The Deans' Bible. Angie Klink
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show her with an understated regal air. Nearly always depicted as the only female standing with the other male trustees, she dressed in an ankle-length black dress, a cape, and a matching hat with plumes softly cascading over the brim. She wore black gloves and a scarf with a hefty tassel. Her layers of clothing seemed to weigh her down, for she stooped slightly with her head bowed; however, perhaps, rather than her strata of clothing, it was the enormity of being the first woman on the Purdue University Board of Trustees that pressed upon her. The first woman of any endeavor must set the pace and the example for those who follow in her stead.
At her initial meeting as Purdue’s first female trustee, Virginia voted with the board to authorize the construction of the Home Economics Building, a structure that five decades later would be named after her adopted daughter. Once the Home Economics Building was completed, Virginia turned her attention to creating a much-needed women’s residence hall.
Carolyn’s annual reports during the 1920s referred repeatedly to the need for scholarships, dormitory accommodations, and a women’s gymnasium. She continually expressed concern for the number of female students living in town for whom the University made no provision. In 1925, she urged the establishment of housing that would accommodate all freshmen women and thus do away with sorority rush, which she considered one of the worst aspects of college life. Often, women who were not selected for sorority membership withdrew from the University and returned home in humiliation and despair. Later, her successor, Dorothy Stratton, would share Carolyn’s aversion of rush and make a change in its structure.
Because women students could not find housing close to campus, they often walked great distances, and in the winter, they walked in the dark in their high-top, heeled shoes. The women often were physically uncomfortable and vulnerable to exhaustion, especially in hot weather. The average outfit a woman wore back then, with its layers of garments, took nineteen yards of material and weighed almost twenty-five pounds.
Virginia and a committee she established to study women’s housing recommended to the Purdue University Board of Trustees that Ladies Hall be renovated and used as a temporary dormitory until an adequate women’s hall could be erected. The board consented but put just enough money into the project to keep the building serviceable, and Ladies Hall housed fewer than fifty women.
Five years later, the cost for more repairs exceeded what the board was willing to spend, and Ladies Hall was demolished. One of the last of Purdue’s five original buildings disappeared. Virginia thought that the demise of Ladies Hall would speed up the construction of a women’s dormitory. After all, fifty women had been displaced. She pointed out that most land-grant colleges in the Midwest already offered modern residence halls for women; however, Purdue administrators again leased rooms for female students in local homes, and even Dean of Women Carolyn Shoemaker had to follow suit.
One of the homes was the George Dexter house on Marsteller Street where today’s Marsteller Parking Garage is located. This was where Carolyn made her office and home with some of her students.
In 1928, Frank Cary offered $60,000 to build a residence hall for women, which was to be named in memory of his wife who had passed away. The Carys previously had given money for the building of a men’s dormitory in memory of their late son. Today, that building is named Cary East, part of Cary Quadrangle.
Virginia was appreciative and thanked Frank Cary for his gift in a heartfelt resolution read to the board. The group assured Frank that they would borrow sufficient additional funds necessary to complete the construction of the women’s residence hall. With the go-ahead for the project, Virginia and the other trustees decided they would no longer lease the home for women students on Marsteller Street. As a result, Carolyn lost her office and was given a temporary space in the Engineering Administration Building. It would turn out to be not so “temporary.”
The plan was that the women’s dormitory would be built on property on what is today called Russell Street. Purdue expected to acquire this land from owner Phillip Russell. Years before, Phillip’s parents had donated land to John Purdue for the construction of the University; however, Phillip was not as generous as his parents and did not want to donate the land. The Women’s Residence Hall project faced suits and countersuits as Purdue tried to gain control of the Russell property. Frank Cary grew tired of waiting and eventually found another project in which he memorialized his late wife. He built the Jessie Levering Cary Home for Children in Lafayette.
Though Frank would not donate funds to build a women’s dormitory, he agreed to give money to build another men’s dormitory near Cary Hall. Not wanting to lose a chance at a donation, the Purdue board, including Virginia, agreed that the money would be accepted for the construction of another men’s dorm.
The male administration did not place a high priority on bringing female students to Purdue. Virginia had spent nine years working for better housing for women with nothing to show for her efforts, and Purdue’s enrollment of women was in jeopardy. Why would women choose to attend Purdue if adequate and safe housing was unavailable? It appears excuses were made. Bids came in “too high,” the designated land was caught in a legal battle, and the men in administration wondered how many women would actually be able to afford and want to stay in the new dormitory. Virginia, Carolyn, and the female students they fostered were left in limbo.
While Virginia spent much of her energy on women’s residential concerns, she also headed the effort to build Purdue’s Memorial Union. Just two months after she was appointed to the board, Virginia was named president of the Purdue Memorial Union Association Board of Governors. She was the principal figure in the design, construction, financing, and management of the building dedicated to the more than four thousand alumni who had served in the Civil War and World War I. Raising money to build the Memorial Union was an ongoing, agonizing process. She led the groundbreaking for the building in 1922, but it was not completed until 1930 when Virginia was eighty years old. This long gap was due to donors who were not honoring their commitments to pay their pledges to finance the construction; however, Carolyn made a handsome donation of $5,000 (the equivalent of $65,000 today), the largest contribution made by a woman.
AFTER THE NINETEENTH AMENDMENT was passed and women received the right to vote, many suffragists “retired” from activism, but Alice Paul, the famed suffragist who organized the march on Washington in 1913, continued to toil for women’s equality. In 1923, Alice announced a new constitutional amendment she authored and named the Lucretia Mott Amendment. It stated. “Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction.”
Like Alice, Lucretia Mott was a Quaker. She and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were the organizers of the Seneca Falls Convention in New York “to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of women.” Lucretia was a fluent, moving speaker for human rights who remained composed even before hostile audiences. She was the consummate role model for Alice, and it was fitting that Alice named the amendment after her. In the decades to follow, Alice would work assiduously for the passage of the Lucretia Mott Amendment, which would be reworded and named the Alice Paul Amendment, before it would be termed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).
The ERA was introduced in every session of Congress from 1923 until 1972. After Congress passed the amendment nearly fifty years after Alice first introduced it, the ERA ultimately was not endorsed by enough states to be ratified. Every step of the way, each year the ERA was presented and debated in Congress and at statehouses, the National Association of Deans of Women steadfastly supported its ratification.
During this time, female students in higher education sought equality with regard to honor societies. Since women were not considered for membership in most of the men’s honor societies, women began forming their own local groups. At Purdue, the Home Economics Society was renamed the Virginia C. Meredith Club in the spring of 1925 to esteem the revered first and only female trustee.
Honor societies and other forms of recognition are vital for a woman’s