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February 4th, 2021
To commemorate Black History Month, Purdue University Press is featuring excerpts of notable moments in black history at Purdue.
In this post, we’re featuring a chapter from John Norberg’s Ever True: 150 Years of Giant Leaps at Purdue University on the desegregation of Purdue University’s Residence Halls.
In the summer of 1946 Winifred and Frieda Parker, two sisters from Indianapolis, prepared for their freshman year at Purdue University. They were excited and nervous like all freshmen.
Excellent students, after being admitted to Purdue they applied for a room in a residence hall where all freshmen women were required to live. But Winifred and Frieda were denied.
They were African Americans.
During World War II, by federal mandate, African American male military personnel had been housed in Cary Hall — something that had not occurred throughout all the previous years of the University’s existence.
But when the war ended and military personnel left, Purdue continued its practice of refusing African American students housing in residence halls. Some men were placed in a converted home that was occupied by international students. The rest, including women, had to find housing with families across the river in a segregated Lafayette neighborhood around the Lincoln School at Fourteenth and Salem Streets. African American children attended that segregated school through eighth grade and then went to the integrated Jefferson High School. All Lafayette school grade levels were not integrated until 1951. In West Lafayette there were written restrictions in neighborhoods against renting or selling property to people who were not “pure white.”
One African American student denied access to a Purdue residence hall went on to become chief justice of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia — one step below the U.S. Supreme Court. During his long, successful career, Judge A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. recounted his experiences at Purdue and credited them with convincing him to become an attorney and civil rights advocate.
“In a career of energetic accomplishments and unambiguous liberalism, Judge Higginbotham received much recognition as a legal scholar and civil rights advocate, including the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom,” the New York Times said in his December 1998 obituary. “Some historians say Judge Higginbotham was one of a handful of black jurists President Lyndon B. Johnson considered as candidates to integrate the Supreme Court before he named Thurgood Marshall in 1967.”
Higginbotham enrolled at Purdue to study engineering and was placed in International House, where students slept together in a top-floor room with open windows. The room was very cold in winter. It was believed that open-air circulation helped stop the spread of viruses, and cold dorms were common in fraternities and sororities. Some students liked them. Others, including Higginbotham, did not.
In 1944 Edward Elliott was president of Purdue, and his office was always open to students. Elliott had met Higginbotham previously. Higginbotham and another student protested that the Union barbershop would not cut the hair of African American students. Elliott told them he would buy clippers to be kept in the barbershop so they could cut each other’s hair.
Now Higginbotham was entering Elliott’s office with another request. He asked to be placed in a Purdue residence hall where students slept in warm rooms.
What happened next was retold many times by Higginbotham but was never mentioned by Elliott. “In emotional speeches, the judge . . . described how a white college president at Purdue University had flatly told him when he was a college freshman in 1944 that the school was not required under law to provide black students with heated dormitories and, therefore, never would,” the New York Times stated.
According to Higginbotham, Elliott told him he would never be allowed to live in the residence hall, and if he didn’t like it, he should leave Purdue. Higginbotham did leave. In the fall of 1945 he entered Antioch College in Ohio and in 1949 was admitted to Yale Law School.
It’s not known how many African Americans were enrolled at Purdue in the mid-1940s, because the University did not then keep records of students by race. African Americans who attended Purdue at the time estimated there were not more than twenty-five.
In a paper titled “Evolution of the Black Presence at Purdue University,” Alexandra Cornelius said, “Between 1940 and 1951, African Americans began attending Purdue in increasing numbers. Despite their proven abilities, African American students in every college in the state were discriminated against both on and off campus. . . . West Lafayette restaurants did not admit African Americans. Blacks were only allowed to eat in the Union Building or the cafeteria during lunch time.”
Nationally, The Negro Motorist Green Book, published from about 1936 to 1966, was a guide to African Americans as they traveled through the country. Jim Crow laws that enforced segregation were in effect not only in the South but in many parts of the country. In their hometowns, minorities knew where they were welcome and unwelcome. But they did not know this when they were on the road. So the Green Book was their guide, listing hotels, restaurants, taverns, gas stations, and all manner of businesses where they would be welcome and safe. The 1949 guide lists only one business open to African Americans in Lafayette — the Pekin Café at Seventeenth and Hartford Streets. That was in the heart of the segregated African American neighborhood. There were other establishments in Lafayette open to minorities that didn’t make the Green Book. But discrimination was the norm of the day.
A Social Action Committee at the Purdue Methodist Church Wesley Foundation was opposed to segregation and sent African Americans to various businesses in Lafayette and West Lafayette to see what would happen. In February 1947 the committee reported that of nineteen restaurants investigated, five refused to serve African Americans, six did serve them but were rude and hesitant about it, and some of the employees who did serve blacks were not aware they were breaking management policy. Three movie theaters would only permit African Americans to sit in the balconies. No barbershop in Lafayette, West Lafayette, or Purdue would cut the hair of African Americans.
Winifred, the younger of the two Parker sisters, had graduated number one in her high school class in May 1946. Frieda was second in her class and had graduated five months earlier in January. She completed a semester at West Virginia State College but decided to transfer. In early July 1946 both young women were admitted to Purdue. Their father, Frederick Parker, was a graduate of Amherst College in Massachusetts who had done graduate work at Harvard and Indiana Universities. He was the former head of mathematics at the African American Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis and had moved on to become a consultant to the Indianapolis Public Schools system. Their mother, Frieda Parker, was a graduate of Butler University in Indianapolis.
Immediately upon their being accepted, Mrs. Parker took her daughters to Purdue to meet with administrators. According to a statement written and signed by the Parkers in September 1946, they met with the registrar, who told them that while admissions had been closed prior to July, Winifred and Frieda were accepted “as a special case” because of their outstanding personal and academic records.
The Parkers next went to Clare Coolidge, acting dean of women, to obtain student housing in a residence hall. Coolidge gave them residence hall applications and told them to complete and mail them as soon as possible. The applications from the Parkers were rejected with a statement that the number of students seeking housing exceeded the spaces available.
The following day the Parkers received a letter from Coolidge. Parker said Coolidge was “gracious” to the family throughout the experience, but her letter was blunt. It stated: “I was informed by the [Purdue] President’s Office yesterday that at its last meeting the Board of Trustees of the University had discussed the question of housing negro students in the residence halls and felt it was not feasible for the present. Had I known of this action, I would, of course, have saved you and the girls the embarrassment of making an application which can only be refused.”
The most recent meeting of the board of trustees had been on June 22, 1946. The written minutes of that meeting make no mention of a discussion concerning African American students in the residence halls. However, at a meeting of the board on April 17 and 18, 1946, the topic did come up, without any official decision being recorded. Minutes of the meeting state: “[Board] Secretary [and University vice president Frank] Hockema presented an application for admission to Men’s Residence Halls from a negro student in the University. After discussion and by consent, the foregoing report was received as information.” A newspaper reporter was at the meeting but he did not write about the discussion.
Parker contacted Faburn DeFrantz, director of the African American Senate Avenue YMCA in Indianapolis. DeFrantz was a civil rights leader in the state who had worked on integrating housing at Indiana University. DeFrantz told the Parkers they should all meet with Hovde. “Our hope was that we could show President Hovde that it was an injustice for our own state college to discriminate against its own supporters, the citizens and taxpayers of Indiana, regardless of their color or their religion,” Parker said. “We had heard that this new president was fair and just and therein lay our hope and prospects.”
They were unable to arrange an appointment with Hovde and instead met with Hockema, who told them the residence halls were full. Asked if the University had a policy that prohibited African Americans in the residence halls, Hockema said no. But “he admitted that such might be the case from ‘custom and usage.’”
Taking part in the conversation was one man who was Caucasian. After the meeting with Hockema he went to the office of the director of residence halls and said his two nieces were enrolling as freshmen in the fall. He was told there were several rooms available for them.
Parker and DeFrantz returned to Hockema. “We pleaded and we begged,” Parker wrote. “We insisted a man in so esteemed a position must be able to make the decision even if he had no precedent.”
Hockema said he could not go against the position of the trustees, who had told him to hold off on admitting African Americans to the residence halls.
Following their meetings at Purdue, Parker and DeFrantz contacted Indiana governor Ralph Gates, who was “sympathetic” to their position. Gates contacted one or more of the trustees and probably Hovde.
On December 16, 1946, Parker received a five-page letter from Hovde, who went into great detail, stating that he opposed discrimination in any form, but societal change would take many years and “will not be completed in your lifetime or mine.”
The University had no written policy excluding African Americans from the residence halls, Hovde said. But he also noted that over the years three or four African American women had applied to be admitted and had been rejected. “These have been refused,” he wrote, “not because we wished to discriminate, but because the administration did not think it wise to jeopardize the successful operation of the halls, jeopardize our incoming number of women enrollees in the halls; because administrative officers and faculty felt that neither our women students nor their parents were ready yet for true social democracy in living. The situation, therefore, exists, not because we of Purdue believe in discrimination of any kind, but because the decision was thought to be in the best interests of the University and its welfare.” They were afraid students would refuse to live in a residence hall with African Americans, placing a financial strain on the University’s ability to retire construction bonds.
In his letter to Parker, Hovde concluded, “You realize and understand, I am sure, the difficulties I have in persuading and influencing others to my point of view in these matters. . . . I must use my own method of accomplishing my aims. I am personally sure they are right and will produce results more quickly than other methods. Otherwise I would act differently.” Frustrated, Frieda and Winifred attended classes at Purdue in the fall of 1946 and lived in a home in the segregated Lafayette community. They took buses to and from campus. But change came. Hovde ended discrimination at the Union barbershop, and in January 1947 the Parkers were admitted to Bunker Hill Residence Hall.
Soon after the Parkers moved in, the students voted on leadership for their residence hall.
Winifred Parker was elected president of Bunker Hill.
Ever True is available for 30% off on the Purdue University Press website when you use the code PURDUE30.
Filed under: PurduePressJanuary 26th, 2021
Parrish Library’s Featured Database will give you a very brief introduction to the basic features of one of our specialized subscription databases. This time we’re featuring Mintel, brought to you by Mintel Group Ltd.
Mintel includes market research reports for Europe, the UK, and the US that cover a variety of sectors including consumer goods, travel and tourism, financial industry, internet industry, retail, and food & drink.
The List of Business Databases is the alphabetical list of the databases specially selected for those in a business program of study. Access the databases off-campus with your Purdue login and password.
Click Getting Started with Mintel to see the basics of using Mintel.
Mintel reports discuss market drivers, market size & trends, market segmentation, supply structure, advertising and promotion, retail distribution, consumer characteristics, and market forecasts.
Some other resources you might want to explore are:
Featured Database comes to you from the Roland G. Parrish Library of Management & Economics. If you would like more information about this database, or if you would like a demonstration of it for a class, contact parrlib@purdue.edu. Also let us know if you know of a colleague who would benefit from this, or future Featured Databases.
Since usage statistics are an important barometer when databases are up for renewal, tell us your favorite database, and we will gladly promote it. Send an email to parrlib@purdue.edu.
Filed under: database, general, MGMT, UncategorizedJanuary 21st, 2021
We talked to Purdue University Press Director Justin Race about navigating a university press though a pandemic, what the last year has taught us, and what he’s concentrating on as 2021 begins.
Q: What was/is it like directing a university press in the midst of a pandemic?
Justin Race: Strangely, the suddenness of it was a blessing. There was no time to form committees or to debate. One week COVID-19 was a possibility still seemingly far away. The next week it felt like something really could happen that impacted us directly. The week after that we were working remotely. Necessity is a good motivator, and we addressed whatever challenges that came up as they emerged. Nearly a year later, it feels more “normal” to be working from homes than it would be to report to the office. I’m most grateful that I’m blessed with a flexible, understanding, and patient staff. It was an all-hands-on-deck, do-what-needs-to-be-done shift. Everyone pitched in.
Q: Has this past year substantially changed any of your views on running a university press, big or small picture?
Race: Some of us miss the energy and comradery of being physically together. Others enjoy the flexibility of working from home. At the end of the day, we have a job to do, wherever we’re doing it, and I’m proud of my team that we are getting it done. I’m also grateful that we work in an industry where that is possible. Most authors we publish I will never actually meet in person—everything can be done digitally, and we publish authors who live all around the world. It’s odd, but it turns out the same is true for staff: we may only be a few miles from one another, but it’s possible to do almost everything digitally and remotely. Personally I don’t feel that’s ideal, but it’s good that it’s possible.
Q: What kind of effect does the pandemic have on your vision for Purdue University Press and the whole university press world going into 2021?
Race: Nobody likes uncertainty, and of the many ills that COVID-19 has brought, uncertainty has been a constant. People speculate on what the “new normal” will be after the pandemic passes—I have no idea, and for the sake of running a press as well as my mental health, I try to focus on the immediate. What needs doing now? What challenges can we overcome? What’s most pressing? Authors write, readers read, publishers publish. That was true before COVID-19, is true during COVID-19, and it will be true after COVID-19. Though there’s much uncertainty, the pursuit of knowledge and importance of a marketplace of ideas are certain. Though so much has changed over the past year, it’s just as important to remind ourselves what hasn’t changed.
Q: What are some ways that Purdue University Press is unique?
Race: We’re a small group and we’ve been together for a long time. We know each other well and we trust one another. The intimacy of our group has always fostered a shared mission and common purpose—there are no silos, and every employee has a seat at the table and a voice. That’s essential at all times, and it’s bond that COVID-19 cannot break.
Thank you so much to Justin for his time. You can find some other blog posts by our director here:
Putting the “Purdue” in Purdue University Press: Letter from the Director
Looking Back and Looking Forward; Thinking Local and Thinking Global
Filed under: PurduePressJanuary 13th, 2021
Purdue University Press has a fascinating collection of books on the history of flight, from the writings of eight early women aviators to stories on the lives of notable Hoosier pilots. Read through the list below, or check out the rest of our books on flight & space.
by Fred Erisman
Amelia Earhart’s prominence in American aviation during the 1930s obscures a crucial point: she was but one of a closely knit community of women pilots. In Their Own Words takes up the writings of eight early women pilots—Harriet Quimby, Ruth Law, sisters Katherine and Marjorie Stinson, Amelia Earhart, Louise Thaden, Ruth Nichols, and Anne Morrow Lindbergh—as evidence of the ties between the growth of American aviation and the changing role of women.
Their writings confront issues relating to the developing technology and possibilities of aviation, the importance of assimilating aviation into daily life, and detail the part that women might—and should—play in advancing aviation. These writings also talk about how aviation may enhance women’s participation in contemporary American society.
by Alex M. Spencer
British Imperial Air Power examines the air defense of Australia and New Zealand during the interwar period. It also demonstrates the difficulty of applying new military aviation technology to the defense of the global Empire and provides insight into the nature of the political relationship between the Pacific Dominions and Britain.
by Ralph H. Schneck and Donald R. Schneck
Cheerio and Best Wishes is told entirely through letters written by a young Hoosier pilot to his family and friends during service in World War II. One hundred thirty-eight letters are presented in the book, curated by his family and recently rediscovered by his son, along with carefully created photograph albums.
The letters and pictures in this book offer a comprehensive story of how US airmen were prepared and trained for war, and detail the daily experience of a bomber pilot flying missions over Germany.
by Henry R. Lehrer
The systems, regulations, and technologies of civil aviation that we use today are the product of decades of experimentation and political negotiation, much of it connected to the development of the airmail as the first commercially sustainable use of airplanes.
Flying the Beam draws on period documents, pilot memoirs, and firsthand investigation of surviving material remains to trace the development of aeronautical navigation of the US airmail airways from 1917 to 1941. From the lighted airways of the 1920s through the radio navigation system in place by the time of World War II, this book explores the conceptualization and ultimate construction of the initial US airways systems.
by Ruth Ann Ingraham
“Cap” Cornish, Indiana Pilot tells the story of Clarence “Cap” Cornish, a Hoosier pilot whose life spanned all but five years of the Century of Flight. Dedicating his life to flight and its many ramifications, Cornish helped guide the sensible development of aviation as it grew from infancy to maturity. Through his many personal experiences, the story of flight nationally is played out.
Cornish’s many accomplishments include piloting a “Jenny” aircraft during World War I, serving as chief pilot for the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, monitoring and maintaining safe skies above the continental United States during World War II, and directing Indiana’s first Aeronautics Commission. In 1995, at the age of ninety-seven, he was recognized by Guinness World Records as the world’s oldest actively flying pilot
You can get 30% off all Purdue University Press titles by entering the code PURDUE30 at checkout on our website.
Filed under: PurduePressDecember 18th, 2020
As it has the previous 59 years at Purdue University Press, the work of publishing important scholarship pressed on in 2020. This year the Press published 28 new titles by 36 unique authors and editors, as well as the countless contributors to edited collections. There were also several issues added to our subscription and open access journals.
Titles released this year ranged from two essential resources on Parkinson’s disease to Escaping Extermination, a Holocaust memoir published for the first time nearly 80 years after it was written. Another covers the unique history of Indiana’s round barns while Cat and Conservationists takes a deep dive into the conversation around feral and outdoor cats. If these are not your preferred subjects, maybe you’d like to dig into the history of one of America’s favorite garden annuals, the zinnia.
Perhaps the biggest beneficiary of 2020 was our series Purdue Studies in Aeronautics and Astronautics, adding four new titles. John Houbolt: The Unsung Hero of the Apollo Moon Landings by William F. Causey, released in March, at last gives engineer John Houbolt his due for his role in convincing NASA to utilize the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous method that allowed safe travel for Americans to the moon and back. Released in May, A Reluctant Icon: Letters to Neil Armstrong is the second collection of letters sourced from Purdue’s own archives curated by James R. Hansen, Armstrong’s authorized biographer. Through Astronaut Eyes: Photographing Early Human Spaceflight by Jennifer K. Levasseur and British Imperial Air Power: The Royal Air Forces and the Defense of Australia and New Zealand Between the World Wars by Alex M. Spencer were both released in June.
Our Central European Studies series also added three new titles: Croatian Radical Separatism and Diaspora Terrorism During the Cold War by Mate Nikola Tokić, Teaching the Empire: Education and State Loyalty in Late Habsburg Austria by Scott O. Moore, and On Many Routes: Internal, European, and Transatlantic Migration in the Late Habsburg Empire by Annemarie Steidl.
You can find the catalogs that cover our full title output here.
On September 29 Purdue University Press celebrated its 60th anniversary. In the weeks leading up to the anniversary the Press highlighted our relationship with Purdue University with the blog series Putting the “Purdue” in Purdue University Press. The rest of our blog continued to grow, featuring interviews with our many interesting authors, guest posts by others, and helpful books lists.
It should go without saying that the 60th year of scholarly publishing at Purdue University Press was not a predictable one. Starting in March, the year was spent working from the safety of our own homes rather than in the company of our coworkers, and events planned to commemorate our milestone were cancelled or reimagined entirely. In considering this unprecedented year we are endlessly thankful for all who support Purdue University Press in so many ways. While it is worth acknowledging that some of our difficulties pale in comparison to those that so many faced in 2020, we appreciate the opportunity to continue the important work of university presses so that we celebrate another anniversary 60 years from now.
To keep in touch with us in 2021, make sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and sign up for our email newsletter.
If you have not heard yet, Purdue University Press is running a 40% off sale on all orders through the end of the year. All you need to do to redeem is enter discount code 21GIFT40 when checking out on our website.
Filed under: PurduePressDecember 18th, 2020
We talked to Fred Erisman, the author of In Their Own Words: Forgotten Women Pilots of Early Aviation.
In Their Own Words takes up the writings of eight women pilots as evidence of the ties between the growth of American aviation and the changing role of women.
Q: What was your main goal in undertaking this project?
Fred Erisman: I’m aiming at recovering and calling attention to some largely unknown or little-examined documents of women’s history. The eight women I discuss are known to aviation historians, but, with the exception of Earhart and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, are otherwise invisible to the larger public. The writings they left behind – Journalism, autobiography, fiction, etc. – help to expand our understanding of the women’s movement throughout its twentieth-century history. The works give a new window through which to examine the relationship of women and aviation, how women of five decades came to grips with recurring issues of women’s rights and abilities, and how women (as opposed to men) viewed aeronautical technology and the airplane.
In the case of Louise Thaden and Ruth Nichols, their forays into fiction give readers yet another way to see and reflect on how two notable women viewed aviation, the times, and the future. One created an aeronautical dystopia and the other an American aviation utopia, yet both embraced the belief that flight was a special, even purifying, endeavor.
Q: Which of these aviators were new to you? Were there any stories that were particularly surprising/impressive?
Erisman: I have to point to the two Ruths – Ruth Law and Ruth Nichols. The more I learned of them the more impressed I became. Ruth Law was among the earliest of the record-setters (1916), made her living as a pilot, expressed what I have to believe was a genuine desire to join the military, and took real pride in being allowed to wear the trousered uniform of the U.S. Army. (This was 20 years before Earhart’s penchant for trousers caused twittering among the public.) Her writings make a strong case for women’s being in the military and, more generally, their calls for being treated on an equal plane with men.
Ruth Nichols impressed me with her vision of an American aeronautical paradise as reflected in her unfinished novel, Sky Girl, and with her early recognition of space as the next “aeronautical” frontier confronting women. At age 58 she presented herself to the American space program and proceeded to blow away tests judging her tolerance for g-forces, weightlessness, and sensory deprivation. She was an outspoken supporter of women in space until shortly before her death, and gives readers a new slant on what constitutes the “right stuff.”
Q: Do you think the stories of these women and have the potential to ring true even now? Any in particular that you remember?
Erisman: Unquestionably. The stories of these eight pilots are stories of hope, aspiration, challenge, and competency – issues as applicable to the women of today as they are to those of the teens, 20s, or 30s. It just happens that these women chose to face the challenge of a new technology, a profession that had become male-dominated (by default as much as by design), and a society that almost daily was having to adapt to a changing world.
These are all “airplane” stories. Change the specifics, retain the challenges, and they are as pertinent for women of the twenty-first century as they were for those of the twentieth. There is very little distance between our admiring them for all they did, and our admiration for Tammie Jo Shults and the aviation skills that help her to pilot her southwest Airlines 737 to safety after its explosive decompression. The challenges of flying remain, whether in mastering the stick-and-wire craft of early aviation or the sophisticated craft flown by today’s commercial and military pilots.
Q: Few if any of these aviators identified with the feminist/suffragist movements of their time (you mention this in the introduction of the book), but they all seemed to take their own route advocating for women’s causes, why do you think this is?
Erisman: They were stout believers in the equality and ability of women, but were realists about the mechanisms of change. They all recognized that the profession they loved was male-dominated. They also recognized that it was an individualistic one, in which women could be as effective acting singly as they might be in groups. Aviation was an area where male-female equality could easily and visibly be established; it was much easier for a capable woman aviator to show competence in the cockpit than in business or politics. They chose to stick with the world they knew and demonstrate their capabilities there. A widely expressed goal among the women pilots of the 1920s was “eliminating sex from aviation.” They wanted to be judged as pilots who were women, rather than women pilots.
They had no quarrel with the established movements. Earhart gradually gave them her endorsement, and Anne Morrow Lindbergh became an outspoken women’s advocate late in her career. They simply believed that they could do as well – or better – by going their own way.
Q: So it seems aviation provided a unique opportunity for the advancement of women’s causes. Do you feel that these women were able to capitalize on that?
Erisman: Here, too, the answer is “undeniably.” The very novelty of the airplane worked to put the eight in the spotlight, but none of them was shy about using her association with flight to call attention to specific accomplishments or challenges. There were proud of their achievements as women – not necessarily because they were sticking a thumb in men’s eyes, but because they were advancing the public conception and understanding of their gender’s possibilities. That their work related to the larger picture of male/female relations was a bonus.
Harriet Quimby was a journalist, Earhart was married to a publicity genius, and Anne Morrow Lindbergh was married to a celebrity; all three had ready access to means of capitalizing on their deeds and emphasizing their role(s) as women. Without aviation, Katherine Stinson likely would have ended up a Mississippi piano teacher, Louise Thaden the manager of a Kansas coal distributing business, and Ruth Nichols a debutante fishing about for a “good marriage.” Each made much more of herself, solely and entirely through aviation.
Thank you to Fred! If you would like to know more about this book you order your own copy or request it from your local library.
You can get 30% off this title and any other order by entering the code PURDUE30 when ordering from our website.
Filed under: UncategorizedDecember 18th, 2020
We talked to Fred Erisman, the author of In Their Own Words: Forgotten Women Pilots of Early Aviation.
In Their Own Words takes up the writings of eight women pilots as evidence of the ties between the growth of American aviation and the changing role of women.
Q: What was your main goal in undertaking this project?
Fred Erisman: I’m aiming at recovering and calling attention to some largely unknown or little-examined documents of women’s history. The eight women I discuss are known to aviation historians, but, with the exception of Earhart and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, are otherwise invisible to the larger public. The writings they left behind – Journalism, autobiography, fiction, etc. – help to expand our understanding of the women’s movement throughout its twentieth-century history. The works give a new window through which to examine the relationship of women and aviation, how women of five decades came to grips with recurring issues of women’s rights and abilities, and how women (as opposed to men) viewed aeronautical technology and the airplane.
In the case of Louise Thaden and Ruth Nichols, their forays into fiction give readers yet another way to see and reflect on how two notable women viewed aviation, the times, and the future. One created an aeronautical dystopia and the other an American aviation utopia, yet both embraced the belief that flight was a special, even purifying, endeavor.
Q: Which of these aviators were new to you? Were there any stories that were particularly surprising/impressive?
Erisman: I have to point to the two Ruths – Ruth Law and Ruth Nichols. The more I learned of them the more impressed I became. Ruth Law was among the earliest of the record-setters (1916), made her living as a pilot, expressed what I have to believe was a genuine desire to join the military, and took real pride in being allowed to wear the trousered uniform of the U.S. Army. (This was 20 years before Earhart’s penchant for trousers caused twittering among the public.) Her writings make a strong case for women’s being in the military and, more generally, their calls for being treated on an equal plane with men.
Ruth Nichols impressed me with her vision of an American aeronautical paradise as reflected in her unfinished novel, Sky Girl, and with her early recognition of space as the next “aeronautical” frontier confronting women. At age 58 she presented herself to the American space program and proceeded to blow away tests judging her tolerance for g-forces, weightlessness, and sensory deprivation. She was an outspoken supporter of women in space until shortly before her death, and gives readers a new slant on what constitutes the “right stuff.”
Q: Do you think the stories of these women and have the potential to ring true even now? Any in particular that you remember?
Erisman: Unquestionably. The stories of these eight pilots are stories of hope, aspiration, challenge, and competency – issues as applicable to the women of today as they are to those of the teens, 20s, or 30s. It just happens that these women chose to face the challenge of a new technology, a profession that had become male-dominated (by default as much as by design), and a society that almost daily was having to adapt to a changing world.
These are all “airplane” stories. Change the specifics, retain the challenges, and they are as pertinent for women of the twenty-first century as they were for those of the twentieth. There is very little distance between our admiring them for all they did, and our admiration for Tammie Jo Shults and the aviation skills that help her to pilot her southwest Airlines 737 to safety after its explosive decompression. The challenges of flying remain, whether in mastering the stick-and-wire craft of early aviation or the sophisticated craft flown by today’s commercial and military pilots.
Q: Few if any of these aviators identified with the feminist/suffragist movements of their time (you mention this in the introduction of the book), but they all seemed to take their own route advocating for women’s causes, why do you think this is?
Erisman: They were stout believers in the equality and ability of women, but were realists about the mechanisms of change. They all recognized that the profession they loved was male-dominated. They also recognized that it was an individualistic one, in which women could be as effective acting singly as they might be in groups. Aviation was an area where male-female equality could easily and visibly be established; it was much easier for a capable woman aviator to show competence in the cockpit than in business or politics. They chose to stick with the world they knew and demonstrate their capabilities there. A widely expressed goal among the women pilots of the 1920s was “eliminating sex from aviation.” They wanted to be judged as pilots who were women, rather than women pilots.
They had no quarrel with the established movements. Earhart gradually gave them her endorsement, and Anne Morrow Lindbergh became an outspoken women’s advocate late in her career. They simply believed that they could do as well – or better – by going their own way.
Q: So it seems aviation provided a unique opportunity for the advancement of women’s causes. Do you feel that these women were able to capitalize on that?
Erisman: Here, too, the answer is “undeniably.” The very novelty of the airplane worked to put the eight in the spotlight, but none of them was shy about using her association with flight to call attention to specific accomplishments or challenges. There were proud of their achievements as women – not necessarily because they were sticking a thumb in men’s eyes, but because they were advancing the public conception and understanding of their gender’s possibilities. That their work related to the larger picture of male/female relations was a bonus.
Harriet Quimby was a journalist, Earhart was married to a publicity genius, and Anne Morrow Lindbergh was married to a celebrity; all three had ready access to means of capitalizing on their deeds and emphasizing their role(s) as women. Without aviation, Katherine Stinson likely would have ended up a Mississippi piano teacher, Louise Thaden the manager of a Kansas coal distributing business, and Ruth Nichols a debutante fishing about for a “good marriage.” Each made much more of herself, solely and entirely through aviation.
Thank you to Fred! If you would like to know more about this book you order your own copy or request it from your local library.
You can get 30% off this title and any other order by entering the code PURDUE30 when ordering from our website.
Filed under: PurduePressDecember 11th, 2020
There is a planned ITAP outage upgrade on December 27th which will also affect access to Libraries accounts and eResources.
Any Library systems that require authentication will be unavailable during this time, some examples include:
• My Library Account
• Illiad (ILL)
• Book Requesting
• Off-campus access to electronic materials
Library search will continue to work, but access to electronic materials or the requesting of books will not be possible.
Filed under: Alerts: ExpiredDecember 7th, 2020
We talked to Annemarie Steidl, the author of On Many Routes: Internal, European, and Transatlantic Migration in the Late Habsburg Empire.
On Many Routes is about the history of human migration. With a focus on the Habsburg Empire, this innovative work presents an integrated and creative study of spatial mobilities: from short to long term, and intranational and inter-European to transatlantic.
Q: What is the main goal of this project, and what motivated you to write it?
Annemarie Steidl: The main goal of the book is to contextualize transatlantic migrations from the Habsburg Empire to the United States of America before World War I with the high spatial mobility in the Habsburg Empire to other European regions. Up to five million people from Late Imperial Austria and the kingdom of Hungary went overseas. However, more Austrian and Hungarian nationals moved from western parts of the kingdom to Lower Austria or from the province of Galicia to the grain fields in the German Reich.
I started the yearlong project with an analysis of transatlantic ship passenger manifests from the Norddeutsche Lloyd in Bremen and from the Hamburg America Line. During the research it became obvious that the route to the Americas was only one of various migration routes that people from Austria-Hungary took during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.
Q: How did you define “migration” and why did you make this distinction?
Steidl: In this book I define migration in its widest sense. This includes all changes of residence irrespective of distance moved or duration of any given stay. A broad definition of migration is one that includes all permanent or semi-permanent changes of residence with no restriction on distance moved. It can describe short-term and permanent changes of residence, as well as patterns of seasonal, circular, or permanent mobility, such as vagrants or traveling people. The term “migration” is applied to international and administrative border crossings, as well as short-distance and transoceanic movements.
Modern territorial states and their bureaucracies create categories like internal and international migration, because administrators need of clear guidelines by which to classify migrants in order to document, tally, and ultimately officially manage these individuals. These administrative classification systems not only obscure the complex daily practices that comprise migration, but diminish the term migration itself by defining it in terms of the state. In order to overcome nationally confined approaches, we have to plead for an open and integrative definition of migration that allows for the incorporation of international and continental as well as temporary movements like seasonal migrations within rural regions, the movement of agricultural servants from villages to towns, and those of traveling artisans and highly mobile soldiers during wartime. New approaches call for an integration of mobility studies concepts and migration research, which would help to loosen strong current associations between the term migration and nation-state logic. This can broaden our understanding of spatial mobility as a fundamental aspect of social life.
Q: Are there any common misconceptions about migration in this area that you were able to dispel? Or shed a more clear light on?
Steidl: Traditional research on transatlantic migration from the Habsburg Empire most often only focused on one direction – from the empire to overseas – and broadly neglected high mobility rates. Studies on spatial mobility within Imperial Austria and the Kingdom of Hungary, as well as seasonal migrations to the German Empire, Switzerland, or the Romanian Kingdom, were not studied with the transcontinental moves. However, a local study of migration patterns of people from Vorarlberg, the westernmost part of Imperial Austria, gives a clearer picture of these dynamics. Since the late sixteenth century people from the Bregenzerwald and Montafon travelled to German speaking areas in the Southwest, like Alsace Lorrain and as far as Paris, France, mostly as temporary construction workers. These people were well connected, with information networks in the German and French speaking world. In addition, Vorarlberg’s textile production was part of a greater network in Switzerland around St. Gallen. Weavers and their families used to move back and forth within this greater region. It is no surprise that Vorarlbergers were among the first to leave for the new continent through French Harbors in the first half of the nineteenth century, as they already had migration experiences within families and circles of friends.
Traditional migration experiences increased the likelihood of transatlantic migration during the nineteenth century, while other traditions of spatial mobility coexisted. Mobility rates were already high before new transportation and communication technologies were introduced during industrialization. The building of railroads, increased use of steamships, stable communication with regions overseas through mail, and bank services contributed to the enormous growth of transatlantic mobility rates since the 1880s. During the second half of the nineteenth century Vorarlberg’s textile production flourished and provided many jobs for Italian speaking women and men from Trento and other northern Italian regions across the border. While we saw an in-migration from other Habsburg Provinces and the Kingdom of Italy, Vorarlberg’s textile entrepreneurs moved whole factories overseas to New York and New Jersey, taking many of their laborers with them. Vorarlberg was neither a region of emigration nor immigration, rather a province with a high turnover, with people coming and going.
In the last decades before World War I, most Habsburg transatlantic migrants originated from economically weaker provinces such as Galicia, the northwestern areas of the Hungarian Kingdom, and Mediterranean coastal regions in the south of the empire. Due to this most historical research focused on economic distress as the main cause for leaving one’s home country. However, as is the case in Vorarlberg and other prosperous regions of the Habsburg Empire, people more often left for chances in the United States labor market rather than because of abject poverty. These men and women were attracted to America by an incredibly fast-growing economy, new opportunities: cheap land and well-paid jobs in heavy industry, mines, and urban factories.
Q: Why study migration in this manner? What does it tell us about these people?
Steidl: This book deals with a lot of numbers and its analysis is mostly based on statistical data: population censuses in Late Imperial Austria, the Kingdom of Hungary, and the United States of America, ship passenger manifests from the Norddeutsche Lloyd and the Hamburg America Line, as well as local surveys on spatially mobile people. The Habsburg Empire stretched over more than 676,600 square kilometers and, in 1910, housed more than 51 million people who spoke more than ten official languages, followed different denominations and religions, were part of different social classes, and inhabited economically heterogeneous provinces, counties, and smaller regions. The intention of the mostly macro-level focus and quantitative methodical approach was to link migrations of all Habsburg regions to economic, social, and cultural characteristics. This way, I was able to cultivate a more complete understanding of the timing, selectivity, and nature of various migration patterns. I am well aware that this is a rather poor substitute for everyday practices of people living and migrating in the Habsburg Empire. Whenever possible, statistical result will be illustrated by local and individual examples. However, even this flawed evidence offers indication of the extent to which individuals were mobile in the past and that migration was a common experience for a large portion of the population in Late Imperial Austria and the Kingdom of Hungary. Some questions can only be answered by numbers.
Thank you to Annemarie! If you would like to know more about this book you can get your own copy or request it from your local library.
You can get 30% off these titles and any other Purdue University Press book by entering the code PURDUE30 when ordering from our website.
Filed under: PurduePressDecember 1st, 2020
By: Matthew N. Hannah
Over the past year or so, I’ve been engaged in a series of conversations facilitated by Indiana Humanities in Indianapolis, which brought together various digital humanities (DH) efforts around the state to discuss future possibilities for collaboration. As a result of those conversations, and under the leadership of James Connolly (Ball State), I’m excited to announce the official launch of the Indiana Digital Humanities Initiative (INDHI). Like our colleagues in New York and California, who have successfully organized impressive statewide DH consortia, INDHI will foster statewide collaboration and coordination around events, initiatives, institutes, grants, and programming across the state of Indiana. As a discipline, DH represents a wide range of scholarly and public efforts to apply computational methods to the study of the humanities and to encourage humanistic forms of critique around issues of technology and media.
As many of you know, Purdue has been developing its digital humanities efforts over the past few years with an impressive array of projects, grants, conferences, and, most recently, curricula. We have become a hub for innovative projects in the humanities in keeping with Purdue’s Boiler spirit. Joining INDHI as a founding member will allow us to showcase our efforts and partner with equally impressive initiatives at other universities, public libraries, humanities centers, historical societies, and cultural organizations in a shared spirit of teaching and research in this exciting area. As with our leadership in the Big Ten Academic Alliance, Purdue’s partnership with INDHI promises to foreground our commitment to place Indiana square in the middle of DH work in the region, a place Indiana has long been comfortable in as the “Crossroads of America.” Read more about INDHI at our official press release and see what our colleagues are up to at our founding members’ projects page. There is so much great work happening around the state.
We have already begun to see the fruits of our collaboration with the launch last year of the Digital Humanities Research Institute at Notre Dame and St. Mary’s College, an event that brought scholars from around the region to South Bend for an intensive weeklong workshop. Purdue had planned a similar event for May, with a follow-up planned at Indiana University in 2021, but the impacts of COVID-19 have delayed us from hosting it. In organizing these institutes, we came to imagine new possibilities for coordination at a higher level. Such collaborative efforts will only grow as we formalize our relationship with other institutions and initiatives across Indiana and around the region, and we anticipate that Indiana will soon become the crossroads of digital humanities.
INDHI’s advisory board meets regularly to plan new initiatives and outreach events in both digital and public humanities around the state. The initial phase of the consortium is comprised of DH representatives from Ball State University, Indiana University, Purdue University (Fort Wayne), Purdue University (West Lafayette), University of Indianapolis, University of Notre Dame, the Indianapolis Public Library, The Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI), the Indiana Humanities Center, and many more. In future expansions of the consortium, we hope to reach out to historical societies, museums, and colleges around the state in an effort to develop a robust statewide project meeting the needs of humanities scholars and teachers.
If you have a digital project, teach a course, or know about an initiatives you’d like to see featured on the Purdue University West Lafayette projects page, please contact Matthew Hannah at hannah8@purdue.edu.
Filed under: faculty_staff, general, press_release