ABSTRACT

In the fall of 1918, the College of William and Mary became the first four-year state college in Virginia to admit women as regular students. William and Mary had been a small college for many years, but admission of women began a period of unprecedented growth. Many new departments, some of which were designed especially for the women, were added as the student population grew. The physical plant also expanded, and the number of faculty members increased. The Great Depression of the 1930s and World War II slowed the period of growth. However, William and Mary was receiving enough applications that it had to apply ever more stringent admission standards to keep the student population at the size for which the college had classroom and dormitory space. The l930s and 1940s were also a time when there were more women students than men students, partly a result of a greater number of applications from women, but mainly a result of higher quality female applicants. Although solutions were suggested to solve this problem and make William and Mary more attractive to men, World War II made their implementation impossible. The women were from a homogeneous background, mainly middle class Protestant Virginians. After leaving college, most of them worked, married, and raised families. They pursued traditionally female occupations. Their husbands were, in the aggregate, better educated than their parents.

WHEN MARY ENTERED WITH HER BROTHER WILLIAM: WOMEN STUDENTS AT THE COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY, 1918 - 1945

INTRODUCTION

In the fall of 1918 the College of William and Mary became the first state-supported four-year college in Virginia to admit women. By then, Virginia was the only state in the union which was not providing its women residents the opportunity to obtain four years of public higher education. There were several two-year normal schools, but women desiring more than these had to offer, including graduate and professional education, had to attend either private colleges or other states' universities, both expensive alternatives.

For some time, but intensifying after 1910, concerned Virginians, both men and women, had been waging a campaign among Virginia's legislators to open the University of Virginia to women, or at least to establish a coordinate women's college. William and Mary President Lyon G. Tyler was a part of this effort, called the Cooperative Education Commission of Virginia.1 However, the university's politically powerful alumni who opposed coeducation, on the assumption that women would somehow defile Mr. Jefferson's bastion of chivalry, were able to defeat any coeducation bills. Finally, in March 1918, a compromise was reached, and the College of William and Mary was opened to women on the same basis as men.2

One reason the legislators agreed to the compromise was the adverse impact of the United States' entry into World War I on college enrollments. Caught up in the patriotic war fever, male students deserted their college classes for the armed forces and war work. Most colleges suffered drops in enrollment, and the smaller, poorer colleges, such as William and Mary, were especially hard hit. World War I also coincided with the final push for women's suffrage, which gave the Virginians a moral stance from which to call for equal access to higher education for women.

The College of William and Mary had an illustrious past and many noted alumni. Like most southern colleges, it had suffered greatly during the Civil War. After reopening in 1865, it struggled along until the doors finally had to close again in 1881, primarily due to the lack of money and the resulting inability to maintain the buildings in usable condition. However, William and Mary President Benjamin S. Ewell never gave up hope for the College, and in 1888 he convinced the state legislature to provide financial support for the College's teacher training program.3 This arrangement was made during the administration of Governor Fitzhugh Lee ( 1886-1890), who was expanding the public school system in the state.4 It is reasonable to see a connection between that expansion and the provision of funds for the College since a larger school system would need more teachers. Teacher training became a major objective for William and Mary. This program was so successful that in 1906, during the administration of Governor Claude Swanson (1906-1910), the Commonwealth of Virginia agreed to take full responsibility for the support of the College. This decision was part of Governor Swanson's progressive program which also saw the opening of more normal schools for women, improved roads, and the adoption of public health measures.5

In the 1908 college catalog, William and Mary proudly proclaimed itself "the only institution in America especially organized and supported for the training of male teachers." All other teacher training schools were either for women or were coeducational. William and Mary's training was designed to prepare men for supervisory positions, such as principals and school superintendents.6 By 1912, William and Mary was graduating more teachers than the University of Virginia, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and Virginia Military Institute, the other four-year state schools, combined.7

Between 1888 and 1917, William and Mary remained a fairly small college, the highest enrollment being 244, in the year 1905-06. Enrollment in 1916-17 was 196, plus 38 in the teacher training academy. In the fall of 1917, by which time the United States' entry into World War I was affecting enrollment figures, there were only 131 students, plus another 96 who were members of a detachment of the Students' Army Training Corps.8 The Corps' presence helped finances immensely. However, William and Mary President Lyon G. Tyler, who had been serving in that office since the reopening of the college in 1888, wanted a better, more permanent way to increase enrollment and qualify for more state funding.

Fortunately for women, Tyler favored coeducation. He had joined the Cooperative Education Commision in 1904, the year of its founding. Tyler also favored votes for women and was a member of the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia; obviously he was genuinely interested in at least some rights for women and did not view their admission to William and Mary in purely mercenary terms.9

As the campaign to establish a women's college at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville floundered, Tyler offered William and Mary as an alternative. William and Mary's alumni and students were fewer in number and politically weaker than those of the University, so their protests were not as loud and were more easily ignored.10 Furthermore, as discussion about providing a four-year college education for women progressed, it clearly developed that

since the advocates of higher education had repeatedly stressed the need for well-trained female teachers as a primary reason for giving women a college education, it seemed logical to admit them to the state-supported school best known for teacher training . . . 11
Tyler had informally polled the William and Mary faculty on their reaction to the coeducation plan, and they had given their support to the idea.12 The possibility of admitting women to William and Mary was not formally discussed at faculty meetings, or at least no record of any such discussion appeared in the minutes of the faculty meetings. On 17 February 1918, theWilliam and Mary Board of Visitors adopted a resolution of support for the Strode Bill, the legislation which would open William and Mary to women.l3 The bill was approved on 15 March 1918.14 William and Mary, proud of its long list of firsts, had another: the first state-supported four-year college in Virginia to admit women on an equal basis with men.

The admission of women contributed greatly to the growth of William and Mary. Enrollment increased; new buildings were built to accommodate this influx; and more faculty members were hired. William and Mary became known for its present as well as its past. This thesis will examine the social life of the women students, the role of women students' government in their lives, and the impact the admission of women had on academic offerings and admission standards, from 1918 through the end of World War II in 1945.

I J. H. Montgomery to Lyon G. Tyler, 13 April 1933. Tyler Family Papers, Group B. Box 24, folder: Cooperative Education Commission of Virginia, Manuscripts and Rare Books Department, Swem Library, College of William and Mary.

2 The story of the fight for coeducation can be found in Sara S. Rogers, "The Southern Lady Versus the Old Dominion" (Honors thesis, College of William and Mary, 1975), and Walter Russell Bowie, Sunrise in the South (Richmond: William Byrd Press, Inc., 1942).

3Parke Rouse, Jr., " 'Old Buck': A Hero in Spite of Himself," William and Mary Alumni Gazette. Winter 1983, pp. 18-20.

4Virginius Dabney, Virginia: The New Dominion (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1971 ), p. 395.

5Ibid., p. 450.

6Bulletin of the College of William and Mary, vol. II, no. 4 (November 1908) (Williamsburg, Va.), p. 14.

7Rogers, "The Southern Lady Versus the Old Dominion," p. 134.

8Enrollment figures can be found in the college bulletins. Figures sometimes included and sometimes excluded the students in the teacher's training academy, which was discontinued in 1918. The 1905-06 figure includes the academy figures. Other sources may give slightly different figures.

9Lila Meade Valentine to Lyon G. Tyler, 6 December 1909, and L. G. Tyler to Mrs. Alice 0. Taylor, 16 April 1914. Tyler Family Papers, Group B, Box 24, folder: Equal Suffrage League of Virginia; Manuscripts and Rare Books Department, Swem Library, College of William and Mary.

1ORogers, "The Southern Lady Versus the Old Dominion," pp. 130-31, 133.

11College of William and Mary Board of Visitors Minutes, meeting of 17 February 1918, p. 359. College Archives, Swem Library, College of William and Mary.

12L. G. Tyler to Mr. Taliaferro, 18 January 1918, Lyon G. Tyler Papers, Archives Acc. 1984.19, folder: Coeducation. College Archives, Swem Library, College of William and Mary.

13Board of Visitors Minutes, 17 February 1918, p. 359; College Archives, Swem Library, College of William and Mary.

14For text of the bill, see Virginia, Acts (1918), p. 424.

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College of William and Mary. Swem Library. Special Collections. P. O. Box 8794, Williamsburg, VA 23187-8794
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Last updated 16 February 1998