Virginia C. Gildersleeve was the most influential dean of Barnard College, which she led from 1911 to 1947. An organizer of the Seven College Conference, or “Seven Sisters, ” she defended women’s intellectual abilities and the value of the liberal arts. She also amassed a strong set of foreign policy credentials and, at the peak of her prominence in 1945, served as the sole woman member of the U.S. delegation to the drafting of the United Nations Charter. But her accomplishments are undercut by other factors: she had a reputation for bias against Jewish applicants for admission to Barnard and early in the 1930s voiced an indulgent view of the Nazi regime.
In this biography, historian Nancy Woloch explores Gildersleeve’s complicated career in academia and public life. At once a privileged insider, prone to elitism and insularity, and a perpetual outsider to the sexist establishment in whose ranks she sought to ascend, Gildersleeve stands out as richly contradictory. The book examines her initiatives in higher education, her savvy administration, her strategies for gaining influence in academic life, the ways that she acquired and deployed expertise, and her drive to take part in the world of foreign affairs. Woloch draws out her ambivalent stance in the women’s movement, concerned with women’s status but opposed to demands for equal rights. Tracing resonant themes of ambition, competition, and rivalry, The Insider masterfully weaves Gildersleeve’s life into the histories of education, international relations, and feminism.
Table of Content
Introduction
1. Roots: 1877–1911
2. The Insider: 1911 Through World War I
3. Gatekeeping: The 1920s
4. Emergencies: 1930–1947
5. Embattled: After Barnard, 1947–1965
Endnote: “Working from Within”
Acknowledgments
A Note on Sources
Notes
Index
About the author
Nancy Woloch is research scholar in the history department at Barnard College. She is the author of Women and the American Experience (5th ed. 2011), Early American Women: A Documentary History, 1600-1900 (3rd ed., 2013), and Muller v. Oregon: A Brief History with Documents (1996). Her recent book, A Class by Herself: Protective Laws for Women Workers, 1890s-1990s (Princeton, 2015), won the Philip Taft Labor History Prize (Cornell), the William G. Bowen Prize for the Outstanding book on Labor and Public Policy (Princeton), and Honorary Mention for the David J. Langum Sr. Prize in Legal History/Biography. Her most recent book is Eleanor Roosevelt: In Her Words (Hachette, 2017).More ebooks from the same author(s) / Editor
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