always thought that Mabel Towne was very bad for Katharine. This story is interesting in that Daskam’s portrait of Elizabeth is not flattering; in faet, by the end of the story she is portrayed as unstable and immature, and her dependence on Arnold is depicted as absurd. Thus, the reader is left to conclude that Elizabeth’s opinion of female relationships — particularly her critique of Mabel and Katharine’s romantic friendship, or "smash"— is ™ Josephine Dunlap Daskam, Smith College Stories, p. 133. ibid., p. 146. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 0 8 neither justified, reliable, or to be taken seriously. While Daskam does not explicitly state her support of the culture of smashing, her negative presentation of Elizabeth I believe, reveals her tacit approval. Margaret Warde’s college novels portray smashing in a more complex light. Betty Wales, Freshman is the first of a series of books that traces the college life of Betty Wales and her friends from their freshman year to after graduation. "Crushes" occupy a prominent place throughout the first installment and are represented in a positive light. In chapter three of Betty Wales, Freshman, a new group of first year friends talk about the sophomore reception, asking each other who might be going with whom. "Which of us are you going to take to the sophomore reception?" asked Katharine. "Roberta of course," said Mary. "Didn’t you know that Roberta and I have a crush on each other? A crush, my dears, in case you are wanting to know, is a warm and adoring friendship."”* Mary had been a prominent freshman the year before. But the novel introduces her as a sophomore who does not fit into the typical role of "upperclassman" in relationship to Roberta or any of the other freshman. Rather, in spite of her upper class status, she becomes an equal member of the tight knit circle of freshmen and remains so even after she graduates. Warde did not identify it in explicit terms, but she implies throughout the novel that Betty Wales has a crush on a faculty member. While sledding down a hill on the campus grounds, Betty inadvertently crashes into the beautiful zoology instructor. Miss Ferris. Upon hearing of Betty’s injuries. Miss Ferris sends her flowers and a note. The first indication of Betty’s affection for Miss Ferris is her placement of Miss Ferris’ note, "in the small drawer of her desk that held her dearest treasures."™ Later on in the story. ™ Margaret Warde, Betty Wales, Freshman, p. 47. ibid., p. 184. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 0 9 Betty saw Miss Ferris donning roses she had given her. "Oh, there’s Miss Ferris!" cried Betty, "and she’s wearing my ro— goodness, she’s half covered with roses.Throughout the novel, Warde, in supportive tones, touches upon the affection between Betty and Miss Ferris, similar to her representation of Roberta’s and Mary’s relationship. Yet the relationship between Betty and Miss Ferris falls neatly into the acceptable category of mentor and mentored and remains so throughout the Betty Wales series. However, it is Margaret Warde’s account in her Betty Wales novels of the crush between the basket ball player T. Reed and Helen Chase Adams that establishes an intersection between the athletic and smashing cultures. Theresa Reed, or "T. Reed," is the star basket ball player of the freshman team, and touted as a "basket ball genius."^"' To make the freshman team was arguably the highest honor a first year student could achieve at Smith College. In the real world of Smith, after students participated in the fall semester gymnastics class, Senda Berenson selected the regular and sub teams — a total of approximately 18 to 20 women were chosen from the freshman and sophomore classes to compete against eachother in "The Big Game" held in spring. Marjorie Gane, class of 01, wrote a letter home in 1898 saying that she lost sleep anticipating her selection to the freshman basket ball squad. Relating to her family about all the excitement and buzz over basket ball, Marjorie wrote: There isn’t to terribly much to tell to-day, but some of it is quite interesting, to me at least, I mean. The teams are to be posted to-morrow before chapel and of course there is wild excitement in consequence. I didn’t go to bed until 11:30, for Helen and I sat on the top stair and talked basket-ball, so I slept over this morning. Then I went down to the ibid., p. 259. ibid., p. 214. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 1 0 Belmont to dinner with Ellen Emerson... and we also talked basket-ball. Positively, that is all we talk about among the freshmen nowadays. It is on account of the excitement of wondering who will make the teams.^"^ The girls at Smith who made their class team became instant celebrities among their college peers. Maijorie Gane, Ellen Emerson, and Fanny Garrison all wrote about the advantages that playing on the freshman team afforded them within the social circles at Smith. These women were sought after by their fellow classmen. The intense relationship that developed between T. Reed and Helen Chase Adams in Betty Wales, Freshman, brings together the cultures of athletics and smashing, and links prominence with passion. Helen was a ’grind.’ She had none of the social graces that came so easy to Betty and her circle of friends. Helen studied too hard, missed out on many of the school’s social functions, and simply didn’t fit in. Nonetheless, even though an outsider, Helen is tolerated by the elite group because she is Betty’s roommate. However, as the story progresses, Betty notices a change in Helen. Helen’s crush on T. Reed is slowly unveiled and toward the end of the novel, a mutually affectionate relationship between the two is confirmed. The first glimpse of Helen’s crush on T. Reed is when she goes to watch a practice basket ball game and wears a bunch of violets Betty had given her. "More than one person noticed the happy little girl who sat quite alone in the running track, dividing her eager attention between the game and the violets which she wore pinned to her shabby, old-fashioned brown jacket."^''^ From this point on, Helen’s whole demeanor changed — she became full of life and more confident. Gane, Marjorie; Smith College, class o f 1901; letter of Feb., 20, 1898; box 1608 - correspondence. Smith College Archives. ' Margaret Warde, Betty Wales, Freshman, p. 183. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 1 1 This new mood made Betty curious. "She acts as if she’d got a crush," she decided. "She’s just the kind to have one, probably her divinity has asked her to dinner, and she can’t put her mind on anything else. But who on earth could it be?"^'^ Helen’s transformation was due to the that her "crush" was the famed basket ball star, T. Reed. "I made a wonderful discovery to-day," Helen said. "Theresa Reed and T. Reed are the same person. I’ve known Theresa all this year— she was the one that asked me to go off with her house for Mountain Day. She’s the best friend I have here, but she never told me that she was especially interested in basket-ball and I never thought— well, I guess I never imagined that a dear friend of mine could be the celebrated T. Reed."^“ ^ When the day of the ’Big Game’ finally arrives, Helen’s affection for T. Reed is unmistakable. Betty and Helen finish singing their class songs to the freshman team and the game is about to begin; "Oh, I almost wished they’d sing for a while more," sighed Betty. "Do you?" answered Helen absently. She was leaning out over the iron bar of the railing with her eyes glued to the smallest freshman centre. "I want to see them play." "You mean you want to see her play," corrected Betty merrily. "I don’t believe you care for a single other thing but T. Reed. Where is she?" Helen pointed her out proudly. After this point in Betty Wales, Freshman, Helen’s and T. Reed’s relationship is only mentioned in passing in Betty Wales, Sophomore as "intimate. However, in Betty Wales, Junior Helen and T. Reed have a firmly established intimate relationship and they planned to be roommates in a semi-prestigous house their junior year. However, T. Reed ibid., p. 236. ibid. ibid., p. 263. Margaret Warde, Betty Wales, Sophomore, p. 267. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 1 2 doesn’t return to the college for the junior year. Much to everyone’s surprise, Betty receives a telegram that T. Reed has left for the Philippines to be married.^''* The relationship between Helen and T. Reed was presented by Warde as an intense romantic friendship. In examination of the culture of smashing in Warde’s series, I contend that the relationship between T. Reed and Helen was ended to serve as a cultural script for young college bound readers. The message was clear that these types of female romances were destined to end, and marriage was the only legitimate conclusion. In Warde’s Betty Wales series, the narrative on college friendship was, in large part, designed to reassure parents and instruct young readers that intense same-sex relationships between women of equal status would not endure at college, but were ideally constructed in the mentor/mentored model. The important issue is that this subplot in the Betty Wales series — the relationship between Helen and T. Reed — raises the possibility that at Smith College the female student athletic culture did in fact foster the culture of smashing. In comparing the students’ letters, school newspapers, and public accounts of the social life at Smith with Margaret Warde’s depiction of college life in the Betty Wales series, the portraits are virtually identical. According to both Inness and Marchalonis the aspects of the student life represented in the college stories were telling signs that these were important and persistent themes in the real college life experience.^''’ Warde must have witnessed crushes between college women, and the fact that the most notable smashing relationship in her story involved a basket ball player suggests that this may have been a persistent theme at Smith. Margaret Warde, Betty Wales, Junior, p. 21. Shirley Marchalonis, College Girls: A Century in Fiction, pp. 3-4, 36; and Sherri Inness, Intimate Communities, p. 16. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 1 3 Fanny Garrison, a member of her freshman basket ball team, testified in her letter home that two girls came up to her room in their best dresses with notes and flowers for her. Fanny recognized the power her position held — basket ball at Smith made a woman prominent among ones peers, and prominence created a certain seductive lure, to which students testified in their letters and stories. In multiple late nineteenth-century discourses, female athleticism and female affections have been linked. Turn of the century medical-sexology and scientific discourse linked athletics with same-sex desire in their analysis of sexual inversion. This master’s essay has argued that through an examination of the turn of the century college narratives of the social life at Smith, a link between the female athletic and smashing cultures can be determined, and that the evidence supports the notion that the discourses from these two cultural sites, at different historical moments, have intersected. The women at Smith came out to watch their fellow students compete at sport — in tennis tournaments, hockey matches, basket ball games, and crew races on Lake Paradise. And within the private, secluded space of Smith College, the sources show that women created a student culture where they consistently subverted gender roles. In the public realm, outside of the secluded, all-female world of Smith College, when men participated in athletics, women watched and cheered them on, perpetuating late nineteenth century heterosexual gender roles. But in Smith College’s all-female environment, a college woman athlete appropriated these masculine prerogatives of competitiveness, prominence and passion through her participation in the student athletic culture, creating a new and complex cultural space for female same-sex desire. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 114 BIBLIOGRAPHY PRIMARY SOURCES Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Archives Correspondence Berenson, Senda; Berenson Papers, folder 25, box 679. letter to Moses True, Dec. 11, 1906. Bugbee, Lura Alice, class of 1907; box 1701. letter of April, 1905. Emerson, Ellen, class of 1901; box 1598. letter of Feb. 4, 1898. Gane, Marjorie, class of 1901; box 1608. letter of Feb., 20, 1898. letter of May 8, 1898. Garrison, Fanny, class of 1901; box 1598, "Magic file." letter of May 8, 1898. letter of June 3, 1898. letter of June 10, 1898. letter to family, Oct. 14, 1898 ["in Magic File"]. Tilton, Mabel, class of 1908; box 1739. letter of Feb. 18,1905. letter of March 22, 1905. letter of March 28,1905. letter of June 2, 1905. Whiting, Grace, class of 1897; box 1537. letter of Feb., 18, 1894. Wilkin, Josephine Dunlap, class of 1895; box 1512. letter of March 6, 1892. letter of June 10, 1895. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 115 Writings on Smith "A Girls’ Town," New York Herald (Sunday, October 4,1908. — Magazine Section); in "Articles About Smith," box 39. "A Meeting of the Women Directors of Physical Training, and the Presidents of Athletic Associations of New England Colleges," (1910); EAPECW, box 16; Series VIII Meetings; General Folder 253. "Brilliant Basket Ball," 1894 news article, source unknown; Athletics/Basket Ball file, box 1345. "No Man In It." The Boston Sunday Globe, Sunday, March 18, 1894; Athletics/Basket Ball file, box 1345. "Smith Sophs: They Win Annual Game of Basket Ball." 1897 article, source unknown; Athletics/Basket Ball file, box 1345. "Tennis Tournament at Smith," 1892 article from 1895 records A - R, box 1496. "The College Contest," Daily Hampshire Gazette, March 19, 1894; Athletics/Basket Ball File, box 1345. "The Smith Sophomores Beat the Freshmen in Basket Ball," 1895 news article, source unknown; Athletics/Basket Ball file, box 1345. 1894 article, author/title unknown; Athletics file, box 1374. Doty, Douglas Z. "Life at a Girls’ College," in Munsey’ s Magazine, (Sept. 1899): 865-72; in "Articles About Smith," box 39. Fallows, Alice Katherine "Undergraduate Life at Smith College," source unknown, (1898): 37-58; in "Articles About Smith," box 39. __________ "Athletics For College Girls," Century Magazine, (May 1903) 58-65; in Articles About Smith," box 39. __________ "The Girl Freshman," Munsey’ s Magazine (1898): 818-828; in "Articles About Smith," box 39. Hartwell, Myrtle May, "Jolly Days At Smith: Recreation And Sport Among The College Girls, And An Account Of Their Amateur Dramatics," in The New England Home Magazine, vol. X, No. 9; February 25, 1900; p 387-391; in "Articles About Smith," box 39. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 116 Paine, Elizabeth "Physical Training in Women’s Colleges— Smith." The Illustrated Sporting News (June 4,1904): 3-17. Berenson Papers, folder 3, box 679. Smith College Monthly The Chip Basket, Vol. 1, No. 5, (October 16, 1880): 91-92; "Athletic Exercises of Smith College." The Alpha Quarterly, vol. 1, No. 5: 23; vol. 1, No. 6: 22. The Alpha Quarterly, vol. 1, No. 6, (June, 1893): 21; Rebecca Kinsman, "The Term." Vol. 1, No. 9 (June, 1894): 1-10; Olivia Howard Dunbar, "The Dangers of the Social Element in College Life." Vol. 2, No. 7 (April, 1895): 46; "About College." Vol. 2, No. 7 (April, 1985): 46; "About College." Vol. 3, No. 2 (Nov., 1895): 27-30; M.R.F., "My Freshman Crush." Vol. 3, No. 8 (May 1896): 50; Maud Elliott Jackson. Vol. 4, no. 6 (March, 1897): 266-68; H.G.M., "The Ideal College Girl." Vol. 5, No. 4 (January 1898): 195; "About College." Vol. 5, No. 6 (March 1898): 291; Vol. 6, No. 6 (March 1899): 308. Vol. 7, No. 8 (May 1900): 463; Ethel H. Freeman 1902, "About College." Vol. 8, No. 2 (Nov., 1900): 122-23; Agnes Patton, "About College: Athletics." Vol. 9, No. 3 (Dec., 1901): 195-6; Helen Esther Kelley, "About College." Vol. 10, No. 2 (Nov. 1902): 130; Emma Dow Armstrong. Vol. 10, No. 9 (June, 1903): 610; Margaret Hotchkiss, "The New Athletic Field." Vol. 12, No. 6 (March, 1905): 339; Marion Codding Carr, "The Problem of Prominence in College." Digital Archives: <http://clio.fivecolleges.edu/smith/> Berenson, Senda, "Significance of Basketball for Women," in Basketball for Women: As Adopted by the Conference on Physical Training, Held in June, 1899, at Springfield, Mass. Senda Berenson, ed. (American Sports Publishing Company, 1900). <http://clio.fivecolleges.edu/smith/berenson/5pubs/bball_women/index.shtml/>. Green, John M., personal letter to Sophia Smith, April 28, 1869. (Smith College Digital Archives, Origins Collection. Series 1 : "Beginning of Smith College: Original Documents Assembled by John M. Green, 1868-1933) <http://clio.fivecolleges.edu/smith/>. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 117 Seelye, Reverend L. Clark D.D., President of Smith College, "The Higher Education of Women: Its Perils and Its Benefits,"(1888) <http://clio.fivecolleges.edu/smith/writings/1887-88/1888seelye/index.shtml?>. "Slang of College Girls," author/date unknown. <http://clio.fivecolleges.edu/smith/women/index.shtml?>. Additional Primary Sources — Books/Articles Berenson, Senda, "Significance of Basketball for Women," m Line Basketball for Women. Senda Berenson, ed. (New York: A. G. Spalding, 1901). Clarke, Edward, Sex in Education; or A Fair Chance For The Girls. (Boston: J. R. Osgood and Co., 1874). Daskam, Josephine Dunlap, Smith College Stories: Ten Stories. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1900; 1921 edition). Dudley, Gertrude, and Frances A. Kellor, Athletic Games in the Education o f Women. (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1909). Gulick, Luther, "The Psychological Effects of Basket Ball for Women," in Line Basketball for Women. Senda Berenson, ed. (New York: A. G. Spalding, 1901). Hart, Lavina, "A Girl’s College Life," Cosmopolitan (June 1901): 188-195. Holland, J. G., Scribner’ s Monthly 6, (Oct. 1873) 748-49. __________ "Smith College," Scribner’ s Monthly, 14 (May 1877 to October 1877): 9-17. Line Basketball for Women. Senda Berenson, ed. (New York: A. G. Spalding, 1901). McCabe, Lida Rose, The American Girl at College. (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1893). Richardson, Sophia Foster, "Tendencies in Athletics for Women in the Colleges and Universities," Popular Science Monthly 1 (1895): 517-526. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 118 Seelye, L. Clark, The Early History o f Smith College, 1871-1910. (Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1923). "The Need of A Collegiate Education for Women," a paper read before the American Institute of Instruction at North Adams, July 23, 1874. Tyler, William S., A History ofAmherst College During the Administrations o f its First Five Presidents From 1821 to 1891 (New York: Frederick H. Hitchcock, 1895). Warde, Margaret, Betty Wales, Freshman. (Philadelphia: The Penn Publishing Company, 1904). __________ Betty Wales, Sophomore. (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1905). __________ Betty Wales, Junior. (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1906). _Betty Wales, Senior. (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1907). SELECTED SECONDARY SOURCES Banner, Lois W., Intertwined Lives: Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Their Circle. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003). __________ Women in Modern America: A Brief History. (United States: Wadsworth Publishing, 1995). Berlage, Gai I., "Sociocultural History of the Origin of Women’s Baseball at the Eastern Women’s Colleges During the Victorian Period," in Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and the American Culture. Alvin L. Hall, ed., ( (New York: Meckler Publishing, in association with The State University of New York College, Oneonta, 1989). Briggs, Laura "The Race of Hysteria: "Overcivilization" and the "Savage" Woman in Late Nineteenth-Century Obstetrics and Gynecology." American Quarterly 52.2 (2000): 246-273. Bryson, Lois, "Sport and the Maintenance of Masculine Hegemony," Women’ s Studies International Forum, vol. 10, no. 4, (1987): 349-360. Cahn, Susan K., Coming On Strong: Gender and Sexuality in Twentieth-Century Women’ s Sport. (The Free Press, 1994). Carnes, Mark C., and Clyde Griffen, eds.. Meanings for Manhood: Constructions o f Masculinity in Victorian America. (The University of Chicago Press, 1990). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 119 Chaimcey, George, "From Sexual Inversion To Homosexuality: Medicine And The Changing Conceptualization of Female Deviance;" in Salmagundi, no. 58-59 (Fall 1982 - Winter 1983): 114-146. Crosset, Todd, "Masculinity, Sexuality, and the Development of Early Modem Sport," in Sport, Men, and the Gender Order: Critical Feminist Perspectives. Michael Messner and Donald F. Sabo, eds., (Illinois: Human Kinetics Books, 1990). Diggs, Marylynne, "Romantic Friends or a ’Different Race of Creatures’: The Representation of Lesbian Pathology in Nineteenth-Century America," Feminist Studies 21, no. 2 (Summer 1995): 317-340. Duggan, Lisa, "The Trials of Alice Mitchell: Sensationalism, Sexology, and the Lesbian Subject in Tum-of-the-Century America;" Signs, vol. 18, no. 4 (Summer 1993): 791- 814. Faderman, Lillian, Surpassing the Love o f Men: Romantic Friendships and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present. (New York: Morrow Publishing, 1981). Gibson, Margaret, "The Masculine Degenerate: American Doctors’ Portrayals of the Lesbian Intellect, 1880-1949," Journal o f Women's History, vol. 9, no. 4 (Winter 1998): 78-103. Gordon, Lynn D. Gender and Higher Education in the Progressive Era. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990). __________ "The Gibson Girl Goes to College: Popular Culture and Women’s Higher Education in the Progressive Era." American Quarterly, vol. 39, issue 2 (Summer 1987): 211-230. Griffen, Clyde, "Reconstmcting Masculinity from the Evangelical Revival to the Waning of Progressivism: A Speculative Synthesis," in Meanings For Manhood: Constructions o f Masculinity in Victorian America. Mark C. Carnes and Clyde Griffen, eds. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990). Hall, M. Ann, "The Discourse on Gender and Sport?: From Femininity to Feminism," Sociology o f Sport, 5:4 (1988): 330-340. Hargreaves, Jennifer A., "Victorian Familism and the Formative Years of Female Sport," in From Fair Sex to Feminism: Sport and the Socialization o f Women in the Industrial and Post-Industrial Eras. J. A. Mangan and Roberta J. Park, eds. (London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd, 1987). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 120 Herman, Debra, "College and After: The Vassar Experiment in Women’s Education, 1861-1924," (Ph.D. Dissertation, Stanford University, 1979). Higham, John, "The Reorientation of the American Culture in the 1890’s," in Writing American History: Essays on Modern Scholarship. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1970). Hilke, Judy, Character is Capital: Success Manuals and Manhood in Gilded Age America (Chapel Hill, N. C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1997). Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz, Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women’ s Colleges from Their Nineteenth-Century Beginnings to the 1930’ s. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984). __________ Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End o f the Eighteenth Century to the Present. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987). Hunter, Jane, How Young Ladies Became Girls: The Victorian Origins o f American Girlhood. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002). Inness, Sherrie A., Intimate Communities: Representation and Social Transformation in Women’ s College Fiction, 1895-1910. (Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1995). Kimmel, Michael, Manhood in America: A Cultural History. (New York: Free Press, 1996). Ladd, Tony and James A. Mathisen, Muscular Christianity: Evangelical Protestants and the Development o f American Sport. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1999). Le Due, Thomas, Piety and Intellect at Amherst College, 1865-1912. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1946). Lenskyj, Helen, "Female Sexuality and Women’s Sport," Women’ s Studies International Forum, vol. 10, no. 4 (1987): 381-386. Lystra, Karen, Searching the Heart: Women, Men, and Romantic Love in Nineteenth- Century America. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 121 Mangan J. A. and Roberta J. Park, eds., From Fair Sex ’ to Feminism: Sport and the Socialization o f Women in the Industrial and Post-Industrial Eras. (London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd, 1987). __________ and James Walvin, eds.. Manliness and Morality: Middle-Class Masculinity in Britain and America, 1800-1940. (London: Cass, 1986). Marchalonis, Shirley, College Girls: A Century o f Fiction. (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1995). McCrone, Kathleen E., Playing the Game: Sport and the Physical Emancipation o f English Women, 1870-1914. (Kentucky: The University of Kentucky Press, 1988). Messner, Michael A., Power at Play: Sports and the Problem o f Masculinity. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992). __________ and Donald F. Sabo, eds.. Sport, Men and the Gender Order: Critical Feminist Perspectives. (Illinois: Human Kinetics Books, 1990). __________ and Don Sabo and Jim McKay, eds.. Masculinities, Gender Relations and Sport. (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, Inc. 2000). ________ "Studying Up on Sex," Sociology o f Sport Journal, vol. 13, no. 3 (1996): 221- 237. Oosterhuis, Harry, Stepchildren o f Nature: Krafft-Ebing, Psychiatry and the Making o f Sexual Identity. (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2000). Palmieri, Patricia, In Adamless Eden: The Community o f Women Faculty at Wellesley. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995). Park, Roberta J., "Physiology and Anatomy are Destiny!?: Brains, Bodies and Exercise in Nineteenth-Century American Thought," Journal o f Sport History, vol. 18, no. 1 (Spring, 1991): 31-63. and J. A. Mangan, eds.. From Fair Sex to Feminism: Sport and the Socialization o f Women in the Industrial and Post-Industrial Eras. (London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd, 1987). Rotundo, Anthony, American Manhood: Transformations in Masculinity from the Revolution to the Modern Era. (New York: Basic Books, 1993). Sahli, Nancy, "Smashing: Women’s Relations Before the Fall," Chrysalis 8 (summer 1979): 17-27. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 122 Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll, Disorderly Conduct: Visions o f Gender in Victorian America. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985). "The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations Between Women in Nineteenth-Century America," in Disorderly Conduct. __________ "The New Woman as Androgyne: Social Disorder and Gender Crisis, 1870- 1936," in Disorderly Conduct. ________"Bourgeois Discourse and the Progressive Era: An Introduction" in Disorderly Conduct. Struna, Nancy, "Beyond the Mapping Experience: The Need for Understanding the History of American Sporting Women," Journal o f Sport History, vol. 11, no. 1, (Spring, 1984): 120-133. Townsend, Kim, Manhood at Harvard: William James and Others. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998). Vertinsky, Patricia A., "Gender Relations, Women’s History and Sport History: A Decade of Changing Inquiry, 1983-1993," Journal o f Sport History, vol. 21, No. 1 (Spring 1994): 1-24. "Editorial," Women’ s Studies International Forum, vol. 10, no. 4, (1987): 333-335. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Huebner, Karin Louise (author)

Core Title The student cultures of athletics and smashing Smith College, 1890--1905

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program History

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag education, history of,Education, Physical,OAI-PMH Harvest,women's studies

Language English

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-315156

Unique identifier UC11337536

Identifier 1421771.pdf (filename),usctheses-c16-315156 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 1421771.pdf

Dmrecord 315156

Document Type Thesis

Rights Huebner, Karin Louise

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

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Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA