[TAPE 1, SIDE A]

[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Since I didn't come to South Carolina until 1937, I did not know about the early leadership. All that I have known, I read in Dr. D. D. Wallace's History of South Carolina; Landrum's early history of Spartanburg County, South Carolina; and A History of Spartanburg County, a W. P. A. project which Dr. Fronde Kennedy edited. So, I would refer you to those. But I have talked to my contemporaries who were in college at the time that the nineteenth amendment was passed and whose mothers were leaders in the local community. I thought perhaps that their mothers had belonged to some organizations active in trying to promote the enfranchisement of women. I really seemed to reach a blind alley with everyone of them because they were all college girls at the time, concerned with their own being and becoming. They were also being courted and thinking in terms of marriage so they didn't have much serious conversations with their mothers or fathers about politics. All of them said that at Converse College and at Randolph-Macon College . . .

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Where you went.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes. . . . and at the other Southern colleges

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the students, as women, felt that they had some independence and they felt that women were as well qualified as men for any role they wanted. They, of course, approved of advancing women and were really concerned with getting an education themselves to assume some leadership. Yet they didn't organize or agitate in any way for the suffrage movement. I think that their mothers were very active. For instance, in Spartanburg, Mrs. Howard Carlisle who was Georgia Adam from Charleston, was one of the leaders in the community. Her husband was Senator Howard Carlisle Her daughter says that her mother and father discussed the possibility of women voting and frequently the children listened in. They favored it, both of them. But Mrs. Carlisle herself was very busy organizing a Y.W.C.A.. Also, there was Mrs. Stepp, wife of a physician I think he was Dr. J. B. Stepp. Their daughter, Mrs. Robert Olney, is in Spartanburg now. She said that her mother was public spirited and active in many new organizations but that she did not belong to a suffragette organization of any kind; although she certainly favored women having equal unknown political rights with men. unknown She herself was not active in this area but active in unknown other affairs.

The Y.W.C.A. has always been known as a liberal organization, so you can rest assured that there was unknown

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discussion of equal rights when the Y.W. was organized but no real organization or pushing of the matter.

I talked to Robina Bagwell, whose father was Dr. T. Tillinghast of Converse College. One of their friends who attended Converse College in this period says that Dr. Tillinghast used to have discussions in his sociology and political science courses in regard to women voting. . .

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did he teach at Converse?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, he did. . . . and was always interested in the pros and cons of an issue. That's just about as far as that went.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

He found "cons" then?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, yes he did. He and the students took both sides of the matter. This was rather interesting. Robina had been in newspaper work and her father before her in newspaper work, so I thought perhaps that she would have some clippings or reference files. She does not recall much publicity in our papers but the University of South Carolina should have a complete file of the Spartanburg Herald. I think you could cull through those papers from 1900 and see if there was any.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I shall. I shall look into the local newspapers for all these communities where I've interviewed people. However, I think that the interview is kind of a live factor in the research.

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ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes. There was a unknown very dynamic woman in the community, Mrs. Mary Phifer. I talked to her daughter, Sarah Phifer. unknown Her mother was active in everything in the community and worked of course, not only with women but with men. However, she was not a member of any organization that was actively working for the enfranchisement of women.

I talked to Mrs. Helen Moseley's son, who had just come home to recuperate from surgery, and she herself is in bed at the present time. He's going to ask her if she has any memory of unknown activity for women's rights in Spartanburg.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

How old is she?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

She's not over unknown 70 unknown but she has an older sister, Miss Grace Dupre. unknown She's having a cataract removal in NOrth Carolina so she's not available yet. They may pass on some news to you. They all seem to feel that up in this part of the state, there was interest and there was approval, but there was no organization and no effort to push, to promote, or to demonstrate in any way.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Yes. You moved to the state, you say, in 1924?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

You had been at Randolph-Macon. Where did you come from?

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ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I came from Chattanooga, Tennessee.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Oh, did you. I'm from Tennessee, too.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Really. From where?

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Nashville.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

It's pretty there.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Were you interested in the suffrage movement at Randolph-Macon?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

No, we students at Randolph-Macon were busy studying of course, and we considered ourselves equal to any man. So much so, that it was said that when you had a degree from Randolph-Macon, it took a long time for you to get married because you couldn't find just the right mate. You were so particular. unknown Randolph-Macon girls found themselves professionally and vocationally so they were independent economically as well as intellectually.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I wondered if believing themselves the equal of any man if, when they did come forth from Randolph-Macon with their bachelor degrees, they found some rude set-back in the world at large because of some discrimination.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, I'm sure of that.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

This often has been enough to catapult a woman into the suffrage movement.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, but of course this was the period when

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all women expected to marry, and very soon, after college. So, they probably didn't run into too many set-backs.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Yes. Today, I think, women have a similar expectation. They expect to have both marriage and some outside work in the world.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, they do. In fact, women today have so many roles that they play simultaneously. Some women are wise enough to play them sequentially but many are home-makers, wives, mothers. They are civic leaders. They hold a job and make an economic contribution. They are "politicos" too.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Yes. Do you have some active women of that kind in Spartanburg?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, indeed. Large numbers of them now. So sentiment changed decidedly. My husband was saying—he was in the state legislature from about 1911 to 1919 and then he was there from 1924 to '26—that somewhere in this period he was in Washington unknown in the gallery looking down on the floor of Congress and Jeanette Rankin, who was the first woman Congressman (Congresswoman), was on the floor speaking. He said, it unknown startled him and it was just amazing. Yet, this was in the twentieth century.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

To see a woman with such composure and self-assurance addressing a body of men?

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ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

She visited Mrs. Eulalie Salley just about one year ago at Miss Sally's home in Aiken.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Did she?

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Yes. While your husband was in the legislature, I wonder if he has any recollections of the time when he was there and the matter of suffrage being brought up in the legislature for approval?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

No, he doesn't. That didn't seem to make any impression on him except being rather startled and being amazed at the ease and poise that Mrs. Rankin showed. He doesn't have any specific recollection of the issue while he was in the General Assembly. Of course, the Acts and Join Resolutions would convey some of that and they would also have besides resolutions unknown some letters and things of this sort.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Mrs. Salley did some active lobbying in Columbia. Mrs. Eulalie Salley.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

She recalls that the legislature turned thumbs down on the suffrage amendment, regularly, but it was regularly brought up by Niels Christiansen of Beaufort. . .

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

. . . who cast the sole vote in favor.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Did I ever in the world!

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CONSTANCE MYERS:

This was a pattern, an annual.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Well, I know that the women up here were not really too eager to push in this direction although they favored the franchise of women and they would assume responsibility when it came. That is, the leadership. I think the rest of the women, were just lethargic and maybe disinterested.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

This is probably the case throughout the United States. You had a small handful of leaders that pushed hard for this.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, I think so. And I don't think the South was the area that really put it across at all, because women were rather conservative. This was where they were placed on a pedestal and kept there a longer period of time than elsewhere. Although, southern women during the Civil War had to assume heavy responsibilities and be mother and father both, to their families.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Probably to some extent during World War I too, yes.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I think, in the nation as a whole, that women assumed such an important role in World War I that the franchise was a reward for their community service and their national service. I don't think it could have been delayed much longer after women had played such a significant role in the War. Keeping the home fires

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burning and doing the necessary work for the troops that could be done at home and having to take over more male roles, more vocational and occupational positions that men previously had, proved their ability and equality.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I wonder if you think that President Wilson viewed it in this light or if he was to some extent pressured by the women who appeared at the White House and picketed and sent him telegrams?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I wouldn't think that President Wilson would be influenced by any public demonstrations.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

You wouldn't think so?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

No, I wouldn't. I think his determination for everything was the result of intellectually facing the problems unknown and the issues.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Couldn't it have been a matter of political reality given the fact that some women did indeed have the vote? And some states were crucial in which women had recieved the vote on the state basis. And he was looking ahead to the 1920 election, not knowing that he would be so ill.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I think that President Wilson, although a political scientist and a professor for many years, was not that much of a politician. No, I really don't.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

As far as women being placed on a pedestal is

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concerned, have you read Dr. Anne Firor Scott's book, The Southern Lady from Pedestal to Politics?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

No, I have intended reading that. I know it's interesting, is it not?

CONSTANCE MYERS:

She finds that women of the upper socio-economic echelons in southern society were indeed active and stepped off of that pedestal rather early.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Well, they had to because during the wars they were obliged to assume male roles and responsibilities.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Perhaps too, there was a desire for achievement on their own part outside of the home.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, and some women had to take over the management of plantations. This of course was a major business. They had to take the economic and the political and the social roles.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I recommend Scott's book. I think it's in paperback now. It's very fine.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, well, good.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

You say that there was no organization, as such, in Spartanburg.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Not that we've been able to discover.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Do you know if any of the women who took some interest in the issue went to the state meetings? Or were they unaware, up here in Spartanburg, that there

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were state meetings taking place?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

We can't verify that one way or another because the only people living that knew these ladies well were their daughters and they don't have any recollection or remembrance of it.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Are there no living suffragettes in Spartanburg today?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Not that anybody has been able to discover. Mrs. Paul Foster, who has been quite an activist in every field, I talked with her last night. She does not recall any organization or any records of organizations and never read anything or saw clippings about suffragetee organizations at all. She was going to think through the whole matter today, and she wanted us to call her and see if she had come up with anything. Then, she could see you at two o'clock if you were able to stay this long.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

How lovely. You are very kind to have pursued that for me.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Maybe she can add something.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Then you really will have to refer me to the Spartanburg newspaper to find out; and to the Columbia paper.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, we certainly will. When I came to Spartanburg in 1937, women were aware that we hadn't taken the franchise as seriously as we might. In the first place,

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the voting record for men and women was not too good in Spartanburg as far as trying to get one hundred percent participation was concerned. Men and women both were indifferent. They began to talk about how to get out the vote and to work on registration and things of this sort. The women who belonged to the Business and Professional Women's Club—it was organized around 1919, I believe—and the branch of the Association of University Women—this was organized around 1924—, those two groups had much emphasis in the period of the '30's and the 40's on the status of women. The Pilot Club was organized around the same time as the B. and P.W. and the A.A.U.W.. All of these groups had programs.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Were you a member of these, Mrs. Boyd?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I was active in the Association of University Women. I belonged, for a few years, to the B. and P.W. but I couldn't keep it all going, so I dropped that. I was in touch with them constantly. They had separate departments and divisions at their national level that came down to the state level and to the local branch chapter level that worked for the promotion of women, the advancement of women during that whole period from the late thirties through the forties and through the fifties. It was only in the unknown 1960's that

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A.A.U.W. decided that you didn't need a special division on status of women, that you stressed advancement of women in your social issues and in your international problems and in every other area. They abolished this separate division. The Methodist Church had a status women division in the fifties, and it was very active. It abolished it, thinking that women advanced women in any area of their activity. As a result of dropping the programs nation wide, women began to lose their administrative positions in colleges and they began to lose many of their policy-making positions. They weren't appointed as frequently by public officials and I think it was a great mistake.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I think these organizations have re-instituted their committees on the status of women.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

The Methodist Church has.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

So too has the A.A.U.W., I understand.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

We don't have any separate division on it as yet.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I was a member in California but I dropped it when I returned to the South.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

We felt that we accomplished a great deal in the fifties. Let me see. I went on the status of women committee in '47 and was chairman from '52 to '54. We

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had a staff member, Dr. Winifred Helmes, who was unknown outstanding.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Here in Spartanburg?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

No, this was national. I was national chairman of the Status of Women Committee. We also had such persons as Dr. Ellen Winston on our committee and Dr. Ellen Winston was commissioner of Department of Public Welfare in North Carolina. She became the head of Public Assistance in the federal government and was an outstanding member of our committee when I was chairman. Then we had Col. Mary Agnes Brown who was in the military and who was quite an outstanding leader. We had the business woman, Marjorie Husted, who really conceived the Betty Crocker idea. She was from Minneapolis and represented the economic advancement of women. She was on the committee. We had prominent leaders and were able to get many more women appointed at the county level, especially at the state and national levels. We even worked to try and get women nominated for the vice-presidency at the political conventions. I know we were the first ones that promoted Margaret Chase Smith to be nominated. We had India Edwards nominated in the other party. At least, it was just a matter of getting their names on the record. They did finally withdraw but it was a step in the right direction.

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Then we worked very hard to re-instate women in administrative positions in colleges and universities but by that time, the colleges and universities were growing so rapidly and they changed the whole system. An academic dean then had many assistant deans or associate deans working under him. So women didn't get the highest-echelon positions after all, but worked at the lower levels.

We stressed the economic advantage that women had because they owned a disproportionate amount of the wealth.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Without actually having a voice in its control.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, that's right. It was largely the result of being beneficiaries of men's insurance and wills and that sort of thing. Then more and more women did enter the economic field. At depression time, we had several prominent women in the banking field in Spartanburg.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Do you now?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes. We have had a woman elected to the General Assembly from Spartanburg. We don't have one right now. There have been two women in Spartanburg who have served in the General Assembly. One was Harriet Johnson and she was elected, though, from York County. She lived in Rock Hill at the time. She moved into Spartanburg where she had

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previously lived and settled here and died here. We had another member of the General Assembly . . . unknown Ruby Wesson . . . but she only served for a term. Then of course we have members in the General Assembly now but not anything like the number that we should have. My criticism of the activity of women after the franchise has been that, even yet, too few women register, or if they register, too few women vote. I can make this criticism of men too. People who go out of town on election day—they're just being dumb. Although it improves percentage-wise each year, it isn't anything like it should be even yet.

Another thing, I don't think women have been courageous enough, or serious enough, to go out for public office. I unknown think that here in Spartanburg we should have had more women that would run for school board membership. We should have women running for city council. We should have many more women in the legislature than we have.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Has Converse College not consistently promoted women's active participation in the world at large? You would think that a community with a woman's college would have this kind of emphasis.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I think they have had excellent emphasis on

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women educating themselves for responsible positions but I think it's largely been in the professional and occupational and vocational fields. I don't think they have stressed, to any great extent, the responsibilities of women politically. Although in the last ten years, we have had a Democratic Club and Republican Club of students and in the last few elections the students have been extremely active. They've had straw ballots on campus of course. They have attended rallies of their respective parties and they have appeared on television. That is now improving, rapidly.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I believe that it is. I believe that this current generation of young women is taking a role in politics.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I think so.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

This augurs well.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, it does.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did you have a relationship with Converse College yourself, Mrs. Boyd?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I taught there for thirty-four years.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

You did indeed have a relationship. Mrs. Boyd, what did you teach?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Sociology.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did you?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Oh, yes. My students were very active in

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community work from the local through the state level. They never were too active in politics. It was not very stimulating to try and be active in politics for a long time because of being a one party state. It was in the last ten years that unknown we began to have two parties. Then the situation became very interesting.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Do you remember from the time that you were at Randolph-Macon the arguments that were used against women's obtaining the vote? What did you hear as a student up at Randolph-Macon?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I don't recall that I heard anything because I didn't take sociology. I did have a course in political science but it was strictly a lecture course. There was no opportunity of any kind for discussion.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did you not have people on the lecture trail coming through and delivering addressees to the student body at Randolph-Macon?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Not many political addresses in 1918 to 1920.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Not even on the subject of suffrage at a woman's college?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Not enough to be impressive.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

What arguments do you recall that you, with your fellow students, advanced in favor of suffrage? Do you remember?

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ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Of course, with fellow students and, later, with my students my whole philosophy has been that women are persons and that women have as much mental ability as men. Women have as much stamina as men. Women, in fact, live five years longer than men. That little book of Ashley Montague's on the Natural Superiority of Women speaks of the biological and natural aspects of womanhood that equip women for very active service and to assume responsibility alongside men. In fact, women are equipped by nature to surpass men with endurance and things of this sort. So I've always believed in complete equality.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Why do you think women have rather consistently in human history fallen behind or, not indeed, have attained the level?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I think that it's a cultural matter. When society disapproves, I think women take the way of least resistance and they yield to protection of the male. I saw something in the morning paper in the magazine section yesterday where there was an actress who thought it was just wonderful to be dependent on a man. Don't you see? It was just a means of security in the way of least resistance and an easy way to live and to enjoy life in a rather relaxed fashion. As long as there was a provider, and as long as women had children and reared the

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children, which tied them down to a large extent, they just didn't care to upset their security.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

This was indeed true for women of the upper-income, and middle-income woman, but the mill woman had no such experience with the leisure life. Yet, she consistently drew lower wages than her male fellow workers.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I think she probably felt that this was just the lot of women—that women were the childbearers, that women were the ones that did the home work and housework, and just accepted that division of roles that the mill worker had always learned from parents and grandparents. It was the way of life.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

How do you find that this matter of roles came into being?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I think the matter of roles came into being with the first population group. You can't have any group living together without somebody becoming the leader and somebody becoming a follower, somebody having the ideas. Take the small group; there's usually an idea man; there's usually an administrator found in the group; there's a leader found in the group; there's somebody who just keeps the group in a good humor, the fun person. (interruption)

MIDDLE SIDE II TAPE I

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I think roles came in the very beginning and have been with us ever since. In other words, we all have a part to play in every group to which we belong and we have a position in every group to which we belong.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

In a social group in which a woman demonstrates strong leadership capabilities and yet there was a man also with strong leadership capabilities, do you think that woman out of second nature would assume the subordinate position to the man? Suppose they had equal leadership capabilities?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

That would depend upon the woman. She might become a little angry with the man trying to usurp this place and might then put forth greater effort. Other women particularly if they wanted the favor of that one man or if there were other people in an audience, might yield. I think it would be an individual matter.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Do you think that this matter of sex roles is perpetuated in the elementary school as people in the women's movement are now saying? It's inculcated virtually in the nursery and reinforced in the elementary school through the readers and what not?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I think that this is true: unknown we still are in

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a man's world. We start very early in thinking that boys can play with trains and motor cars, play with war toys and things of this sort, and that the girls will play with dolls. But, I think, in our schools we are getting away from that rather early now because we are bringing girls into all kinds of athletic activities as well as the boys. The boys are certainly called upon to engage in art work and to write little essays and various things that the girls are doing. I don't think that there is in the public school as much delineation of the male and female roles any more.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Perhaps not, with the wiping out of the requirement for shop for boys and home-ec for the girls.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

But you know, I'd want some difference in roles for the simple reason that I don't like to see men wearing pale pink and pale blue and letting their hair grow long and go to beauty parlors and look effeminate. Neither do I like to see women in pants, except a few women and except a few stunning outfits that maybe would be too expensive for the majority of women. Others put on these cheap pants and just look deplorable. Then, you don't seem to command the respect of others when you are so slouchy. I had just rather that women would dress like women and women would be feminine rather than

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trying to wipe out all the divisions between the male and the female. I don't even like this idea of addressing a woman ‘Ms.’. I'd rather they'd make a mistake and think I was ‘Miss’ rather than ‘Mrs..’

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Oh, I made an error. I addressed your postcard ‘Ms.’.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

You did?

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Some of the women I've been interviewing welcome this innovation.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

No, I don't. I don't welcome that. Another thing I don't like, I think it's too artificial to speak of a chairperson. ‘Chairman’ is a generic term and it can apply to women as well as to men. I think that's going to an extreme. Another thing, in 1965 I was elected in Australia to a three year term on the Legal and Economic Status Committee of the International Federation of University Women. I served three years and went to conferences in different European countries every March. I was then re-elected to my last term when I went to the Karlsruhe unknown , Germany conference and served a total of six years. We were making decided progress I thought in encouraging women, when they secured the franchise in their country to be very active—which we had failed to do when we secured the franchise in 1920. Women in countries that have

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recently enfranchised women have done amazing things in getting themselves elected to the central legislative body. I think that's the way it should have been with us. Unfortunately, it wasn't. The International Federation of University Women exerted a good deal of influence in that direction. We also exerted a good deal of influence in regard to the study of community property laws in our country in the eight community property states, to bring about some modification, where these laws still discriminated against women, although it seemed that they didn't. But there were discriminatory aspects. We worked on that. We also went far in advocating equal pay for equal work. Of course in the International Federation, we found that some of the countries would listen and some of the countries would bring about improvement but we had greater difficulty with the Catholic countries. They had this cultural pattern of subordinate roles for women. They were to be the wives; they were to be the mothers. They weren't as interested in our efforts to push women into the political scene and they weren't too interested in equal pay for equal work. We found that in many countries, when you move toward equal pay for equal work, then employers simply wouldn't employ women. That mitigated against them. In the International Federation, we couldn't be too extreme because we had to bring

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up the Catholic countries to get the general public to accept women as having a role other than that of the home. With the countries that accepted equality of women, we found that certain of our proposals didn't set well and that women sometimes lost when we achieved the equal pay for equal work. That was rather difficult.

You'd think that England would be just as equal as we but I had clippings sent from many English newspapers in regard to job opportunities. I was amazed that so many of the ads would list the range of women's salaries lower than the range of men's salaries for the same job.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

What year was this?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

This was unknown in 1968 . . . the triennial conference was in 1968.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Unabashedly they listed the women's jobs at lesser salaries.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes. There were other ads which specified unknown that the applicant must be a man. Another interesting thing was that where there were new jobs in electronics and in radar and whatever was new, that they didn't care whether they had a man or a woman. There was a shortage of people able to apply, qualified to apply. Therefore, in the newer occupations women could get in on the ground floor and stay there.

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CONSTANCE MYERS:

And hopefully open the doors for other women.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, they could.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I wonder if you remember from the period before the nineteenth amendment and immediately following what groups in Tennessee or around you that you were unknown aware of at Randolph-Macon opposed suffrage? If it was rather universally opposed? And who opposed women's active participation in the world at large? I'm thinking of the twenties and before the nineteenth amendment.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I don't believe that there was too much vociferous opposition. I think it would have been more disinterest and lethargy and "let the thing roll along."

CONSTANCE MYERS:

You don't think that certain business corporations felt a distinct interest in keeping women in the home?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I would have to turn to the newspapers for that. I'm not sure that they did. I was not aware of pressuresby corporations. I suppose I was with people who were more broad minded and with people who believed that women had capabilities. I wouldn't be in touch with those who opposed. Some women themselves didn't want the franchise. They said, "we're getting along well enough without it; we'll just open a Pandora's box." "We will get into

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all kinds of controversies and trouble." Some said, "I just don't want the trouble of having to register and vote." They didn't want to be disturbed.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Didn't want to assume the responsibilities of citizenship.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

No, they did not. Naturally when they received the vote they didn't assume the responsibility. Some of them not even registered or voted. unknown Some who registered and voted would have been horrified at offering for a public office.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

It's a little narrow to want to restrict this activity for women, because there will always be some who do want to exercise this privilege.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

That's why we were obliged to have status of women committees, to stimulate the women, to motivate them. They just weren't interested; they weren't going to do anything about it. And they resented some of the activities of status of women's groups, too. I would say now that I really believe that the women's "lib" movement is doing women more harm than good. Yes, I do. I talked to the convener of our committee who was Madame Helene Thalman-Antennen from Switzerland, and I said, "You know we have worked to advance women educationally. We have wanted more women to take higher degrees. We wanted more women to take professional

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training. We have wanted to advance women in policy-making posts and elective office. We have wanted to advance women in business, in industry. We wanted to have equal pay for equal work. We wanted to do away with restrictions on night work for women because some women had to work at night; it was preferable for some women to work at night. We wanted to do all this and we did it in a way that brought respect for us and support." I said, "Then when the women ‘libbers’ began to come forth and when they decried happy marriage and were against . . . .

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Oh, this isn't universal in the women's movement.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

It isn't in the women's movement but it is with some of these people who protest and get on television.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

In every movement you have an extreme wing.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

But they're the ones that you hear from. You don't hear as much from the women who took the position that we did. You just don't hear from them like you hear from these extreme women "libbers."

CONSTANCE MYERS:

There's a position taken in the women's movement that marriage is to be encouraged but marriage of a fifty-fifty partnership.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Well, definitely. Those of us who graduated

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from Randolph-Macon and colleges of similar type had fifty-fifty relationships back in the twenties.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Yes, I know that my mother did.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

So we never thought of a woman having an inferior role at all.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Do you remember any groups that supported the idea of the nineteenth amendment, that positively encouraged that it be passed and after it was passed, that worked in favor of an active role for women in the world at large? Any organized groups, clubs, busines organizations?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I'm sure that some of the church women did.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I suppose that the Y.W.C.A. . . . .

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

The Y.W.C.A. would and the A.A.U.W. which was organized around . . . let's see. The Association of Collegiate Alumni was organized in 1882, in Boston. They always assumed leadership there. The Southern Association of College Women was organized around 1908 and they always took that position. The two organizations merged in 1921 to become the American Association of University Women.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Were there any men's organizations that promoted, worked in favor of an active role for women or for the suffrage amendment?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I wasn't familiar with men's organizations at that particular time. There hasn't been anything

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that I've found in history of the times or in the sociology of that period that indicated men's groups supporting the enfranchisement of women. I think that some of the church groups supported the women in this regard. But, even here the men by and large placed women on an inferior level. Women's Missionary Societies struggled long and tirelessly to achieve complete independence from male supervision.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Do you remember any person coming forward visiting Randolph-Macon or Chattanooga, where you were a young person before college years, or in the 1920's, when I suppose you were married and a bride, settling down? Do you remember any individuals, particularly from this state, that you heard opposing women's active role?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Well, I didn't come to this state until 1925. No. The lectures that I heard didn't deal with suffrage at all.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

What about women's active role in the world at large?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Of course that was always the point of view of our speakers at Randolph-Macon. Women were always urged to give service to the community and service to the nation. I'm sure that Dr. John R. Mott, who visited us on two occasions at Randolph-Macon speaking for the Y.M.C.A. and the Y.W.C.A. and the world movement, would naturally show us the roles of women, the opportunities that women had. We had many people like that but they did it in a natural way.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Were you inspired?

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ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Of course I was inspired when we had these great speakers but I didn't have a new point of view. I was in a family where I learned from early childhood that women were equal to men and that women had opportunities. My father began talking about my going to Randolph-Macon when I was just a little tot. I thought in terms of whether I wanted to be a teacher. I really wanted to be a lawyer.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did you?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Why did you not pursue that, Mrs. Boyd?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I didn't pursue it for the simple reason that women had such a difficult time in law. They were assigned the paper work and kept behind the scenes.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I think it's changing.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Oh it is. We have a woman judge here in Spartanburg. They're giving a reception for her tomorrow night.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Yes. I invited her to speak at our Women in Focus Week at the University last February and she was snowed out. It was during the snow storm in February.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, I know because I was stranded in Orangeburg for five days and nights. That was quite an experience.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Wasn't it? Orangeburg had it worse than any

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part of the state.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I'm not a very good one to focus on the uniqueness of visualizing an active view of women because nothing that modern speakers said came as a surprise to me. I wasn't startled at all. I'd always thought of myself as a person even from earliest childhood. I could do anything I wanted to do with proper education, training, and determination.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I wonder if at Randolph-Macon, you and the other students were inspired to go out into professional life or were you coached to seek marriage and then community service as a wife?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

At the time that I was at Randolph-Macon, I wasn't aware that women had much opportunity in anything but teaching. Evidently, Randolph-Macon did not motivate or stimulate in a broad sense. Practically everybody that I knew was going to teach until they married. That was their plan. Of course, I married at the end of my second year. After all, I didn't just hear speakers from 1918 to '20. Then, when I went to the University of South Carolina, in 1931, this was a different era. Naturally at that time we tried to push women educationally and economically and politically.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Mrs. Boyd, you returned to college then as a junior at the University of South Carolina?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes I did.

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CONSTANCE MYERS:

Were you married then?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, I had been married in 1920 right out of Randolph-Macon. So, I had been married eleven years and I had a six-year-old daughter.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

You commuted down to Columbia?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I had lost my husband then and I had to provide for my child.

I didn't feel equipped to make an unknown adequate living. For that reason, I went back to the University with the idea of teaching. When I entered in '31, there was an over-supply of teachers. It was in the Depression. So someone said, "Why don't you think in terms of majoring in sociology. There are so many openings for social workers. This is a new profession." I had known something of social work through going with Dr. Ayres, the sociologist at Randolph-Macon, and his class of students on Sunday afternoons to a mission. We had become interested in the problems of the poor. unknown I liked that at Randolph-Macon and had thought in terms of community service there, so I might as well leave this preparation for teaching because of the oversupply and go into a field that was wide open. So I majored in sociology and finished my degree in that. Then, I thought,

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"Well maybe I'll be the exception in teaching so I'll take a master's in history." I had talked to Dr. Wienefeld and to Dr. Callcott unknown and had everything set up, all my courses assigned Then, the Sociology Department came to me and asked me if I'd teach all the undergraduate courses while they set up a school of social work. That was too good an opportunity. I only received $25.00 a month, which was just a token, but nevertheless I thought this was an opportunity that I couldn't pass up. For three years I taught all the sociology at the University of South Carolina.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Down in Columbia?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

In Columbia.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Then you lived in Columbia.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I lived in Columbia. I thoroughly enjoyed teaching there. I enjoyed the co-educational classes. I enjoyed the sociology and the school of social work flourished for three years. Then, the Federal government removed the funds. The understanding had been that I would return these classes to the three who had given them up. I did. That's when I came to Converse. It was real interesting. I came in '37 but in '47 I married Mr. Jesse Boyd, who is an attorney. He's retired now but he has been an attorney here all these years. In fact, there's an elementary

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school named the "Jesse Boyd School" for him.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I was told this by the young man at the grocery store that gave me my directions. Do you keep in touch with the sociology department at the University?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Not at the University. Well, I do to some extent because Mary Calvert is a good friend of mine She is unknown a good friend of mine because her brother was in our department. I advised him to go to Duke; helped him and gave him counsel and advice. He majored with us. We were old friends just personally, not because of sociology. There was a sociologist that I used to see at the American Sociological Society all the time. I think he's chairman there.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

What was his name?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I can't think of it.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I know Chairman Hatch.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Hatch was the one, David Hatch. His wife taught at Colunbia College. I guess she still does. I am in touch, of course, with the sociology department at Converse still. I teach at Limestone. [College, in Gaffney]

CONSTANCE MYERS:

You do?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes. I retired two years ago and I've taught two years at Limestone.

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CONSTANCE MYERS:

Where is that?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

It's twenty miles from here in Gaffney. It was a woman's college for many years. Some even called it "The Vassar of the South." It was a very well-known woman's college. It was established in mid-nineteenth century. It's co-educational now. It unknown used to be Baptist. It's non-denominational now. I would have been teaching there right now except that I went to the hospital the day that they registered students so my students had to register for other courses. I'm going to teach in February, so I'll be back at Limestone. I'm in touch with the sociology department at Converse and in touch with the sociology department at Limestone. I know David Hatch well. I've stopped going to the unknown American Sociological meetings. I haven't seen him lately but I think very highly of him. I have a book that's just out in its second edition, The Foundations of Practical Gerontology.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

You do?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes. The University of South Carolina Press did this one book of ours Charles Oakes and I collaborated. I have a copy of the first edition but I don't have a copy of the new book because I gave it to somebody the other day. I'll have to order another one. We had institutes at Converse.

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Mine was under the Higher Education Act, Title III. Chuck Oakes' was under the Administration on Aging. We had the outstanding gerontologists in this part of the country and really the world, unknown America. We had Drs. Ida Simpson, unknown Frances Carp, and Carl Eisdorfer. We had outstanding people—Juanita Krepps, dean of women at Duke, and various others. When we finished our institutes, we published proceedings and then decided that we would put the articles from the two institutes together in a book. We wrote and secured permission from the contributors. We'd already paid them for the articles. We did compile this book. The Press had the first printing and then they had a second printing. The book is in wide use in colleges and universities all over the country. Then we came up with a second edition. It has a different format.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Also published by the University of South Carolina?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, published by the University of South Carolina Press. It came out two months ago. It has in it six new articles unknown We deleted some articles and kept some. It came out in time for the fall semester. I haven't heard yet how many colleges and universities are

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using it.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I'm just happy to hear that. I didn't know that you had published, too.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Of course, I wrote a book on The Social Adjustment of the Greeks in Spartanburg, South Carolina. That was not published in the University of South Carolina Press.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

While you were teaching at Converse?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes. It was under a Carnegie Foundation Grant.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did you find that the attitude at Converse toward inspiring their students to go forth in the world was similar to that which you encountered at Randolph-Macon? The expectation was marriage but then activity in the community?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

No, it was really quite different. At Converse from the very beginning of the time that I was there, girls expected to work. At Randolph-Macon they thought that if they worked, they'd teach. Lots of them didn't have expectation of teaching long. At Converse from the very beginning in '37, girls were going to be sure that they had a profession or vocation.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

The difference was the decade, wasn't it?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, it was. Just the change in times in which we lived because the same thing was happening at

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Randolph-Macon at that time.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I wonder if these young women at Converse in the thirties realized these expectations and did indeed find a career in the professions or if they followed the traditional pattern and were married.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

It's been said that Converse students marry within the first twelve months after graduation but it was surprising to see how many continued work. Even when they stopped to have a child or two, most of them that I see have returned to a job. They have not really just been protected and supported by husbands. They have done their part in providing for the family. Randolph-Macon alumnae have too, I'm sure of that. I'm also sure that there were some girls at Randolph-Macon who were thinking of a profession other than teaching. There were large numbers of students in science. They weren't all thinking of teaching. There were a good many in other fields that might have been leading them in the direction of being a journalist or a writer or maybe in government through political science. But, the general run of the students at Randolph-Macon when I was there thought that teaching was the only thing open.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

You're my first oral history narrator who has been actively engaged in higher education. Mabel Politzer

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taught for years at Memminger High School in Charleston and introduced sex education back in the 1920's at Memminger in Charleston. But you're the first one who has been active in higher education. Mrs. Salley was a business woman. She was in real estate almost as a bride. The first real estate woman, with Miss Susan Pringle Frost in Charleston—these two were the first two unknown women in real estate in South Carolina.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes. Now at Converse for several years we had women in various professions and occupations to come for a program and to tell the students why they went into this field, what they found in it. The students could then ask them questions. That seemed to be very helpful.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Do you think they're doing that now?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, they are doing quite a bit along that line now. They're having all types of speakers at the present time in regard to women's opportunities or women's interests.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Were you engaged in any of the other movements that were on the periphery of the woman's movement in the 1920's or as a student at Randolph-Macon?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I was not a joiner at that time. I belonged to the Kappa Delta sorority but I wasn't a joiner.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Then you were not in the anti-war or pro-war

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movement?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

No. That's another thing. I was just born to believe in (interruption)

BEGIN SIDE I TAPE II

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I have been outspoken and have made talks in favor of women's advancement, in favor of peace and all that sort of thing but I never have joined movements, marched anywhere, or waved a banner.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did you follow the child labor movement, the movement for the abolition of child labor?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Oh, yes. I worked very faithfully on that, both through the Y.W.C.A. in which I was active in Sumter, South Carolina in 1925 to '31, and then I made talks after that in regard to the abolition of child labor. Served on many panels of the State Conference of Social Work.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

You did mention that you took a position on wages and hours legislation for women.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, I did. I remember thinking of child labor and thinking of the school drop-out problem and thinking of juvenile delinquency. I served on panels in Clinton, South Carolina and in Columbia with Strom Thurmond who at that time was very interested in that sort of thing.

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CONSTANCE MYERS:

How did you get about all over the state so well? There weren't the interstate freeways.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

We've always had good roads since I've been in South Carolina. unknown There's been no difficulty going anywhere. I always had a car ever since 1916. There was no problem.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

This movement was a little bit before your time but were you aware of the temperance movement?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, quite aware of that because another aspect of my nature is that I'm a very religious person. The temperance movement came to me through the church.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Are you Baptist?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Methodist. I was always interested and in a way active.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

These movements touched on the woman's suffrage movement now and then in its history.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes they did.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Do you remember how, if at all, an appeal was pitched to support the movement for the nineteenth amendment to working class women, to mill women, if there indeed was such an appeal?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

If there was, I don't see how it could have been very congenial to them.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Why not?

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ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Do you think that it was because they might have wanted equal opportunities in the mill and equal income in the mill and that sort of thing?

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Yes.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

But I think that the appeal would have had to be on that level rather than just appealing to them to vote. If mill women were stimulated by this sort of appeal, it might be because they could add to the male vote to win for working people shorter hours of work and higher wages, bargaining power, et cetera. That could have been the approach to them. But if it's just an approach of emancipating women and getting women to vote and run for office, it was too opposed to what they had known in their own homes in childhood and what they found in their own homes in adulthood. I think it would have been too foreign to their way of thinking. If the appeal had come to them as standing shoulder to shoulder to increase their husband's vote by one and then to add up the voting strength of married people in the mill, this might have appealed to them. For single women in industry, I think it might have had an appeal to be promoted as quickly as a man to make as high wages. There could have been different approaches.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

One critic of the suffrage movement has deplored

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the lack of emphasis on working class women and said, "the stress was on matriarchy in the home rather than on equality on the job, and the movement was not interested in the single working woman." You agree with this? That this was the case?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, I really do. I really think so. The matriarchy and not the single woman. Today the situation is rather reversed. The single woman wants the equal rights amendment if she's a professional or business woman and a property owner. The majority of women below that level just don't. I don't think the married woman is too interested in the Equal Rights Amendment. Now it is the single business and professional woman who wants the equal rights amendment.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Those that I know that are actively working for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment are married professional women.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

But they are professional women.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

For the most part. I would say that secretaries are . . . .

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Too many of the home maker married women who are not working and not professional think that this would maybe be harmful to them because it might remove their security or support. It might be detrimental to them.

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But the business and professional woman, single or married, can see great advantage to her in the Equal Rights Amendment.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Yes, and every homemaker should, if she's interested in her daughters' futures.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I think she should, too.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

She should be interested because of her daughters.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I've been very active in favor of the Equal Rights Amendment. I was on the Connecticut Committee for the Equal Rights Amendment,

CONSTANCE MYERS:

How could that be?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

They didn't confine the people on their committee to their state. So I was on that for years. Then, as chairman of the Status of Women Committee, I did everything in my power at national conventions to get the A.A.U.W. to give up its opposition. We came very near passing a measure that would have freed us from the opposition but there was some parliamentary snarl and it had to carry over to the next convention. It wasn't changed at the next convention, but it has been now. So they are actively favoring the Equal Rights Amendment. I think in this enlightened age, it's really the only approach. Of course they say that women would have to fight beside men and that

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sort of thing, but women could serve in the branches of service without actually being in combat.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

So very, very few men actually see combat these days. There's a tiny, tiny percentage that ever see combat duty. The likelihood that a woman would see combat is the same percentage. That's a weak argument.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, that's a very weak arguement. Surely it is, but that's one that they advance.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

The historian William O'Neill says that after 1920 the National American Women's Suffrage Association that had achieved its goal fell apart and women failed to use the vote effectively. We have already commented and you agree with this. He says they didn't even tackle the economic base of their oppression, their dependence on men and restriction to the home.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, I agree with this.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

But Gerda Lerner, the historian at Sarah Lawrence College and author of the book The Grimkè Sisters of South Carolina, says that they dispersed into local activity but did not give up being active.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I was previously speaking of our local women who helped to organize the Y.W. here, organized Travelers' Aid here, and the Family Service, et cetera.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Was this in the 1920's?

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ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

These were Mrs. Howard Carlisle, Mrs. Stepp, Mrs. Mary Phifer and all that group whose daughters were in college at the time. They did all of this community service.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

And they had been active though in the community before the nineteenth amendment was passed?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, they'd been interested in community service even then. But you know in the Equal Rights Amendment where they say that mothers would not be protected, we have protective legislation and special legislation for veterans, men who have been in the service. We could very well have some special legislation for women who are pregnant or women who are mothers of young children. It doesn't rule that out.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

No it doesn't.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Not at all. As far as alimony is concerned, I don't think a woman should take alimony if she can possibly be independent and look after herself. If she does and if she is better off than the man, then she should be the one to pay alimony.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

You have very forward-looking views on this matter.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, yes.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

You do. I wonder if you ever met or heard about Elizabeth Cady Stanton, or of the activities of Carrie Chapman Catt, and

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what were your impressions of what they were doing? What you thought about her.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Oh yes, yes. These were great women in the woman's movement around 1848, 1850 and so forth. I was quite fascinated by what they did. I was also interested in the fact that some of the husbands supported these women although some were critical. They did have some male support. They were very stalwart women. They were strong and had convictions and courage. As I say, I've always been a feminine woman and I don't appreciate a woman who takes to the streets. I don't appreciate a woman who dresses like a man. I don't appreciate a woman who tries to flaunt her sex before the men. I just believe in a woman being a person and being herself and winning the respect of men and women because of the things she stands for, the things that she believes in, and the things she does. I could never have been one of those suffragettes.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I understand that Mrs. Catt was indeed very feminine.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Some of them, I'm sure, were.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Yet she was a leader of this remarkable movement. She had tremendous political savvy.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Of course I really admired Dr. Blackwell the first woman doctor. I admired women who became lawyers

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in the early period, too. In regard to women assuming responsibilities in the colonial and early American periods according to some books that were written by Elizabeth Anthony Dexter of Boston, women could do anything they wanted to—in the colonial era—economically, professionally, mainly in running a farm or a plantation or running an inn or having a millinery shop. Women could do most anything they wanted to do and they helped the men build the country, build the colonies, build the society, the civilization.

But, in the nineteenth century, she claims, men began to think that women had some positions they wanted and women were too active, that their role was entirely too equal to that of the male. So as population increased and we had more men wanting positions, wanting opportunity, wanting the leadership, unknown they began to talk about women being the weaker sex, women being the gentle sex, women needing the protection of men, women being so lovely that they must be worshipped on a pedestal. Men's selfishness, she thought, pushed women out of innkeeping and pushed them out of running plantations, pushed them out of their own little businesses, and took over. Then they gave the woman the feeling of being adored and of being beautiful and of

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being wanted.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

As compensation.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, which is a very interesting approach.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I think that it's probably valid. Legislation restricting their participation, or hinting at this restriction, was drafted in the state constitution where the suffrage was limited.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes. Then, after 1920, we began struggling to get women back where they could do whatever they wanted without criticism.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Of course the struggle began in 1820 and the 1830 with the Grimkèsisters.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, it did, and went on through the 1840's and '48 and so forth.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

It took so long.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Well, it was all part of a humanitarian movement. All of it part of the humanitarian movement. That was stimulated by the Age of Enlightenment in the eighteenth century. It's just a continuum.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

It took longer for this change to take hold than it has for other changes.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes. Although the continuum began very early, there was a setback there in the nineteenth century for a while. Then the woman's movement came to the rescue.

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It started the momentum again. And so it's been going ever since. I don't think we need to struggle any more. I think we ought to accept people as persons.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did you work for the Lucretia Mott amendment in the 1920's?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

No.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

That was the equal rights amendment. Do you believe that perhaps women who fought for suffrage before 1920 placed too much hope in the vote? They should have diversified their emphases, sought improvement unknown for women in other areas?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

As a matter of fact, in the 1840's they did. This tied in with the abolition of war. It tied in with the temperance movement and it tied in with the establishment of kindergartens. Then it tied in with higher educational opportunities for women. I think that the unknown woman's rights movement covered the whole spectrum of rights. They even asked that women be permitted in the ministry. I think that the woman's rights movement demanded everything in the days of Lucretia Mott and the days of unknown Susan B. Anthony and that group.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

In this last twenty years before 1920, the movement did narrow its focus to the vote believing that it would be politically successful only if it was a one-issue movement.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

After they won the vote they should have worked at the local level to try to get women to register, get women to vote, get women to come out for public office.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

They probably intended to, because the League of Women Voters was formed immediately after. In fact, the NAWSA became the League of Women Voters but it seems to have fallen short of its goals.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

We had a League of Women Voters here once for about a ten year period but we have none now. It is at Columbia; very active in Columbia. The feeling here, and I heard many men express this, was that although supposedly bi-partisan, they seemed to be definitely partisan.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

They're supposed to be bi-partisan.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I know they are, but that's the reaction that the men had here. With many of the men opposing, many of the wives dropped out. Maybe it was a matter of leadership.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I don't know why it shouldn't be partisan, as a matter of fact. Many men's organizations are quite outspokenly partisan.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes, they are, but this is supposed to be a study organization.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Yes, it is and I think it functions pretty much this way in Augusta though I have not been a member

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in some time.

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I think it does so in Columbia too. I think it's a very fine organization. I'm sorry that they didn't have a chapter that remained here. I belonged to it but I was so bogged down in A.A.U.W. that I didn't have time for the other organizations.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Yes, you were very active in that. It's sometimes a matter of great interest to look at the background of the women that have been very active in community affairs and actively in support of equal rights for women. What was your background? Were there books around your home? Were you from a scholarly family or a successful business oriented family?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I was from a family that was reasonably well off. I had an uncle who was a lawyer and that's why I wanted to be a lawyer. I had heard discussions of legal matters all my life. My father was in religious work and I heard discussions constantly of various aspects of life.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Was he a minister?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

No, he wasn't. He was in evangelistic work. They had city-wide campaigns and he was the business manager. He was also musical. We had ministers in our home all the time and heard discussions of all the issues of the day. From my visits with my uncle, from the discussions

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in my own family constantly at dinner parties and things like that, I picked up all the issues of the day. My motivation largely was, as I said, unknown religiously oriented. I began teaching Sunday school when I went to Randolph-Macon and I've taught ever since, all these many years. unknown I naturally, in reading materials and preparing presentations would get all the issues of the day. When I was at college, I was always interested in current events and was interested in current events at the Girls' Preparatory School which I attended before I went to Randolph-Macon. I've just never known anything but discussion of issues of the day.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

What was your mother like? What was her chief interest?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Her chief interest was her husband, her daughter, and her home.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Were you an only child?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

I was, yes. My mother was one of twelve. She was a minister's daughter.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Methodist minister's daughter?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Yes.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Was she aware of issues of the day?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

She wasn't interested in them.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

But you heard this from the men around the house?

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ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

Oh, yes. I've always been in conversation with my uncle and with my father all my life.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

You found no discouragement in your involving yourself in such interests?

ROSAMONDE R. BOYD:

No, no, no. They wanted me to prepare myself and to have any profession that I wanted.

CONSTANCE MYERS: