ceive a raise in rank or salary, that 'she should stay home and take care
of her
kids.' She said at the end of her letter: 'I have marched in protests for
other
causes, but not for women .... I guess I am outwardly a conformist, inwardly
a rebel.' Which means that really she didn't tell the truth in her life and
that
when she was most successful in her career she was not marching, and not
militant. My own feeling is something like my friend's but not so marked.
'As I think back about it, I can see that I didn't recognize many examples
of discrimination but I believe unconsciously I may have buried some. I had
many things to do and these activities were substituted for open criticism.
I
can recognize now some things I suppressed.
"Women weren't in positions where they could be very demanding.
When I entered college at Whitewater I did not have the courage to aim to-
ward a full professorship in any leading university. It was Mr. Weaver who
said: 'Why don't you do that?' After his encouragement, I looked forward
to a
position in a distinguished university and I chose Wisconsin.
"One time a member of the nominating committee wanted to nominate
me for president of the National Association of Teachers of Speech. The other
members of the committee approved the nomination, but one of my col-
leagues said that he thought Gertrude Johnson, who was older and had never
been president, should be recommended first. As a result of this discussion,
my name was withdrawn but - Gertrude Johnson was not recommended by
that committee. They got a man!
"Professor Weaver was the one who suggested that I major in speech.
When I was teaching in Madison I remember Mr. Weaver said to me, when
my salary was less than some of my colleagues, and I had been there longer,
and was a little older; 'It's not as high as I hoped it would be, but I suppose
you get used to that and accept it.' I said, 'I get used to it but I don't
accept
it.'
"When I went to the University of Louisiana on leave in 1949, I was
an
associate professor. They offered me a full professorship at Baton Rouge
if I
would come there permanently. I didn't intend to do it because my position
was better at Wisconsin . I wrote to Professor Weaver and I said I did not
in-
tend to leave but I intended to tell him that I had had an offer of a full
professorship at Louisiana State University. Then Professor Weaver got an
offer of a full professorship for me at Wisconsin. The offer from Louisiana
probably moved my promotion up.
"Gertrude Johnson was considered by many to be one of the greatest
public readers in the United States but she had a lower salary than some
of
the men and never got to be a full professor. She was an artist, a great
reader
and a great teacher. Paul McKelvey made a study of her work as a teacher.
In
his Ph.D. thesis she ranked above every other professor in the speech depart-
ment at Wisconsin. This was before the Ph.D. was so important. After her
death I discovered that she never had any kind of a degree, not even a
bachelor's degree. She wasn't in a position to help with graduate degrees.
Gertrude Johnson helped me as an example of a great teacher, but I was never
close to her personally.
"Many believed it was easier to get a Ph.D. if you were a man than a
woman at Wisconsin. When I think of the Ph.D.'s whom we had at the
University of Wisconsin I believe that the average intelligence of the women
was equal to that of the men, it may even have been higher because fewer


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