During the spring of 1981, history Professor Carol Lasser (b.
1952), English professor Katherine Linehan (b. 1944), and Oberlin
College Research Associate Marlene Deahl Merrill (b. 1933), interviewed
five distinguished Oberlin alumnae as part of the oral-history project
titled “Visiting Women Graduates.” The interviewees were asked to
discuss coeducation and the quality of life for women at Oberlin
College during their years as undergraduates as well as the impact
an Oberlin education had on them.
The tapes consist of interviews with the following Oberlin alumnae
covering the specified subjects
Mary Dent Crisp
Mary Dent Crisp ’46 (b. 1923) majored in botany at Oberlin. She
recorded her interview April 3, 1981, during a campus visit. Crisp,
the former co-chair of the Republican National Committee, is a
self-employed consultant and a senior advisor to the Washington-based
lobby group Business Executives for National Security. She headed
John Anderson’s 1980 presidential campaign. In her interview,
Crisp discusses the academic and social atmosphere at Oberlin
when she was a student during World War II; the V-12 unit for
officer training stationed at Oberlin; and the social consciousness
at Oberlin. Included in the latter are comments on racial issues
at the College, the organization of the interracial Cosmopolitan
Barber Shop, her marriage and working life, raising children,
feminism, her divorce, her political activity in the Republican
Party starting in Arizona in 1961, the Republican campaign to
ratify the ERA in the 1970s, her work on the Republican National
Committee, and her political philosophy.
Mary E. Johnston
Mary E. Johnston ’13 (1890-1982) recorded her interview at the
Center for Low-Income Retirees in Cleveland on April 4, 1981.
A lack of money forced Johnston to leave Oberlin College in her
junior year. During the following 25 years, she taught school
and worked toward her degree during the summers. In 1937, she
received the A.B. degree from Oberlin College, and in 1952 she
received the M.A. degree in library science from Kent State University.
In her interview, Johnston discusses her family background, her
childhood in Sandusky, Ohio, life as a student in the Oberlin
public schools and at the College, her experience as a black woman
student, such Oberlin people as Julia Finney Monroe and Dean Florence
Fitch, Oberlin ideals and their influence on her life, attitudes
toward suffrage when she was a student, and her work for the American
Missionary Association as a teacher at St. Augustine’s College
in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Rowena Woodham Jelliffe
Rowena Wood ham Jelliffe ’14 (b. 1892) was active as a speaker
and organizer for the women’s suffrage movement during her college
years. After graduating from Oberlin College, she married Russell
Jelliffe (d. 1980); in 1915 they both earned master’s degrees
in social work at the University of Chicago. They went on to organize
the first interracial community cultural center in Cleveland,
which gave birth to the Karamu Theater project and Karamu House.
Jelliffe was awarded the honorary doctorate of letters degree
by Oberlin in 1944 and the H.H.D. degree by Western Reserve University
in 1951.
Jelliffe recorded her interviews during a three-day visit to
Oberlin April 23-25, 1981. The three interviews are titled “A
Student Suffragist at Oberlin, 1910-1914,” “Student Life at Oberlin:
In Quest of Coeducation, 1910-1914,” and “Life after Oberlin:
A Pioneer in Social Reform Looks Back.” Topics discussed in her
interviews include the suffrage movement at Oberlin College and
her activities therein, 1910-1914; Oberlin’s Equal Suffrage League;
coeducation at Oberlin; her experiences as a woman student; stories
about her mother, who was a mail carrier; her own pioneering efforts
in social work; and Oberlin students’ contact with Cleveland.
Oberlin women discussed include Clara Snell (Mrs. Albert) Wolfe
(1874 1970, A.B. 1909), and mathematics Professor Mary Emily Sinclair
(1878-1955, A.B. 1900).
Helen Strassburger Boatwright
Helen Strassburger Boatwright (b. 1916) grew up in Sheboygan,
Wisconsin during the Depression. She studied voice at the Oberlin
Conservatory of Music, receiving the bachelor degree in music
in 1939 and the master’s degree in music in 1943. She went on
to become a professional oratorio singer. Her interviews, recorded
May 9, 1981, during a visit to her home in Fayetteville, New York,
focus on her music studies at Oberlin and her career. She also
discusses her childhood in Sheboygan; her voice teacher at Oberlin,
Professor Marion Sims (1892-1980); social life on campus; relations
between College and Conservatory students; her marriage to violinist
Howard Boatwright; Frances G. Nash (1871-1961), dean of Conservatory
women; music education Professor Hilda Magdsick (1897-1977); and
black student activist and feminist Anna Brown (A.B. 1937).
Nancy Cooper
Nancy Cooper (b. 1930) received the B.A. degree in 1951 and the
M.A. degree in 1954 from Oberlin College. Employed by the College
in various departmental capacities between 1954 and 1973, she
was director of the Parent’s Fund from 1974 to 1978. From
1978 to 1983 she was an assistant to President Emil C. Danenberg
and Acting President James L. Powell. Other positions have included
associate dean of residential life (1983-1987) and assistant dean
of students/residential life (1987-1990). As of as of July 1990,
she is assistant dean of students/counselor/coordinator. In these
interviews, recorded on campus May 11, 1981, Cooper discusses
coeducation at Oberlin during her student years in the late 1940s
and early 1950s; the beginning of Pyle Inn Co-op, the first student
co-op c. 1950; student jobs; campus buildings; race relations
at Oberlin; Dean of Women Mary Dolliver (1899-1984); the development
of her career; her former husband Walter Aschaffenburg (A.B. 1951),
professor of music theory and composition from 1952 to 1987; her
numerous jobs and activities in the College since the mid-1960s;
and women’s issues in the College in the 1970s and 1980s.
