This is a tape recording being made by Helen Bergeson on the project for the Friends of the University Library. I am visiting Miss Dorothy Dennis in her home^[1] in Rochester, New York, on Tuesday, March 18, 1975. Miss Dennis is a member of the class of 1908 of the University of Rochester.

Miss Dennis: As far back as I can remember about my schooling, I took it for granted that I would go to college because my parents^[2] were ambitious to secure for their children the advantages of higher education. In the last years of the 19th century my older sister^[3] was well prepared for college, and was eager to enter the University of Rochester, which however was not accepting women students. Public­ spirited devotees of learning were urging the trustees to introduce coeducation as had been done in Oberlin College in 1841. As early as the 1870s two men, Lewis Henry Morgan^[4] and Dr. Edward Mott Moore^[5] had asked that women be admitted to Rochester, but to no avail. However, Morgan left his entire residuary estate of about $80,000 to the University to further the education of women. In 1898 the trustees agreed to admit them if $100,000 could be raised for the expense of their entrance. Later, in 1900, the sum was lowered to $50,000. Even that proved difficult to raise for women led by Miss Susan B. Anthony, Mrs. Mary T. L. Gannett^[6] and Mrs. Helen B. Montgomery.^[7] It is said they went from door to door accepting even small coins. But at the deadline, when failure stared them in the face, Susan Anthony pledged her life was won.

Miss Anthony had been bitterly maligned in her efforts to secure votes for women. My father, commissioned by the Democrat and Chronicle to interview her,^[8] reported to my mother, "Susan Anthony is a lady." Some years later she visited our Anderson Hall home where the girls conducted their own affairs, "Don't do anything to bring reproach upon women students."

In the last few years before Rush Rhees came as president in 1900, a small group of women secured permission to visit UR classes without reciting. And the professors who as I was told approved their efforts and examined them at the end of each year and held credits to be available on formal opening. These women did not have an easy experience, my sister among them. There are stories of the stamping of feet and catcalls when they entered a room, and the stairs of Anderson Hall were sometimes blocked to them. In 1900, and for some years, in general women were admitted only from Rochester and environs. Rush Rhees had become president under the impression that the college was not coeducational, nor would it be. He favored separate education for women. However, thirty-three women were admitted in 1900, and at the close of the year, Dr. Rhees stated, "These young women have proved to be good students, acceptable women, and have conducted themselves with propriety and good taste." His goal became that of forming two colleges, equal but separate. When I entered in 1904, an unsophisticated young woman, I found male classmates tolerant and friendly. Opposition had lessened. Only once was I really embarrassed, when a friend of high school days did not return my greeting on the campus. The snub hurt but I lifted my head proudly and ignored him afterward. Naturally, we women thought Dr. Rhees did not want us in the college, although as I remember, we were invited to a reception at his home.^[9] In 1946, Dr. John R. Slater, professor of English, published a book, Rhees of Rochester,^[10] in which he wrote, "Emphatic denials should be made to the charge sometimes heard that he discriminated against women students. He did nothing of the sort. He met not only their just demands but their reasoned requests with complete equity and courtesy. Rush Rhees was never unfair." Dr. Slater made a careful study of the emerging of a small college into an exceptionally fine university under the leadership of Rhees, with the help of George Eastman.

Amusingly, when I was a Junior, the women learned that the men were planning to celebrate their promotion to their next higher classes or to graduation by marching from the campus to a nearby church. They would wear the traditional caps and gowns, with the tassels of the mortarboards identifying their individual progress, green for freshmen, red for sophomores, purple for juniors, and black for seniors. Straightway, not easily, several of us bearded Dr. Rhees in his office to ask him whether the women might not march with the men. We were in no sense crusaders. We had no realization that the man who greeted us, perhaps tired from the weight of many problems, might visualize certain complications. We wanted merely the pleasure of joining in the excitement. Nevertheless, not sure of success, we were agreeably surprised when the President assured us of his acquiescence. However, our triumph was somewhat dampened when one of our group could not round up a cap for the occasion. But we rallied and resolved to manufacture a mortarboard. We spent the entire evening before the march at the home of one of us whose parents tactfully left us to our own devices. When they returned at midnight they found the hat was incomplete and three girls close to tears. Luckily, the father who had some knowledge of tailoring set to and in no time the task was finished. For the rest of the night three girls slept soundly. ^[11]

We had our headquarters in a large room in a corridor of Anderson Hall. Here we studied, prepared and ate our meals, held our meetings, and took turns in cleaning the space. Although of course we were serious, we laughed a great deal. I recall that Professor Gilmore,^[12] author of the hymn, "He Leadeth Me," whose office was nearby, often shared his sweet biscuits with a group of giggling girls outside his door. We were not recluses. The administration had arranged for us to have our own students association. We attended chapel with the men. Most of our activities, however, were of our own creation. The men of 1907 in my junior year shared their yearbook, The Interpres, with us. The section contained photographs and described our clubs, including Glee, Instrumental Music, Basketball, and YMCA. A gymnasium had to wait for some years, but the UR arranged with East High School and the YWCA to provide places for exercises. We held a spring reception for the faculty and friends and we had our own class banquets every year. In our college classes, sometimes with men and sometimes by ourselves, we felt at home. After all, we were not enemies and the men and professors were businesslike and friendly. I was never conscious of any discrimination or of any granting of special favors to either sex. As far as I knew, there was none.

During those first years I saw friendships often ripen into marriage, which marked a change of attitude toward women. Sororities were formed. In 1906, my own,^[13] whose membership included my special friends, I shared in its inception, but reluctantly, because I disliked what I knew of a custom of blackballing prospective members. Our charter was good, but after graduation I withdrew. By that time my convictions had strengthened. I could no longer condone the rejecting of girls who had been allowed to hope for admission. When I was a freshman Professor Kendrick Philander Shedd was my good teacher of German Language and Literature. We respected him and he was thorough. We liked him and he liked us. Once at is home we sat on the floor in front of a blazing fireplace, enjoyed refreshments, as freshmen do, and singing college songs. In class he introduced us to famous writers, including Schiller and Goethe. ^[14]

Professor Ryland Morris Kendrick, Munro Professor of Greek,^[15] whose father^[16] had taught Greek in the University before him, also was our good friend. For us, the architecture and sculpture of ancient Athens, the Parthenon and Athenae, Greek tragedies, Socrates and Plato all became more than mere names. Once he took us into the hills near Float Bridge, Irondequoit,^[17] where we produced the play, Iphenigia, for which the girls of the class had fashioned robes from pastel colored cheesecloth. And on the day, our Iphenigia and Orestes recited Greek lines from the text we had studied.

Dr. John R. Slater^[18] was a great scholar and teacher, as a host of his former students will testify. For me, this inspiration carried over from college classes to many of his courses, which I elected when I was teaching English in high school. I early sensed the rare quality of his mind, his almost mystic understanding of the works of the masters of English literature. Because I knew so little of the rich rewards of learning, I kept quiet in class, rather watching with fascination Dr. Slater's thoughts, keenly aware that I was following him from afar, but with growing certainty of his greatness.

Professor Henry Fairfax Burton who was an acting president for two years until Dr. Rhees came in 1900, was a professor of Latin who helped me discipline my mind. When his teaching began he was Burtie the Lamb to his students but when they started to take advantage of him, he became Burtie the Bear. He was relentless in his endeavor to awaken his students to the distinction between superficial accomplishment and the mastery in the translation and understanding of Roman Classics. I myself, once after I’d spent an hour and a half in preparation of an assigned passage, and was called upon to recite, must have given a stumbling and inaccurate recitation for Professor Burton snatched off his reading glasses, mumbling something about too little preparation, and I who never dreamed of talking back to any professor, became suddenly angry. But as I was about to voice an impulsive denial, my best friend, sitting next to me, calmed me with a touch of her arm, and I laughed. Nevertheless, I elected course after course of Latin with Burton. I now realize I was motivated at least in part because I always received a standing of 85 per cent, whereas my older sister never earned a mark lower than the highest of the 90s in her work with Professor Burton. Of course I deserved only 85. In my senior year I attended Burton's class for women students who were preparing to teach Latin and other subjects. In those days not enough provision was devoted to practice but Professor Burton had a regular class and asked each one of us to teach the subject for a day. When my turn came, I lacked self-confidence. Very quietly and matter-of-factly he said, "Please continue the lesson tomorrow." ^[19]

Professor William Carey Morey,^[20] a brilliant history scholar, shared with us his valleys of worldwide development. Once he organized a student group to work outside our class with a leader of our own. It was our aim to learn about the beginnings of the original colonies, all of which had contributed greatly to the founding of America. I studied Maryland and I recall with pleasure how Professor Morey in a tutor-like conference, examined me conversationally to determine the result of my reading. He was tactful, awarded me college credit, and I have never forgotten the experience.

Professor George Mather Forbes,^[21] professor of Philosophy and Pedagogy, in a class on metaphysics, introduced enough of psychology to reveal to me some of the wonders of the human brain. He touched on the type of investigation which today is known as extrasensory perception, opening up for me an entirely new type of thinking.

Herman LeRoy Fairchild,^[22] professor of Geology, took us to the banks of the Genesee River and showed us strata of rock, each layer piled up during age-long periods of time.

Our 1908 class had no Women’s Dean, no women's buildings, nor could they foresee that in 1930, when the men moved to the River Campus, the Prince Street Campus would become a Women's College. Nor could they know that in 1955 the women would join the men in the University on the Genesee. Over the years Rhees and Eastman developed a rarely fine friendship. The President and the founder of a great university dreamed together about a splendid university. Dr. John R. Slater, in a delicate tribute, writes, "The main thing to remember was that he Rhees thoroughly appreciated Eastman as a great man and loved him as a friend." The 1975 alumni directory states, "The University of Rochester is an independent non-sectarian coeducational institution of higher learning and research."

HAB: Miss Dennis, your very beautiful remarks have raised some questions in my mind. I wonder if I might ask you for a little further clarification. You mentioned your father was very devoted to education for his family. This is quite significant in my mind. Would you talk a little more about that?

DD: My father had come from a family of ministers really, but anyway he and my mother were both eager that their children should have an education. He was writing for the Democrat and Chronicle at that time and even planned, if possible, to move to Vassar so that my older sister might go to college there. But that was not practical and so my sister went to the University of Rochester before it was opened.

HAB: Now how did that happen? If they weren’t admitting women to the University, how did she attend?

DD: Well, there were other girls in Rochester who wanted to go to the University and my sister’s standing had been high, and these girls must have got together and asked the professors if they could do this — if they could sit in classes and listen and perhaps be examined at the end of the year — and that was what happened.

HAB: Very interesting. I don’t think that any of us realized just how those women from 1900 through 1903 were involved with the University. We see them listed in the directory but I don’t think we appreciated what...

DD: Wilcoxen^[23] went first in 1897. My sister must have gone in 1899.

HAB: And they just sat in classes and observed or audited what was going on and then were examined at one point for the whole year's work, is that the way it was?

DD: That’s the way I understood it.

HAB: That took a lot of self-discipline, didn't it, to keep up with the courses?

DD: The girls were very serious.

HAB: I'll bet they were. Where did you go to high school?

DD: I went to East High School.

HAB: I see.

DD: And I worked under Albert H. Wilcox,^[24] a wonderful man, and the head of my department was Ernest Clark.^[25]

HAB: Oh, Ernest R. Clark.

DD: Yes.

HAB: Now didn't he used to give those travel talks?

DD: Yes he did.

HAB: Did a lot of this get injected into his classroom work?

DD: Oh yes. I think he was ahead of his time in the way he met his students and asked his teachers to meet their students. They were to be approached as individuals and not in a mass, and I often felt that way in class that it is hard to teach without being more in contact with individuals.

HAB: Now this was a concept that Mr. Clark insisted on?

DD: Yes, I think he was ahead of education at that time.

HAB: Isn't that interesting? Was there direction or consultation or guidance given to you in high school to encourage you to go on to college or was this pretty much a family decision?

DD: Well, at that time there was a feeling that one could go to college, and I just went as a matter of course. I followed my sister. She was six years older than I.

HAB: Where was your brother Willard^[26] in the family? Was he younger than you

DD: Willard was two years younger than I.

HAB: I see. So there was your sister Ruth and then you, Dorothy, then Willard.

DD: Ruth, Dorothy, Willard, Alice^[27] and John.

HAB: Oh, is that right? I didn't realize about Alice and John. And they all went to the University?

DD: No, John didn't. John became an Episcopal ^[28]

HAB: Isn't that interesting? Well, your father really was interested in education.

DD: My father and mother both.

HAB: Tell me a little bit more about the interview that your father had with Susan B. Anthony. Do you recall any more about that? Was this assigned to him as a newspaper reporter?

DD: Oh, my father's going there. Well, I think he must have been a reporter at that time, a regular reporter. He worked nights and slept in the daytime. And he was assigned to go and talk to Susan B. Anthony, and he did and he liked her.

HAB: And what was she like? Did you ever meet her yourself?

DD: I have met her but that was all. I used to watch her in church.

HAB: What church was this?

DD: That was the First Unitarian Church. ^[29]

HAB: I see. Was she a pretty faithful member?

DD: Oh yes. Yes she was. She and her sister^[30] sat down to the front, on the left, and I was usually toward the back. I used to watch them. I don't remember their wearing anything more than caps and the

HAB: How did the classmates of yours feel about Miss Anthony? Did they… were they aware of all that she had done to get women admitted to the University?

DD: I don't think so, at least not my own class. I think perhaps the older girls did. But I knew it, of course, because I was from the Church where she was. Well, there were some of us that were very much interested in the fact that women's votes might come. In my own class, we were.

HAB: But as students, were you pretty much consumed with your own pressures for study, or did you feel the issues of the community and the world?

DD: I was pretty naive. I was interested in ^[31] Murray Bartlett,^[32] Chauncey Blodgett.^[33]I remember going to hear them and Dr. Crapsey.^[34]

HAB: Oh, how about him? He was kind of a radical in his day, wasn't he, in the Episcopal clergy?

DD: Crapsey, Algernon Crapsey was dismissed from the Episcopal Church. It wouldn't happen today, but it did happen then. He was really a very wonderful man but he was not—I think he came to feel that he couldn't accept all the theology of the Church. I think that was it. But he didn't want to leave. He loved the church very much. And he was so much loved in his community, in the west part of the city, where he was ahead of his time doing a great deal for the poor people in that section. And they loved him and still think of him.

HAB: They sure do. Now I hear Dr. Crapsey—was he Dr. Crapsey or just Reverend Crapsey? I don't know—it doesn't make any difference. But his name crops up repeatedly nowadays.

DD: I used to pass him on my way to school. I would walk to school across the Alexander Street bridge—I think it was Alexander Street—and he would come across the bridge with a long cape and his head bowed. I have forgotten whether I spoke to him or not but if I did, it was just in passing. But he was really a fine man. His daughter was a poet.

HAB: What was her name?

DD: Adelaide Crapsey.

HAB: Oh, Adelaide Crapsey, ah yes.

DD: She wrote little verses I think you recall cinquains.

HAB: Now where was Dr. Crapsey's church? You said on the west side.

DD: I have forgotten the name of that street. It ^[35]

HAB: And he had his own little church and he was interested in—

DD: St. Andrew's Church.

HAB: St. Andrew's. All right. Aha, I know where you're talking about. He was quite respected in the community you say. What kind of profile did he have in the community?

DD: Well, I may be a little bit biased but I thought it was the intellectual people who appreciated him—in any church.

HAB: And he had to come to grips with—wasn't he concerned about accepting the divinity of Christ?

DD: I never knew exactly what his feeling was about theology but I did suspect it was something about the miracles or something about the theology of the orthodox Episcopal Church.

HAB: And he was defrocked here in Rochester?

DD: He was defrocked here, yes.^[36]

HAB: Do you know what he did afterward?

DD: I don't know. I know that his wife used to make lovely beautiful baby clothes. And women would buy those little exquisite ^[37]

HAB: Isn't that interesting.

DD: Adelaide Crapsey died in Saranac, I think. ^[38]

HAB: I see.

DD: I think she did.

HAB: She was the only child he had?

DD: I think there was a —I’m not quite sure—and a brother. I haven’t followed the Crapsey family. ^[39]

HAB: There’s an Arthur Crapsey now. Of course he went to the University. And his wife, Hettie Jean Barth Crapsey, is directing the Regional Transit thing, so the family has been community-oriented for several —several hundreds of years—several generations, is what I should say.^[40]

Let me change the subject for just a moment. You’ve mentioned the little activities you had and you said you used to have receptions for the faculty. Were these student receptions to which you invited the faculty and friends to come as guests?

DD: I don’t remember very much about them. But I know that we had a reception for the faculty and friends of the college, our own friends.

HAB: Did the students ever get into the faculty homes? Were there ever occasions where the faculty invited students into their homes?

DD: I was invited with my class into Kendrick Shedd’s home. No, no we were not.

HAB: As a woman student—

DD: Pardon me, possibly the girls in sororities were more.

HAB: I see.

DD: I know Mrs. John R. Slater ^[41]was a patroness of my own sorority, and I know that the women of the college were —very fine men.

HAB: If a woman student had any concerns — personal problems or concerns about her courses or her studies program—was there anyone she could talk with?

DD: That's where we needed a Dean. Dean Annette didn'’t come until 1909. And that was the year after I left.^[42]

HAB: I see. So those of you who were before Dean Munro’s time were really kind of a pioneer era, and you had to hammer things out for yourselves.

DD: Yes, yes we did. I think there were some of the girls who knew the professors better than I did, who perhaps talked over things with them. Of course Ollie Watkeys talked them over with her future ^[43]

HAB: You know you mentioned that you saw some of these friendships bloom into marriage and I was interested in how that occurred. Were there social affairs on the campus?

DD: Well, my own sister married a man who had been there a year ahead of her. And that group of men—I've forgotten what their fraternity was—anyway, they were awfully nice men. But that didn't develop into ^[44]

HAB: I see.

DD: In my own class there were a number of people who married.

HAB: Did these friendships bloom on the campus or in churches or outside the University framework?

DD: Well, I don't know exactly how much the boys invited the girls, but they did invite the girls to certain things (inaudible) but you can't get people close together without their becoming a little acquainted.

HAB: That's right. Now you mention Ollie Watkeys. She was a student?

DD: Ollie Braggins, a very superior student, a very wonderful mathematician, and I realized what was happening when she and Dr. Watkeys would talk things over so much.

HAB: He was a young instructor, was he, when she was a student?

DD: I think he was, yes, I think he was. Dr. Gale^[45] was the head of the department.

HAB: I see.

DD: And Dr. Watkeys was an assistant professor, I ^[46]

HAB: And this blossomed into a student-faculty romance. That's interesting. You know, we think of Dr. Slater and Dr. Gale and Dr. Watkeys in terms of the age we last saw them. Were they young men at the time you were in school?

DD: Would you care to look at a picture in The Interpres where there is a picture of the faculty the way they looked?

HAB: Yes, that would be fun to see.

At this point, there is a break in the sequence of the interview. It seems that they have gone to look at not only the Interpres, but also perhaps other things.

DD: I think I should have gone into that a little more deeply, to say what artistic work it was. They were really gems.

HAB: Now wait a minute—we're talking about Mrs. Crapsey's very delicate little hand-stitched dresses. Yes, let's talk about that for a minute. These were real treasures that people cherished very much as I recall it. Mother thought they were lovely. What kinds of dresses were they- little children's dresses?

DD: As I recall, for very young girls, or young children. I should say from two years up maybe. And they were gems—they were beautiful. They were exquisite.

HAB: Really works of art.

DD: Works of art without any question, and prized deeply by people who bought them.

HAB: I can remember they were kept within the family and one didn't discard an Adelaide Crapsey dress.

DD: Mrs. Crapsey must have enjoyed her work deeply. They were like poems. Beautiful dresses, they were.

HAB: I'm glad you recalled that, brought that out, because that's a facet of local history I had forgotten.

Miss Dennis, may I ask you one other question? There are so many options available to young people today that decisions are hard to make. What kinds of things were available for young women when they graduated from college in 1908?

DD: I thought I knew a great deal at that time but I didn't know too much. And I just drifted into teaching. It was about the only thing that was open. I was not prepared to be a secretary. If my family had been wealthy, I might have gone on to advanced schools for teaching but I just slipped into it. And I always loved it. The girls of that time didn't have the interest in the fields of what might be called organized charity. It isn't quite that today; it's more dignified than that.

HAB: Would that be like social work today?

DD: Social service.

HAB: That wasn't available for young women then?

DD: As I recall it, it was not too much, although my sister married a man, Bailey Burritt, who was head of a charity organization in New York City,^[47] and my sister Alice went into work for adoption of children. She used to take

HAB: Being a secretary, being a teacher, were there other things—occupations or careers that were available?

DD: I think there were a few women who went to our hospitals to help in various positions besides nursing. Of course nursing was always open to women.

HAB: Where was your first teaching position?

DD: I taught in a little town near Buffalo^[48] and if I wasn't the greenest teacher that ever existed! I had nine preparations although I didn't teach nine subjects a day. Well, I got

HAB: Was it really on-the-job learning in that first experience? Had you taken any courses like practice teaching as a student?

DD: I think that was the villain in a way. I don't think that I had enough practice teaching. I had taught my sister's classes a little bit. I had taught Ernest R. Clark's classes I think once or twice. And I had taught Professor Burton's class, but that is practically all I had. And I think all the girls in my class felt the same way about their first positions—they were pretty hard. We girls had the theory—we had lots of theory—but we didn't have the practical. In fact, they probably expected us to go on to another college, but most of us jumped right into teaching.

HAB: And you taught around in this vicinity most of the time?

DD: I taught on Long Island^[49] for part of my beginning. That was a different type of teaching. I learned from anything I had two years out of college. And then the rest of the time I was in

HAB: And in your experience at East High School who were the principals that you worked under?

DD: Well, of course Mr. Wilcox was the main one. A ^[50]—what was his first name?

HAB: Willard?

DD: He was my principal at one of the annexes. I had various experiences during the years with the annexes where there were different teachers, but my main principal was Albert Wilcox. He was a wonderful man.

HAB: Was Mr. Weet^[51] superintendent of schools in that period?

DD: Mr.Weet hired me, I guess.

HAB: This has been a fascinating visit with you, Miss Dennis. I want to thank you on behalf of the Friends of the University for putting so much effort into it. You really put a lot of time into preparing for this, and you've recalled some fascinating things and you've been very generous in sharing them with us. Many people are going to appreciate all that you have said. Thank you.

Note: Original transcription done by Ruth Van Deusen in 1975 and editing done by Nancy Martin in 2013.

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