Frances Stebbins
Correspondent
Though Roanoke College is celebrating 175 years in Salem in 2017, women were of little importance there until about the time of World War II.
Now of the approximately 1,900 students 60 percent are women with five qualifying as Fulbright Scholars and many making an impact in a variety of fields as alumnae.
Linda Miller, a faculty wife for nearly 40 years and the college archivist since 1989, has seen much of the change. She traced the history of the female students for the concluding Tuesday lecture in the spring Elderscholar series of learn with lunch for adults 55 and over.
She called her program “You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby.”
The recent achievements of women at the school mirror changes in society over her own life time, Miller pointed out. Her research into old records indicates that for many decades the custom was for daughters to aspire to getting the rudiments of education which was obtained in small private academies and then finding a husband who could support a family and use his wife to carry on the family name.
This was true especially in the South as the old records, amusing to readers today, point out, Miller noted. In the 1870s, for instance, pretty girls who hung about the campus hoping to catch the attention of young male students were rebuked in the local newspaper for “being a distraction.”
From time to time a few women were admitted. A group of six were taught in 1898 in separate classes as “Special Students.” They had a good time in this unusual role and adopted their own colors, had a kind of sorority and a poem about their status.
Around 1910 the number of women pioneers in certain professions was increasing, and, although Hollins College was nearby, Miller pointed out that it was essentially a high school.
She noted that until well into the 20th Century high schools, as known today, scarcely existed in smaller Virginia communities. Parents who could afford it sent their sons and daughters to private academies, and for many girl’s formal education ended there.
Shortly before World W I the Elizabeth College for women was moved from Charlotte, N.C. to Salem, but it did not prosper as a fire and the Great Depression brought it to an end. By then a few women were admitted to the men’s college; they shone in elaborate May Day events during the 1930s and got their first small dormitory where they were strictly supervised by “housemothers>’
Miller mentioned several women who paved the way for others during and just after World War II including the late Dr. Esther Clark Brown, Greta Rikard and Patricia Gathercole, the latter the first woman with a doctorate who headed a department {of Modern Languages.}
Though women have increased in numbers and influence over the past half century—the Roanoke Valley now boasts many alumnae—male professors still predominate, Miller noted.
