{"id":51,"date":"2015-06-12T15:34:11","date_gmt":"2015-06-12T15:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/browninthegreatwar\/?page_id=51"},"modified":"2016-02-21T14:37:03","modified_gmt":"2016-02-21T14:37:03","slug":"the-womens-college","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/browninthegreatwar\/stories\/the-womens-college\/","title":{"rendered":"The Women’s College Does its Bit"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u00a0<\/i><\/strong>“WE ECONOMIZE ON CLOTHES, ON FOOD, ON FUEL; WE KNIT; WE MAKE BANDAGES AND FRACTURE PILLOWS; WE CONTRIBUTE TO THE Y.M.C.A. FUND AND SUPPORT FRENCH ORPHANS.”[1. BUA. Sepiad, 18:2. February, 1918. pg3]<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Heeding President Faunce\u2019s directive to\u00a0\u201clive the simple life this spring, a life of spartan simplicity, from from display, extravagance, economizing in every direction and using our resources as directly as possible in the service of the nation,\u201d<\/i>[2. BUA. BAM, 17:10. May 1917, pg250] the students of the Women\u2019s College began by giving up the greater part of their beloved Ivy Day exercises. They contributed the money saved to the Red Cross and spent the day making bandages and knitting socks.<\/p>\n

\"KIC<\/a>
Students from the Women’s College rolling bandages in Sayles gym. 1917. BUA, SB-1E-1, College Scrapbooks, vol. 15.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Using Sayles Gym and a room in Miller Hall, with materials donated by undergraduates, the students knitted countless mufflers, sleeveless sweaters, and wristers for the Navy League.\u00a0Responding to an appeal from the Red Cross, the women knit 32 sweaters during two weeks in October alone. They made fracture pillows, compresses, and oakam pads. The\u00a0smell of the oakam, as they picked it, drove some of them\u00a0from the room.[3. BUA. BAM, 18:1. June, 1917. p15]\u00a0Throughout the Fall and Winter, every Tuesday and Friday afternoon were set aside for Red Cross sewing. The room in which the women worked, the\u00a0social room of the Gymnasium, did not meet Red Cross requirements, so they were prohibited from doing surgical dressings work. Without a\u00a0sewing machine, the they were confined to hand sewing.[4. BUA.\u00a0Sepiad\u00a018:2. February, 1918. p18]<\/p>\n

In the summer of 1918,\u00a0Biology Professor H. E. Walters, wrote to Brown’s servicemen and reported that half the Women\u2019s College were participating in Red Cross work and\u00a0informed them that\u00a0“there is a fine generation of grandmothers growing up right now here at home that all will know HOW TO KNIT when they eventually come to sit in the chimney corner and tell stories of these great days to your grandchildren.”<\/em><\/i>[5. BUA. MS-IUF-W1. H.E. Walters Papers. Review Hints #6. July 14, 1918]<\/p>\n

\"Women
Women from the Class of 1914 at a 1917 reunion. Pembroke College archives. Images of Brown.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many students\u00a0joined first aid and home nursing classes. The\u00a0University attempted to establish a nursing program, but the plans fell through, twice.[6. Annual Report of the President to the Corporation of Brown University. Providence, RI., 1919. pg43] Seniors registered for\u00a0a class in Wireless Telegraphy; others\u00a0planted vegetable gardens, and hundreds took lessons on canning fruits and vegetables at the Biological laboratory. Students also raised\u00a0funds to support alumni embarking on war work. Mabel S. Le Valley (1901) was <\/b>supported with funds when she went to do canteen work in France under the Red Cross.\u00a0“Some of the men asked me to play the phonograph (only the Americans are allowed to touch it.) About twenty gathered around the counter, and we played the phonograph and sang. \u201cMadelon<\/a><\/strong>\u201d, \u201cLa Tamise\u201d & \u201cLa Reve Passe are the three favorites.\u201d<\/em>[7. BUA.\u00a0Sepiad\u00a019:1. December, 1918. pp36-45] Funds were also\u00a0given in support of\u00a0Miss Helen M. Hastings (1913) who sailed for France with a unit of the Homeopathic Hospital of Boston. “We<\/em>\u00a0left America with cheering crowds on all sides of us, in one of the very large transports. [ ]…The hands on the boat struck up \u201cHail, hail, the gang\u2019s all here\u201d as we began to move slowly out of the harbor.\u00a0<\/i>Once\u00a0in France, Hastings reported that she visited “a hospital crowded with our boys, wounded in the June drive. They’re the gayest crowd in the world, except when they’re unhappy. We saw the dressings done, where they simply clenched their fists to keep from screaming…the wounds are terrible things.”<\/i>[8. BUA.\u00a0Sepiad\u00a019:2. February, 1919. p51]<\/p>\n

Le Valley and Hastings, along with the other alumni, students, and faculty from the Women’s College who served the nation are absent from the 1919 directory<\/a> of Brown men who served in the Great War. Also missing from the publication are the names of the University’s support staff that volunteered or were drafted into service. We know that\u00a0Miss Sarah Ide Shepard resigned\u00a0her position as Order Clerk\u00a0for the University Library to enter war service,\u00a0only because she was later rehired for the position of Serial Clerk.[9. Annual Report of the President to the Corporation of Brown University. Providence, RI., 1919. p56] In the preface of the publication, the absence of Brown’s civilian service is acknowledged with regret and it is stated that records of the\u00a0civilians associated with the University that served in the war had been collected by the War Works Committee and\u00a0would be included when “a full statement of the national service of her sons”<\/em> was produced. Nearly a hundred years later this full statement has yet to be published, but the topic presents itself as an enticing area for further research.<\/p>\n

After the war was\u00a0over, President\u00a0Faunce summed up the contributions of Brown’s female\u00a0students by stating that\u00a0\u201cIn some respects the women\u2019s Colleges of our country suffered more from the psychological reactions of the war than the men’s colleges. The intense emotions aroused by the conflict found among the men appropriate vent in heroic action. [ ]…but for most of the students in our women’s colleges there were only the quiet and safe tasks of the Red Cross work at home, or the mild ingenuities of food conservation. Bayonet drill for the men, and knitting for women is not a program that involves visible equity of duties.”<\/em>[10. Ibid. pp26-27]<\/p>\n

In this audio interview<\/a>, Lilian Dorothy Beals (1918) and Rose Presel (1918) discuss the particularities of attending the Women’s College during World War I, including picking oakum<\/a> and knitting scarves and helmets during class for the Red Cross; Beals also tells the story of her fianc\u00e9 who was killed in the war. Sarah Mazick Saklad (1928) shares her memories of World War I, including learning to knit, Providence’s Armistice<\/a> Day celebration, and the influenza epidemic in this audio interview<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Related Materials in the BDR<\/a><\/p>\n

\"bdr-242276<\/a>
You can help–American Red Cross. 1918. Prints, Drawings, and Watercolors from the Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Our<\/a>
Our boys need sox – knit your bit : American Red Cross. 1914-1918. Prints, Drawings, and Watercolors from the Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"bdr-242249<\/a>
Women of America work for victory. 1918. Prints, Drawings, and Watercolors from the Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Back<\/a>
Back our girls over there. 1918. Prints, Drawings, and Watercolors from the Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"bdr-242268\"<\/a>
Keep the home wheels turning –get that job now. 1914-1918. Prints, Drawings, and Watercolors from the Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"bdr-242178\"<\/a>
Have you answered the Red Cross Christmas roll call? 1918. Prints, Drawings, and Watercolors from the Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0“WE ECONOMIZE ON CLOTHES, ON FOOD, ON FUEL; WE KNIT; WE MAKE BANDAGES AND FRACTURE PILLOWS; WE CONTRIBUTE TO THE Y.M.C.A. FUND AND SUPPORT FRENCH ORPHANS.”[1. BUA. Sepiad, 18:2. February, 1918. pg3] Heeding President Faunce\u2019s directive to\u00a0\u201clive the simple life this spring, a life of spartan simplicity, from from display, extravagance, economizing in every direction … The Women’s College Does its Bit<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"parent":20,"menu_order":8,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"full-width-page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-51","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/browninthegreatwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/51","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/browninthegreatwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/browninthegreatwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/browninthegreatwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/browninthegreatwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":137,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/browninthegreatwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/51\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/browninthegreatwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/51\/revisions\/136"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/browninthegreatwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/20"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/browninthegreatwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}