Beginning in the 1932-33 school year and continuing until the end of the period under study, women outnumbered men almost every year. During the 1930s, women made up about 53% of the student body. Although Virginia Polytechnic Institute also accepted women into its undergraduate programs, William and Mary was the state college most women wanted to attend because it specialized in teacher training, the major occupation of college- educated women, and because it offered a more well-rounded education than did Virginia Tech, the Richmond Professional Institute, or the normal colleges. For men, William and Mary was a second choice college, with the University of Virginia being the more prestigious choice. Furthermore, not only were more women applying than men, but the high school records of the women who applied were better than those of the men. It was difficult for the admissions office to turn away the better qualified women, so each passing year during the 1920s and 1930s saw a higher percentage of women in the student body, until the number of women students surpassed that of the men in the fall of 1932.
Many different groups of people were alarmed over the increasing number of women. As early as November 1930, the Flat Hat sent out its Inquiring Reporter to ask men what they thought about the number of women at William and Mary. At the time, women comprised 46% of the student body. All the men agreed that there were too many women, that they felt men should be in the majority, and they feared that William and Mary would become a "women's" college.l In December 1933, the District of Columbia Alumni Chapter wrote the Board of Visitors expressing their concern over the increasing number of women. The Board agreed to study the problem, although nothing seems to have been done at this time.2
President John Stewart Bryan's report to the Board in June 1936 expressed the administration's frustration over the situation. He liked the prestige of being able to accept better qualified students, but he also wanted more male students, even though they tended to be of poorer quality than the women. He said that because there was more room for men than for women at the other state-supported colleges in Virginia, there was more intense competition for male high school graduates. Fewer colleges for women meant that it was easier to chose the best qualified women from among the many applicants. Despite the fact that both the Board of Visitors and the college administration wanted to admit more men, Bryan wrote, "I have no doubt that the Board will agree it is a choice between superior women students or far less satisfactory men students. Quality has to be recognized."3 Clearly, there was concern on the campus about what to do under these circumstances. Accepting more men and fewer women would mean getting male students who were less qualified than the women who were rejected.
In 1937, the Alumni Association Board presented its proposal for curtailing the number of enrolled women to the Board of Visitors. It asked that the Board establish an official ratio of 60% men to 40% women, and that the admissions office abandon its policy of admitting only those students who graduated in the top half of their high school class. Since more women than men did so, this meant that more women were eligible for admission. Instead, the Alumni Board recommended that men and women be judged separately, accepting the men who graduated in the top half among male students at their high schools and accepting the women who graduated in the top half among female students. The Alumni Board also asked that preference be given to children of alumni and that the percentage of Virginia students be increased. The Board of Visitors promised to consider these proposals.4
Finally, in the early winter of 1940, President Bryan announced that a committee had been established to study the problem of the large female enrollment. The committee members were Bursar Charles J. Duke, Dean of Men J. Wilfred Lambert, Professor of Chemistry John E. Hocutt, Executive Secretary of the Alumni Society Charles P. McCurdy, Dean of the Faculty James W. Miller (also a professor of philosophy), Professor of History Harold L. Fowler, Professor of Jurisprudence Theodore S. Cox, and one other person surnamed Harrison who was probably Professor of English Charles Traywick Harrison.
The committee's report confirmed what everyone had known all along, that the women students were more successful than the men. In one letter, Dean Miller wrote that "roughly, the percentage of men who fail is three times as great as that of women who fail." He also gave percentages for the failure rate for a variety of courses.5 The committee was concerned not just about attracting more men to William and Mary, although that was their major interest, but also with attracting a better quality of male student. They did realize the futility of accepting men who would just flunk out of college. President Bryan's report to the Board of Visitors in May 1940 shows the atmosphere under which this Committee on Enrollment was operating: "it is thoroughly understood that the restoration of a preponderance of men students is a most important objective for this college. . . ."6
The Committee made its final report at the Board Meeting on 13 December 1941. The Board adopted all of the committee's proposals, which included setting the ratio of male/female students at 60/40, reserving more dormitory space for men and undertaking a special campaign to recruit men by offering more scholarship aid to men, and adding courses that would attract them. The Board was also decided to give preference to Virginia women over out-of-state women in the admissions process.7 The entrance of the United States as a combatant into World War II jeopardized these plans. Just two months later, at the February 1942 Board meeting, President Bryan told the Board that because of the war, William and Mary would have to accept more women in order to maintain its enrollment level. He specified, however, that after the war, efforts to increase male enrollment would be resumed.8
Initially, the plan to recruit more men was successful. Fifty-three percent of the students enrolled in the fall of 1942 were men. They had been attracted to William and Mary by the presence of Army and Navy reserve units and by a special new war-work program. The latter, later renamed the work-study program, offered poor men the chance to work and attend college at the same time. Most of the participants worked at Colonial Williamsburg. The College also gave scholarship aid to these men to ensure that they had enough money for college.
The sudden decline in numbers of male students began in January 1943. In the late fall of 1942, the United States Congress had passed a bill lowering the draft age from twenty to eighteen, thus making most college men eligible for the draft. The Army and Navy reserve units were also called up, and student deferments were suspended. When classes began in September 1943, only 27% of the student body was male. The proportion of men climbed climbed slightly higher in subsequent years when discharged veterans returned to class.
The college administration knew that the financial well-being of William and Mary depended on keeping dormitories and classrooms filled. The College could have accepted more women, but those concerned about having too many women were reluctant to do this because it meant that there would be no place to put the veterans after the war. Furthermore, there was the danger of having to lower admission standards in order to admit more women. Fortunately, the College was able to secure two military training units which moved into several college dormitories and other buildings. The Army Specialized Training Unit was on campus less than a year, but the Naval Chaplains Training School was at the College for the duration of the war. By giving dormitory space to military units, the College was in essence reserving that space for men after the war, thus putting itself in a good position to enroll more equal numbers of men and women students.
The make-up of the faculty changed slightly during the war years. Many of the men, and a few of the women, went into war work of some sort. In his annual report on the 1943-1944 school year, President John E. Pomfret reported that twenty-six faculty members had been granted leaves of absence: eighteen for military service, six for other government service, and two for regular leaves of absence. Because enrollment had declined, not all of these professors were replaced, but the College did hire twenty-two new faculty members for the year. Seventeen of them were designated as "acting" professors or instructors, indicating that they were hired as temporary replacements for faculty on leave. Of the twenty-two, seven were women. In the fall of 1942, women comprised only twenty percent of the faculty, so they were being hired in slightly higher numbers during the war than they had been before it. Five of the women were temporary appointments, however. In the period examined by this thesis, the greatest number of female faculty members was twenty-nine, reached in the 1943-1944 year. Many of these were acting professors. The women professors continued to hold doctorates in a far smaller proportion than their male counterparts.
In another response to the war, the college added many new courses to the curriculum and made other changes as well. Physical education courses, formerly required only for freshmen and sophomores, were now also required of juniors and seniors in order to provide stronger and more physically fit workers and soldiers. The summer school was expanded into a full semester's equivalent so students could graduate sooner and get into war work and so that men could complete more credits before being drafted. The new courses which were added provided a useful background for graduates, male or female, who were going into war-related jobs. They included camouflage techniques, home nursing, the maintenance of internal combustion engines, map reading, including interpretation of aerial photographs, military chemistry, telegraphy, law of the sea, military and naval strategy, health education, plane and spherical trigonometry, and safety and emergency education. Most of these courses carried only two hours of credit, rather than the three hours awarded for regular academic courses.9
The College responded to the war in other ways, as well. Several alumnae remembered that sandbags were placed around Lord Botetourt's statue in the Wren yard. One also recalled that the regular window shades in the dormitories were replaced with black-out shades. a precaution taken in many homes near the Atlantic Ocean. Air raid drills were added to the regular round of fire drills.10
The students who remained on campus participated in the war effort, too. A War Council was formed to coordinate campus-wide war efforts. The WAM Corps (War Activity Members) was composed of those who did at least five hours of volunteer work per month. The jobs available included Red Cross work, especially knitting and rolling bandages, selling war stamps, collecting scrap metal; performing USO work, serving as nurses' aids in the student infirmary, babysitting, clerical work, serving at a soldiers' snack bar, or assembling Christmas boxes for hospitalized soldiers.11 The recruitment was so successful, with over five hundred women signing up, that the organizers had a hard time finding enough work for everyone to do.12 Students also served at the aircraft warning observation post which was in the Methodist Church steeple. Women were permitted to serve only on daytime shifts.13 Women who were not going to attend summer school were urged to consider working on farms to help produce more food and to free up farm laborers for military service.14
The war forced students into other new tasks, as well. Some of the housekeeping and groundskeeping staff quit their jobs in order to take higher paying jobs in industries or other war-related fields. Because of the existence of those jobs, the people who quit were almost impossible to replace. Some men were excused from physical education classes to perform groundskeeping duties. Men students had to start making their own beds because of the maid shortage; women had always made their own beds. The college laundry suffered cutbacks in personnel, so students were requested to wash their own socks and handkerchiefs in order to cut down on the laundry's work load. The dining hall switched from serving at tables to cafeteria-style in order to make up for lost waiters, traditionally male athletes and scholarship students earning college expenses. One alumna remembered that her sorority had to stop serving meals at the house because of the difficulty of obtaining rationed foodstuffs. The sorority members returned to the college dining hall for their meals.l5 Some of the women found part-time jobs as telephone operators. Full-time operators had been preferred, but overcrowded living conditions in town meant that there was nowhere for any newly-arrived operators to live, so part-time workers were employed instead. After February 1943, women athletes gave up their out-of-town schedule because of difficulties in travel, especially overcrowding on trains. Several alumnae commented on the difficulty of train travel. One recalled sneaking onto a troop train because all the regular trains were too full. What was normally an eight hour trip took twenty-two hours instead. Another recalled having to sit on suitcases because all the seats were taken.16
The war took over many social activities on campus. Dating on campus was difficult because of the overabundance of women. Even the chaplains' training program did not help much because of the shortness of the time the chaplains were on campus, because they were older, and because some were married. Occasionally, the women were allowed to ask soldiers to dances, but only if they were properly chaperoned.17 The Williamsburg Inn had been taken over by military officers and an Officers' Club was established there. The women students were permitted to go there, but the permission was granted only after they had petitioned President Pomfret for the right.18 With so many new people in town, places of entertainment were usually crowded at night. The College helped relieve the situation a little by opening Blow Gymnasium on Sunday evenings. Here students could swim, play ping pong, badminton, or bridge, listen to the radio, or read magazines. Snacks were also available.l9 One alumna described Williamsburg on weekends as "a sea of greenish brown and white--hundreds of Navy Seabees and khaki-clad soldiers from Ft. Eustis."20 Another alumna recalled that the Wesley Foundation group at the Methodist Church was frequently visited by servicemen, and the church provided many social activities for them. The girls and women who attended the church joined in games, square dancing, and just chatting with the military men.21
Although the dearth of men made social life difficult for women, it made life easier for the male students who remained. Fred L. Frechette, a student during the war, recalled that he was asked to do things, such as write for the Flat Hat or act in plays, simply because he was one of the few men on campus. If there had been normal numbers of men, his talents may well have been outshone by the superior talents of others.22
During the war women had more opportunities to assume leadership roles. They became editors of the student publications, the Flat Hat, the Colonial Echo, and the literary magazine. They were elected presidents of the classes and of interest groups and honor societies, even when such organizations included men. Other than all-male organizations, many of which were inactive during the war, the one group which women did not lead was the student government association. In the 1920s and 1930s, the women and men had had separate governing bodies, with no one representing the entire student population. This changed in October 1940 with the establishment of the General Cooperative Committee which was composed of representatives from the Men's Student Body, the Women Students Cooperative Government Association (WSCGA), and the college administration. Thereafter, the term "Student Body" referred not just to the governing body of the male students, but to that of all students. The WSCGA continued as a separate organization, still judging honor code and social rule infractions. The Student Body constitution specifically stated that the president had to be a senior man. This proviso created a major problem during the war because several of the presidents were drafted or otherwise chose to leave college, thus necessitating numerous elections.23 In 1944, the constitution was amended to permit women to run for Student Body President, but none was elected during the war.24 Despite the fact that the school's highest elective office remained out of female hands, the women were responsible for running most of the rest of campus. They gained more power more quickly during the war than would have been possible in peacetime.
The alumnae who responded to the questionnaire made several comments that sum up the atmosphere of the wartime college. One recalled it as a very romantic time, made so because many of the women were dating servicemen who were on their way to a battlefront.25 Many commented on the "unreality" of the atmosphere, where they were safely pursuing their studies while millions of people around the world were suffering in war. They could not shut out the images of the conflict because of the presence of so many servicemen in town, who were going to join the sufferers. As one woman phrased it, talking to the men at USO functions "made [her] wonder at how very far removed [her] studies were from the sad realities of the times."26 For the most part, however, the comments of the alumnae indicated that they enjoyed their college days, despite the fears for friends in battle, black-outs, rationing, travel difficulties, and a shortage of men on campus. They still had parties, plays, newspapers, and enough activities to keep themselves busy.
In 1944, the United States Congress passed the legislation known as the G.I. Bill, which provided money for veterans seeking college educations. After the war, many men took advantage of this bill, and colleges welcomed them with open arms. William and Mary joined others in accepting these more mature male students, many of whom brought wives and children with them. But that is the beginning of another era in higher education, one beyond the scope of this study.
The women who attended William and Mary during the time under study did put their college educations to use in the worlds of business and education. Only 17% of them did not hold a job immediately after leaving college, and this included a number who were unable to secure jobs during the Depression years.27 Over one-fifth of the women earned advanced degrees after leaving William and Mary, but only 10% of those degrees were earned at the college.
Since 90% of the women did get married, and 80% had children, undoubtedly many of them chose to be unemployed for part of their lives (the questionnaire was not designed to obtain this information). However, most of the women indicated that they had been working for many years, and quite a number held several different positions. Most of the jobs the women chose were traditionally female jobs, so William and Mary graduates were definitely not taking the initiative and moving into male fields, such as law, medicine, or engineering. The single most popular career choice was that of teaching, with 35% entering that profession. The next most popular career was secretarial work, with almost 10% choosing that. The women held a great variety of white collar jobs. Other positions employing more than 2% of the women were librarianship, salesperson, social worker, and administration posts.
Although 90% of the women married, most of them did not marry fellow students. Less than 15% of the alumnae married men whom they had met while both were students in Williamsburg. Until World War II, women students were prohibited from marrying, so only 6% married before graduation. Most of these dropped out of college in order to get married. One woman admitted to a secret marriage, while another disclosed that she was forced to withdraw after her secret marriage was uncovered.
The women married well-educated men. About 40% of the husbands had attended graduate school, almost 30% had graduated from college, and about 17% had completed at least some college studies. Fewer than 5% had less than a high school education. Again, these figures can be compared to the 1940 statistics for the United States as a whole, where only 10% of the adult male population had attended college. Whereas 60% of the alumnae's fathers had completed at least some college work, 85% of the husbands had done so. As one would expect, the husbands held mainly white collar jobs. In decreasing order, some of the most popular careers were engineer, lawyer, military service, physician, business executive, and college professor.
Most of the alumnae indicated that they had led contented, fulfilled lives after college, whether those lives were primarily devoted to child-rearing, volunteer work, or paid work outside the home. Although radical ideas rarely had much of an impact on students at William and Mary, the women recalled that they were exposed to new ideas and different kinds of people while at college, and this exposure helped to broaden their perspectives.
The admission of women had a positive impact on William and Mary, helping to transform it into a much better quality liberal arts college than it had been. The predictions of the anonymous 1918 Flat Hat writer certainly came true, with the college indeed receiving larger state appropriations, new buildings, a new social life, and more and better activities of all sorts.28 But the major changes which coeducation brought to William and Mary have more to do with the quality of the academic life than with the quantity or quality of buildings or parties. Clearly, the admission of women was the major factor in attracting more applicants. Because the number of applicants outstripped the number of students the College could educate, it was able to impose more stringent admission requirements. Having more students also made it possible for the College to offer a greater variety of courses. Better students and more courses are two signs of the academic improvements which followed the admission of women. Many date Williamsburg's rebirth from the beginning of the Rockefeller restoration in the late 1920s. William and Mary did not wait for any such fairy godfather. Almost a full decade before John D. Rockefeller, Jr., came to town, William and Mary had admitted women and that began a new period of growth for the College.
1Flat Hat, 7 November 1930, p. 5.
2Board of Visitors Minutes, 29 December 1933, p. 458.
3Board of Visitors Minutes, 6 June 1936, p. 252. The same concerns are also expressed in the President's Report to the Board, 9 February 1937, p. 279.
4Board of Visitors Minutes, 5 June 1937, pp. 287-288. Virginia students comprised 61% of enrollment in 1931-32, but only 50% in 1936-37.
5James W. Miller to John Stewart Bryan, 1 May 1940, in President John S. Bryan Papers, Archives Acc. 1979.35, folder: Enrollment, Male-- Committee on--1938-41.
6Board of Visitors Minutes, 31 May 1940, p. 34.
7Board of Visitors Minutes, 13 December 1941, p. 171. The only woman on the Board at this time seconded the resolution adopting these proposals.
8Board of Visitors Minutes, 13 February 1942, p. 176.
9President's Report in Board of Visitors Minutes, 30 May 1942, p. 210.
l0Questionnaire 44-23.
11Flat Hat, "Attention Coeds. WAM Corps Starts Recruiting Tuesday," 5 October 1943, p. 1.
12Questionnaire 44-2.
13Flat Hat, "Aircraft Warning," 18 February 1942, p. 5.
14Flat Hat, "Nancy Tyree Asks Aid for Farmers," 19 April 1944, p. 2.
15Questionnaire 44-11.
16Questionnaires 44-11 and 43-13.
17Flat Hat, "Dances for Soldiers Given by College...," 22 April 1942, p.2.
18Flat Hat, "Women May Now Attend Officers' Club," 23 March 1943, p.1.
19Flat Hat. "Sunday Night Boredom Has Been Lifted...," 23 March 1943, p. 1.
20Questionnaire 43-13.
21Questionnaire 44-23.
22Oral History Interview with Fred L. Frechette, pp. 19-20.
23Flat Hat, "Election Problem," 30 March 1943, p. 8, and "Sad Sage [sic] of Elections," 6 April 1943, pp. 4 and 8.
24The Student Body constitution was printed in the Indian Handbook, which was published each fall.
25Questionnaire 43-6.
26Questionnaire 45-10.
27Most American women college students of the 1920s and 1930s worked after graduation. Barbara Miller Solomon discusses this in In the Company of Educated Women (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), chapter 11.
28"Pass Coeducation," Flat Hat, 13 March 1918, p. 1.
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