Posts Tagged ‘faculty wives’

News

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

I recently got a yearlong appointment as a Five College Women’s Studies Research Center Associate. I actually found out in April but I have been very busy and a little reluctant to toot my own horn.  I got the associateship because of my new project, Dames, Dishes, and Degrees. I also will be giving a paper at the History of Education Society 50th annual meeting in November and I will be giving a poster presentation at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association.

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours putting the above information on my website. That felt a little strange because of course my website is entitled Amy Mittelman Brewing Battles. I have many questions about how I will maintain a focus on beer and Brewing Battles and move towards prompting and discussing the new book.

I have been on Twitter for about six months and I am one tweet away from 100. As if have probably said before I feel twitter is best for things I probably would not blog about. I also like that you can follow a conversation about trending or immediate events. It is a lot of fun to follow #Yankees during a Yankee game.

I still have not really figured out how my various online activates connect or should connect. I had decided to keep tweeting and the blog separate but I am rethinking that. I also do not really see how to keep the website vibrant since most of the new content winds up on the blog. One idea I have is to put my twitter feed on the website, but I am not sure how to do that. I also think it would be nice to give my readers the opportunity to tweet about the blog. Again, I will have to figure out how to do that.

Getting the Associateship is a wonderful opportunity; I am most excited about having a Mount Holyoke College library card. I feel motivated to think about new directions for both my work and my online presence.

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Book Review: Good Morning, Miss Dove

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

Frances Gray Patton published Good Morning, Miss Dove in 1954. It was an immediate success. Prior to writing this novel, she had published short stories in various magazines, including Harpers and the New Yorker. Patton was also a faculty wife who lived her whole adult life in Durham, North Carolina.

I read this book because I thought I might do research on Patton when we went to North Carolina. Duke had several faculty wives organizations including Law Dames (wives of law students) and the Reviewers Club. The Faculty Wives of NCSU occasionally had joint luncheons or meetings with wives clubs from the surrounding area.

Good Morning, Miss Dove is not about a college town or an academic instruction. Liberty Hill is not even a southern town. The book is about learning and the role of teachers.

Good Morning, Miss Dove is very sentimental and somewhat unrealistic.  Patton’s portrayal of Miss Dove borrows from other literary figures, including Mary Poppins. One character in the book even remarks on Miss Dove’s similarity to the British nanny.

The two characters share certitude and high self-esteem. Miss Dove does not possess any of the whimsy or magic of Mary Poppins. They also share an ability to transform the lives of their charges. Patton does capture the phenomenon that teachers can sometimes be the most important figure in a student’s life.

The book is dated both in use of language - “colored” and in the portrayal of the relationship between nurses and doctors. Although it is set in the present, 1954, it has an old time feeling. The only modern element is her discussion of World War II and the fate of some of her students.

The plot, if you could call it that, revolves around the sudden onset of paralysis for Miss Dove.  Her hospitalization and surgery allows Patton to explore and elucidate Miss Dove’s character and memories. The outcome is unsurprisingly positive. Both the town and Miss Dove have gained greater appreciation of the meaning of her life.

In 1955, Jennifer Jones starred in the movie version of Good Morning, Miss Dove. I wish I could see the movie because Miss Dove was not supposed to be a beautiful woman. So far, I have been unable to find the movie in either VHS or DVD format, which is surprising.

Movie Poster Good Morning, Dove

Movie Poster Good Morning, Miss Dove

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Tea in Philosophy: Part Two

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
Philosophy Hall

Philosophy Hall

Yesterday I spent the day at the Columbia University Archives looking at the papers of the Association for University Teas. Afterward we stopped in at Philosophy Hall to see what the 21st century graduate student tea is like.

The room  hasn’t changed that much in over twenty years but it seemed a lot less grand. That is ironic since the Columbia Graduate School website says the lounge was renovated in1992 “to duplicate its earlier splendor.” The room apparently started life as a space for female graduate students; in the 1950’s it became available to all grad students.

I had a nice conversation with the  person sitting there; he has worked there since 1973. The women who poured tea into porcelain cups and placed cookies on real plates were faculty wives. They, however, were not members of the Association for University Teas.  These women were a groups of volunteers that a Graduate Student Advisor kept organized.

Like many of women’s every day activities in many communities, the details of this have been lost. The woman who appeared in the  papers of the Association do not have names. The only identifier is Mrs. Husband’s Name. So  Mrs. Carlton Hayes, Mrs. Allan Nevins, Mrs. John Dewey, Mrs. Rexford Tugwell, among others, belonged to the organization and served tea to alumni, retired faculty and others.

The indispensable yet invisible work these women did deserves to be identified and named.

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