Extracurriculars – Forty Years: The History of Women at Bowdoin

Masque and Gown Photos – 1920 – 1924 – 1960 – 1976

A visual documentation of Bowdoin’s progression from an all-male college to a coeducational one can be found in the archives of Masque and Gown. Masque and Gown is a student run theater organization founded in 1903, sixty eight years before the arrival of women students on campus. The photos featured here illustrate Masque and Gown at three distinct points in time: when the college was an all-male institution, when the Masque and Gown began casting Brunswick women in female roles, and when the College became a coeducational institution.

AG37.1 - Masque and Gown Photo (1920 Merchant of Venice)

The first two photos [DocumentAG, 37.1 and DocumentAG, 37.2] are group shots from a 1920 production of The Merchant of Venice and a 1924 production of Macbeth. These photos were taken in the years when Masque and Gown productions consisted of all male casts. In 1927 Masque and Gown began casting Brunswick women in female roles, with a few exceptions.

AG37.2 - Masque and Gown Photo (1924 MacBeth)

Eventually, Masque and Gown also allowed Bowdoin female staff members and faculty wives to participate in their productions. Edith Elliott, a Registered Nurse at the Bowdoin infirmary appeared as the only female in the 1937 production of Yellow Jack. The third image [DocumentAG, 37.3] shows women of the Brunswick community in the 1960 production of Playboy of the Western World. Although the names of the five women in the image are not specified, the female roles in the play are as follows. Four village girls: Susan Brady, Nelly Leahy, Honor Blake, and Sara Tansey played by Betsi Black, Cecilia Stehle, Paula Black, and Linda Sarkis respectively, Margaret Flaherty played by Paula DeCaesar and Widow Quin played by Irma Black.

AG37.3 - Masque and Gown Photo (1960 Player of the Western World)

The final photo [DocumentAG, 37.4] is of the 1976 production of A Slight Ache. The particularly small cast is made up of only Bowdoin students. Brunswick women and faculty wives were eventually phased out as actresses in Masque and Gown plays and female students became the primary actresses in campus productions.

AG37.4 - Masque and Gown Photo (1976 A Slight Ache)

The inclusion of women of the Brunswick community as well as the participation of female staff members and faculty wives raises an interesting question: When and to what degree did women become members of the Bowdoin community? Women were not students until the 1970’s, yet before coeducation, women participated in college programs and found ways of creating communities with other women through Bowdoin. An excellent example of such a group of women is the Society of Bowdoin Women. The Society began in the 1920’s and its members consisted of women in the Brunswick community, women staff members, and faculty wives, with the only requirement for membership being that “she love a Bowdoin man.” Theodora Penny Martin suggests in “On the Outskirts: A Case Study for Kin Work in Academe” that such a society allowed women to become a part of the Bowdoin community by “defin[ing] herself in the tradition of her family”. Similarly the women who participated in Masque and Gown productions post 1927 and before coeducation were, if only for a short amount of time, part of the Bowdoin community.

Orient: Rah Rah Black and White

Bowdoin Cheerleading

Orient Article: November 17, 1972

The first classes of female students at Bowdoin in the early 1970’s were made up of a fairly diverse group of women. Women’s athletic teams, like field hockey and tennis, were taking shape and creating distinctly female spaces for women on campus. The need for such spaces had been articulated by other women in the early classes, like the founders of the Bowdoin Women’s Association, which started the group in part as a response to this absence. What, then, are we to make of Bowdoin Cheerleading?

Bowdoin Cheerleading became an organized group before the arrival of female students on campus. Records have not been kept that indicate exactly when the all-male squad was formed. However, records indicate that Bowdoin Cheerleading went coed the same year that the college began accepting female students as part of the 12-College Exchange Program. Trish Luther and Sue Alvano, both interchange coeds, are believed to be the first females that joined the squad in the fall of 1969.

Various sources suggest that the first squad of coeds formed in 1972. The attached article [DocumentAG, 38] is a clipping from The Bowdoin Orient dated November 17, 1972. Although the author of the article seems to have a less-than-favorable view of Bowdoin Cheerleaders, he makes an interesting point. He states that “the success of the cheerleading performance depends upon the success of the football team.” Given this, how is one to consider Cheerleaders as separate from their male counterparts?

The fact is that groups of Bowdoin Cheerleaders during the early 1970’s did not seek a separate place, but rather worked to integrate themselves into a historically male institution by becoming part of male tradition through sports, particularly football. Records from some of the cheerleading squads in this time period describe how integrated the two groups were. The cheerleaders would travel with men to their away games to provide morale and support. Most of the funding they sought was to cover the expense of travel and food during these trips. They also requested funding in 1973 to purchase new uniforms since most of the uniforms the Cheerleaders had at the time were homemade.

It is important to mention that Cheerleaders did in fact exist outside of football. In 1973 there were two separate squads of cheerleaders, one for football and one for basketball. Records suggest that the squads eventually merged into one group. The Orient article also makes reference an intra-fraternity cheering contest that Cheerleaders planned to “exploit”. This contest was in fact sponsored by football among fraternities and other groups on campus during homecoming. The prize? A keg.

Orient: Trials and Tribs in Tights

Bowdoin Dance

Orient Article: October 22, 1971

Is it any surprise that the origin of Dance at Bowdoin coincides with the presence of female students on campus? Prior to 1970, Bowdoin College did not provide male students (or the few female exchange students from the 12-College Exchange) the opportunity to pursue Dance on campus.

In the Spring of 1970, then teacher at Brunswick High School, June Vail and Marcy Playvin, a dance instructor at Bates at the time, teamed up to offer eight weeks of dance classes on a subscription basis to college –related people. Bowdoin did not officially sponsor the program but did provide a space in the gym.

The following year June Vail contacted Dean A. Leroy Greason about teaching Dance at Bowdoin on a similar subscription basis. In the 1971-1977 Review of the Bowdoin Dance Program, Vail recalls having said that such a course would “provide the women students arriving in 1971-72 with a program that satisfied a demand for recreational, physical exercise and a demand for dance as an art form”.

Vail was hired in a salaried position and taught three 90-minute classes in the fall semester of 1971. The classes were offered as part of the Physical Education department. Thirty five students enrolled in the first class, though most students were first-years or exchange students. The Orient article [DocumentAG, 39] is from the first year that Bowdoin Dance was offered to the student body.

The department eventually grew and secured stable sources of funding. This allowed for the purchase of dance related books and subscriptions to two periodicals, Dance Magazine and Dance Perspective. Today, dance classes are run out of the Department of Theater and Dance, which Vail helped to establish in 1994. Bowdoin currently only offers Dance as a minor.

1975 Funding Request and Constitution for the Bowdoin Women’s Association

“Co-education remained controversial and while less hostile with the senior class gone, there was still an atmosphere that we were guests at a male college.”

– Patricia Geller ‘75

The Bowdoin Women’s Association (BWA), a student led campus organization, began informally in the fall of 1972. Patricia “Barney” Geller ‘75 and Liza Graves ‘76, two of the clubs founding members, began organizing meetings before petitioning the student government for funding as an official campus organization. BWA was intended to help build community among male and female students while bringing to the forefront women’s issues that had not yet been addressed by the college. The organization tackled institutional and social issues, advocating the need for more female faculty and addressing what Patricia Geller called a “concern that some of the new students were taking what we [Geller and Graves] saw a(s) subservient roles in some of the frats and were not allowed to be full members.”

BWA’s constitution [DocumentAG, 40] describes the group as both a social and educational organization. Funding was used to sponsor social events that allowed women to gather informally, creating a space where women could articulate some of the issues they encountered at a traditionally male school. Funding was also used to sponsor non-academic educational programs on sex education and birth control. The second initiative was of considerable importance given that the College was largely unprepared for the arrival of women on campus, particularly in the department of women’s health. Geller recalls both a rule at the infirmary requiring women to wear a bra in order to be seen and the lack of a gynecologist available to women on campus.

BWA was also instrumental in educating students and raising awareness about issues of sexual harassment and abuse. Plans outlined in BWA’s 1975 budget proposal seek to bring speakers to campus in the fall of 1976 including the Executive Director of the National Organization for the Prevention of Rape and Assault. Other proposed speakers include women politicians, speakers on women’s history, and artists and writers on issues pertinent to women. Although many of the events hosted by BWA were focused on women, they were open to men as well.

BWA’s presence on campus during the early years of coeducation was important both in creating a space where women could meet and discuss the issues they encountered on a daily basis and in educating students, men and women alike, about issues that were likely not addressed prior to the arrival of women on campus.

AG40.1 - 1975 Funding Request and Constitution for the Bowdoin Women's Association

AG40.2 - 1975 Funding Request and Constitution for the Bowdoin Women's Association

AG40.3 - 1975 Funding Request and Constitution for the Bowdoin Women's Association

AG40.4 - 1975 Funding Request and Constitution for the Bowdoin Women's Association

AG40.5 - 1975 Funding Request and Constitution for the Bowdoin Women's Association

AG40.6 - 1975 Funding Request and Constitution for the Bowdoin Women's Association

Voluntary Services Program March 1972 Newsletter

An early perceived benefit of bringing women students to an all-male campus and becoming a coeducational institution was that women would have a “calming influence” on men. Whether this proved true or not is a matter of opinion but women students on Bowdoin’s campus did have an “organizational influence,” at least for the Voluntary Service Program, an early predecessor to today’s Mckeen Center.

Female students first began arriving on campus in 1969 as part of the 12-College Exchange Program. During the program’s first year, some women spoke to Professor of Education Paul Hazelton about the need for an easier, more visible path to participation in voluntary community service.

In 1970 Professor Hazelton, along with a group of male and female students formed the Voluntary Services Program Committee. The committee was established to coordinate student efforts in an organized manner and to provide accountability on behalf of the College for its student volunteers. Ann Pierson, then a secretary in the Education Department, became the Coordinator of the Voluntary Services Program. Ann’s position and the VSP allowed for a structured way in which students could pursue voluntary services. The newsletter [DocumentAG, 41] is something that VSP would have made available to students.
While volunteerism did occur at Bowdoin prior to the arrival of women, it was almost an “underground activity” recalls Anne Pierson. After the VSP was instituted, the number of students volunteering grew to at least a hundred within the first year and continuously after that.

Today, the “Common Good” is a phrase that most Bowdoin students are familiar with, either through the annual Common Good Day or through other ongoing projects sponsored by the Joseph Mckeen Center for the Common Good. A philosophy that has become such an integral part of Bowdoin College is rooted in the efforts of some of the first women students on campus. Ann Pierson who was both present during this shift and a part of it herself acknowledges these women’s efforts:

“It was the Bowdoin women in those early years who knew that without an effective system in place, volunteerism wouldn’t thrive on campus. They were eager for that to happen and they pushed for action. Before co-education, a few men students sought out opportunities on their own, of course. But it was the collaborative effort, initiated by women that made the difference.”