White gloves & parlor games

Just before the turn of the century, a 76-year-old Washington Duke was offered-and graciously declined-the vice-presidency of the National Suffrage Association. The invitation came in response to what was then considered a visionary action: on his $100,000 endowment to Trinity College that year he placed the stipulation that women be admitted to the college "on an equal footing with men."

While revolutionary to some, Duke's mandate continued what had already been a consistent practice, if not full acknowledgment, of coeducation. The Giles sisters, Mary, Persis and Teresa, had earned degrees in 1878 as special students of the college, and the College's Board of Trustees had already formally voted to admit women to classes, despite its insistence that Trinity was not a coeducational institution.

But an official place for women at Duke ultimately came in the form of a "separate but equal" compromise: the 1924 indenture by James B. Duke instructed that the proposed Duke University comprise Trinity College for men on West Campus and a coordinate college for women on East Campus. The coordinate college system, similar to that established at peer institutions like Harvard and Radcliffe, remained in place until 1972, when the two colleges merged to become Trinity College of Arts and Sciences.

Under the coordinate college system, the two campuses developed very separate identities-in spite of cross-campus dating, shared classes and their close proximity. "They used to say that Duke was a co-ed institution with a mile and a quarter hyphen," says Bill King, Duke University Archivist.

Much of the vision for the Woman's College came from President Few, who took the college seriously but was nevertheless more interested in the "separate" part of "separate but equal," says Professor Emeritus of History Robert Durden. In collaboration with other proponents of the coordinate college system, Few designed a school that demanded not only academic excellence from its female scholars, but conduct befitting a woman in post World War I North Carolina.

"The Woman's College was an outstanding school that met a need from the day it opened," says Bill King, Duke University Archivist. "There were many Southern families that wanted their daughters to have an outstanding education but were a little leery of them going too far from home."

Given the social context and Few's stance on separate education, it seems that the school was engineered to produce the ideal Southern woman-a philosophy of education implicit in a name that emphasizes singularity: the Woman's College.

And yet, under the guidance of Dean Alice Baldwin, the founding dean of the Woman's College and an historian from the University of Chicago, the young women developed a strong, autonomous community in spite of-or perhaps because of-their position as ladies. In doing so, they negotiated the complicated relationship between social restriction and the sense of empowerment available in a community of women, plural.

Additional restrictions on students' physical freedom held fast throughout the decades. Each student was required to keep an exact record of when she left the dorm, which was locked at 10 p.m. on weeknights and 11 p.m. on weekends during most of the College's history. Graduates from all decades describe "purity lights"-which still stand in front of each dorm on East-as an effective disincentive to public displays of affection. "There wasn't very much in the way of sex, of course," recalls Peggie Otto Bevan, who graduated in 1946. "You couldn't even snuggle up too much [under the lights]. The sexiest thing around was smooching in a side parlor."

The emphasis on propriety was so strong, in fact, that students were expected to behave like ladies even after they graduated. "They had the privilege of rescinding your diploma if you did something to embarrass the University after you graduated," Brothers says. "There's no reason for that except Duke had a real strong sense of what was proper and what was not."

Some say they felt that the restrictions were too much. "When you get right down to it, we didn't have permission to do anything. We were secondary citizens," says Margaret Taylor Smith, who graduated in 1947.

But the understandings about ladyhood and propriety were not simply part of a top-down mandate on behalf of the University meant to keep the female students in their place. Students were in charge of their own disciplinary mechanism; an independent undergraduate judicial board in the Woman's College determined the punishment for all but the most major infractions of University rules.

Many alumnae said they did not feel constrained, primarily because the social setting on campus did not deviate very far from social conventions of the time. "As I look at it now, we had more freedom with restrictions than you have without restrictions. The fact was that the dorm was totally safe.ÉYou really couldn't get too far off base," says Carrel Power Youmans, who graduated in 1954 and served as the Woman's Student Government Association president.

Instead, many graduates claim, the rules fostered what they describe as an incredibly strong community of women's leadership and support. Both alumnae and observers point to dormitory life as the hub of women's social life and the foundation of the community on East Campus.

"Being locked in at midnight with 120 women is okay," Brothers says. "We studied a lot together, played bridge in the hall. We entertained ourselvesÉ I think we really used those [restrictions] to our advantage. I really think we had the best of a lot of worlds."

Under the housing system engineered by Dean Baldwin, students were expected to stay in the same house for all four years, which lent a certain degree of stability to the campus and allowed each dormitory on East Campus to develop its own personality. "By the fact that you kept all four classes, there would be a certain 'institutional memory' in the house," Durden says. Freshman Advisory Counselors were also fixtures within each of these houses; upperclass women acted as mentors to small groups of first-year women within their dorms to encourage freidnship and ease the transition into college.

The house system's strength inspired other traditions for residential life that still remain, including the non-residential status of sororities. While many women were involved in greek activities, both students and administrators made a point to keep their members dispersed residentially. "The houses developed remarkable esprit and morale," Durden says. "The women liked the house system so much they would not have separate [sorority] sections." Dean Baldwin upheld this housing system despite pressure from national sorority chapters to reorganize the housing system according to greek affiliation.

Dean Baldwin's housing plan also called for the installment of a residential counselor, or "house mother," in each dorm, a position similar to that of residential adviser but filled by a woman older than the students who was not a full-time student herself. "Dean Baldwin had a very clear idea of the type of woman she wanted in the position of residential counselor," Durden explains. "She very much wanted people who would be intellectually alive."

These counselors served as advisers to dorm leaders as well as student organizations, but a large part of their full-time job was acting as a friend and mentor to their students. "I guess you felt almost like an older sisterÉ It was fun-that made up for the pay." said Lillian Lee, who graduated in 1943 and then served as a counselor from 1953 until 1959. But some graduates remember house mothers as women "whom we thought to be about 95Éwe were watched over quite carefully," Smith says.

Bevan agrees. "They were watchdogs, you know. The lights would blink after it was time to come in and everyone would race in and she'd lock the door."

Many social gatherings took place in the commons rooms of East Campus dorms-then known as "parlors"-in which students entertained guests, played games, studied or hosted events. "Our living quarters were always beautifully appointed with nice furniture," recalls Dottie Lewis Simpson, who graduated in 1946. "For the gals who played bridge, there was always a game going on in the side parlor."

And in a policy prophetic of the recent changes in dining for freshmen, women were required to pay for a 3-meal per day board plan at the East Campus Union, which was seen by students as an opportunity for interaction but by administrators as a chance to coach women in proper etiquette and ladylike dining.

This particular combination of housing and dining encouraged a phenomenon still sought after today: student-faculty interaction. "The Woman's College facilitated interchange better because they had this thriving house system and they had a tradition of civilized dining that was kind of missing on West Campus," Durden explains.

Citing common interests like bridge and social dancing, Durden adds that the relationship between students and faculty was stronger than "anything we've had sinceÉ. For a long time, college students' recreation patterns were not all that different from adults'. Gradually, the recreational patterns diverged. But when the music got to a certain decibel levelÉthe faculty style of entertaining began to be very different."

As a result of the residential system and the unique framework in which it operated, "the sense of community within the dorm was incredibly strong," Brothers says. "You had a real sense of belonging and things being in their place," she admits, joking that "we were dumb enough to respect upperclassmen."

The students' own role in self-government and self-discipline was another cornerstone of the Woman's College community. In addition to the judicial board, the Woman's Student Government Association consisted of a strong network of dorm representatives and legislators entirely separate from the men's college. Most alumnae say the power to make their own decisions and create policy made them very happy, but acknowledge that only after graduating did they realize what an empowering experience it was.

Women who attended the Woman's College during World War II-when men on campus were focused on military training-see this distinction most clearly. "It was a very empowering experience for women because they ran the show," Smith says. Simpson agrees. "Despite the direness of the years we were in school, we had a heck of a lot of fun," she recalls.

Alumnae cite dozens of other activities exclusive to East Campus: honor societies, weekly concerts, pageants, parades and community service organizations and an extensive athletics program-including an extremely competitive synchronized swimming team and equestrian program. And of course, "We spent an awful lot of time in Lilly Library," Simpson says.

Much of the community atmosphere depended on the separation from the male students. But even in the classroom, which they shared with men after their sophomore year, they still enjoyed special distinction.

"Parents, particularly Southern parents, were not in a hurry to send their daughters to Northeastern schools, so Duke got the cream of the crop, the female crop," says Anne Firor Scott, professor emerita of history. "It was kind of disturbing to the male students, I think, that the women were so bright."

Many of the male students referred to female students as "curve breakers," adds University Archivist King. "They would go into a class and if there were too many women in the class they'd head straight for Drop/Add. There was a tacit recognition that the women students were smart."

Catalyzed by a growing woman's movement and a shifting social climate in the early 1970s, however, students became increasingly averse to the prospect of being groomed for Southern womanhood and to the double standards of this process. The benefit of a distinct community could no longer effectively counteract the fact that they were treated differently.

In addition, the two colleges began to experience greater overlap in classes, administration and programming, which led the University to question the economic and administrative value, as well as the institutional fairness, of maintaining separate colleges.

"Women students wanted really to be part of the University rather than to be confined to the Woman's College," says Juanita Kreps, vice president emerita, who was the last Dean of the Woman's College.

But even though some students sought to graduate as something more than a woman from a woman's college, other students felt that Duke was making a sacrifice. "Some students had the view that [the separate college] was an anachronism," says Sue Estroff, who was president of WSGA and graduated in 1972, the last year of the Woman's College. "As I think about it as a semi-mature person now, I think [the merge] was short-sighted."

Many older alumnae describe the change as a devastating loss for the community of women. "We just really needed to be one unit but we felt we lost something, really," Lee said. "I was sick about it.ÉWe lost our identity, we didn't have a name. I think [the students] looked forward to having a sort of equality. I don't think they fully appreciated what was happening."

Those charged with leading Duke University in 1972 chose to merge, but not without painful awareness of the cost. "Some Trustees have told me it was the most difficult vote they had to make," King says.

As a decision that was meant to foster equality for individual women but was accomplished by eliminating what had become a strong community of support for these same women, the merge shows that it is never easy to find the right balance between individual freedom and group strength.