Working-Class Students at Radcliffe College, 1940–1970: The Intersection of Gender, Social Class, and Historical Context (review)

Reflecting on women’s history at America’s most prestigious institution in Yards and Gates: Gender in Harvard and Radcliffe History, noted historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich asserted that “womanless history has been a Harvard specialty” (10). In her recent book, Jennifer O’Connor Duffy ably reclaims part of that history as it was lived and reflected upon by working-class women who attended, and then graduated from, Radcliffe College from 1940 to 1970. Conducting a secondary statistical analysis of data from a longitudinal survey of Radcliffe women spanning thirty years, O’Connor Duffy takes up the question of whether (and how) coming from a family of working-class means influenced the ways that women at Radcliffe in pre- and post-World War II America experienced their college years, and whether and if those experiences shaped their post-college lives. O’Connor Duffy’s findings invite the reader into a compelling and complex picture of the experience of college for women of this era, particularly those who were not daughters of the privileged classes. The fact that Radcliffe did not even have a financial aid office until the 1960s demonstrates the extent to which perseverance was required of any woman of lesser means wanting to pursue an education there.

Defining working-class women as those whose parents’ education did not exceed high school and who were employed in skilled or semi-skilled occupations, O’Connor Duffy explores how satisfaction levels differed (or did not) according to class backgrounds, both as students and as alumnae. She also examines whether satisfaction differed according to the era of enrollment, both for the women’s experiences as students and as alumnae. O’Connor Duffy finds that the women of lesser means attending Radcliffe during this era were relatively similar across the thirty-year span in terms of their experiences and after-college outcomes. Lower income women attending Radcliffe in this era experienced greater satisfaction with their college experience if they also expressed satisfaction with the academic advising system, the only one of many variables O’Connor Duffy examined that appeared to predict satisfaction. The implication is that connection with and access to support resources was essential for helping lower income women feel part of the college experience at Radcliffe, and that their reliance on support systems within the college served to mediate the deficits they experienced as a result of not possessing social capital through their parents.

Post-college outcomes indicated that working-class women exhibited significant degrees of commitment to educational achievement, feeling less pressure to marry and become mothers at an early age after college, and they exhibited greater involvement in careers than women from non-working-class backgrounds. Over time, working-class women achieved professional status equivalent to that of their non-working-class sisters, suggesting that “their long term dedication reflects their professional motivation and talent” (102).

In addition to crafting a careful statistical analysis of women’s experiences as students and alumnae, O’Connor Duffy provides a rich narrative of the ways that women were ambivalently included in college life at Harvard after World War I, as demonstrated by the ways that institutional leaders both inhibited and supported their full participation in the life of the institution. While in the 1940s women at Radcliffe were actively ushered into the mostly empty classrooms previously occupied by soldiers away at war, “administrators from both schools rejected the theoretical implications that accompanied their structural move toward gender equality” (111). Later, additions of specific support programs for women, such as the establishment of the Bunting Institute and enhanced residence facilities for women, were indications of increased interest in women’s experiences, even as continued sexism was expressed by leaders in the institution (135–36).

An additional finding of significance is that, for working-class women, satisfaction with their college experience did not appear to be correlated with marriage...