Now this is really interesting. It was one of the many events organized for Rice’s Semicentennial–two full days of speakers and panel discussions about the place of women in modern society.
And here’s the Sallyport article about the event. Look at the participants! Quoted in this piece are (among others) Mrs. Oveta Culp Hobby, Bruno Bettleheim, Professor Mary Ellen Goodman and Corinne Tsanoff, the politically active wife of Rice professor Radoslav Tsanoff who arrived at Rice in 1916. Zoom in and read it–it’s just great.
I find the language here deeply interesting and well worth exploring further. My sense is that there’s more information about this event in the archives and since it’s directly related to the research I’m doing right now I’m going to start digging next week when I’m back in Houston. I’ll let you know if I find anything good.
Bonus: I’ve been thinking recently about buildings that had signs on them before the recent decision to make them all identifiable. There weren’t many, but there were a few. We’ve already established that the Bonner Lab was marked. I also noticed this the other day:
Update: Marty says in the comments that this must be new and so it is. Here’s a picture I took on May 24, 2011:
I’m not sure yet whether I think the new sign is an improvement or not (I’m leaning towards “not”) but at least now I know why I never noticed it before. This is by far my favorite campus building, by the way.
I’ve never seen those letters on Hamman Hall before. I think they’re part of the recent building identification kerfuffle. There is a sign engraved in the stone on the inner wall. I’ve always thought that if you needed to go somewhere bad enough you would find the building, and they are generally identified indoors anyway. The sign on old Physics facing the Academic Quad hurts my eyes. There’s also a banner or a giant sign saying “HAMMAN HALL” on the back wall facing the parking lot.
It is interesting that two of the speakers used metaphors about driving. I expect that during their lifetimes, driving had changed from rare to common for women, probably during WW II. Women started doing a lot of formerly male-only things on the home front.
There is a lot of cool architecture in Hamman Hall but it was done on the cheap and is a difficult theatre. It never should have been planned without an elevator, but that was way before ADA. Once the Shepherd School moved out they were able to do some renovations to make it work better. But the stories I could tell! Of course that’s nothing compared to the stories Sandy Havens could tell!
Rice has a long reputation for being women-friendly. My great-grandfather, who was very forward thinking and sent all of his daughters to college, was happy to send two of them to Rice, including my grandmother (Dorothy Flagg LaRue, class of 1931) for precisely that reason. It was her positive experience, and the quality of her education, that most influenced me.
Ah, I love Hamman Hall! So many happy memories as a Rice Player. But, yes, Sandy Havens has all the best stories!