The Deans' Bible. Angie Klink
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capacity as to the number of people we can care for. Dr. G. seemed to be able to take a personal interest in and care for many. She could reach across educational barriers, social barriers, race barriers, sex barriers, age barriers, and find common ground. Some of my experience was too personal to be shared with the public. I am thinking of how Dr. G. visited my father when he was in his final illness.”
Amelia Earhart garnered much attention in the Women’s Residence Hall where Lillian also resided. Dorothy said that Amelia was “a glamorous figure to all, especially to the students,” and Lillian had a “sense of balance” about it. She continued, “Dr. G. took Amelia’s popularity in stride, went her own quiet way influencing many lives by her interest and wise counsel.” As director of the Women’s Residence Hall, Helen Schleman was in the right place at the right time to play the gracious hostess to two of the most prominent, enchanting women of the time. Helen said of Lillian: “Those of us who were lucky enough to be her fellow residents, or work closely with her on campus every time she came to Lafayette, loved her not so much because she was great, but because she was appealingly human.”
Lillian would rise early in the morning and send postcards to her children before breakfast. Students learned that they could enjoy time with her if they, too, arrived when the dining room doors opened at 6:30 a.m. Nearly all of her life she walked a mile a day. If Lillian met a student who wanted to talk to her in the Purdue Memorial Union, she said, “Walk with me. I need to pace my daily number of steps.” Lillian walked much, for she never learned to drive.
Dorothy talked of Lillian’s “intellectual curiosity” and the variety of departments she influenced on campus: “I think she probably saw a wider cross section of people than anyone else on campus. She met with professors from the School of Management, other Schools of Engineering, School of Home Economics, Division of Education, Department of Psychology, and with staff from the residence halls, Office of the Dean of Women, Placement Services for Men and for Women, and goodness knows how many others. At the same time, she kept up contacts with women’s groups in the town and often would speak with them and to them.”
It was not always easy for Lillian as the only female in Purdue’s male engineering environment. She collaborated with a younger professor, Marvin Mundel, who was an abrasive character. He repeatedly attempted to embarrass Lillian in front of other engineers, calling on her to complete mathematical calculations. Math was not her strong suit. Frank had always done the calculations needed for their motion studies. However, there may have been more personal reasons as to why Mundel caused difficulty for Lillian. She had liked Mundel’s first wife and was affronted by his divorce. Yet, on the whole, Lillian’s Purdue experience was a happy, successful one—so much so, that she donated her papers to Purdue University, where today the Frank and Lillian Gilbreth Collection is archived.
Lillian was an ambassador of feminine knowledge, compassion, and punctuality. A. A. Potter described Lillian as “a master of the art of conducting free discussion until mutual understanding was achieved.” Her natural gift of free discussion was recognized on a grand scale, as she would serve on presidential committees during the presidential administrations of Hoover, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson. The committees included civil defense, war production, women in the services, aging, and rehabilitation and employment of the physically disabled. These committees and Lillian’s knowledge gathered therein would influence the lives she touched, from students to women like Dorothy and Helen.
Decades later, Helen gave a speech to honor Lillian at the 1978 Lafayette YWCA Salute to Women dinner. Lillian had passed away six years earlier. Helen said:
To me, one of the characteristics of a “good” feminist is strong support of other women. Too many of the relatively few successful women in the past have had a tendency to shrug their shoulders and say, “Oh, any woman can make it if she’s just good enough and is willing to work.” Dr. Gilbreth did not hold with this. She knew that it took caring, understanding, and support on the part of women who had arrived in the professional and work world of men to make opportunities for other women—if very many were ever to be successful at breaking the age old barriers. She understood “sisterhood” long before it was popular.
FOR WOMEN, PURDUE WAS FIRING on all cylinders at the end of the 1930s. The synergy of Amelia Earhart, Lillian Gilbreth, Dorothy Stratton, and Helen Schleman beckoned bright-eyed young women who wanted to be a part of the internal combustion that was propelling women forward.
By 1937, Dorothy and her parents lived at 1007 Ravinia Road in West Lafayette. During Dorothy’s tenure, the enrollment of women at Purdue tripled. Dorothy recalled, “Dr. Elliott brought Amelia Earhart and Doctor Gilbreth to the campus, which was simply overwhelming. I have never known exactly why he did, and I’m not sure that he knew, but he did and it was great. It was wonderful. These two had a tremendous impact on all of us. For a lack of something better to put them in, they were attached to the Office of the Dean of Women. This was a great treat for me.”
Amelia and Lillian were concerned that there was no bachelor of arts degree offered at Purdue. Many women who came to Purdue in the 1930s wanted what would basically be a liberal arts degree, but for the most part, they were pigeonholed into home economics. Some female students were enrolled in the School of Science, and just a couple of women majored in engineering or agriculture. There was no bachelor of arts degree offered at Purdue because of a “gentlemen’s agreement.” Decades later, Dorothy explained: “At the time, David Ross, president of the Board of Trustees, told me at least fifty times that there was a gentlemen’s agreement with Indiana University that Purdue would never give the BA degree. I still don’t know what happened. When I tried to find out who the gentlemen were who made this decision, I never could find out, but of course gentlemen stick by their decisions.”
The “gentlemen’s agreement” was an understanding between Indiana University and Purdue University regarding the academic degrees each would offer. Indiana, located in the southern part of the state, would offer a liberal arts curriculum, while Purdue, as the land-grant university in the northwest part of the Hoosier landscape, would offer the sciences, engineering, and agriculture.
Often Dorothy was invited to the summer home of Purdue University Trustee and benefactor David Ross. He named his three-story house and surrounding wooded terrain “The Hills,” located in the country south of Purdue’s campus in what is today Ross Hills Park. Dorothy also would visit his home on South Seventh Street, which was across the street from President Elliott’s home in Lafayette. At The Hills, Dorothy played hostess during various Ross functions. She always visited the summer home with a chaperone; while in town, she would call on Ross alone.
There’s a photograph of Dorothy standing by steps that lead to an entrance of Ross’s summer cottage. She looks quite jaunty wearing jodhpurs—riding breeches—and riding boots, as if she rode a horse while visiting Ross. But friends say Dorothy was not a horsewoman, and perhaps she simply looked the part, as she was always superbly put together for any event. One can imagine Dorothy and David Ross sitting in his living room with the wall of windows facing the thickets that led down to the Wabash River. Perhaps they talked of the “gentlemen’s agreement” and how a Purdue curriculum could be instituted to attract more female students.
President Elliott and David Ross gave Dorothy the most resonating bits of philosophy to carry throughout her life. Elliott’s motto was, “No great deed was ever done by falterers asking for certainty.” From Ross, Dorothy learned the importance of releasing the creative energies of young people and giving them a chance to do things on their own—a philosophy that would serve her well in the myriad of careers she would enjoy throughout the twentieth century.
In 1937, at Dorothy’s urging, President Elliott appointed the Committee on the Education of Women to consider the problem of Purdue’s lack of a bachelor of arts degree. Professor Helen Hazelton, head of women’s physical education, led the group. The committee’s first report stated, “Much could be done on women