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Oral History Interview with Rosamonde R. Boyd, October 29, 1973. Interview G-0011. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007).
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  • Abstract
    Rosamonde R. Boyd shares some observations on women's activism in the early twentieth century in this interview. She describes the evolution of young women's attitudes, from an assumption that they would teach and raise children after college in the 1910s and 1920s, to a conviction that they would enter the workforce in the 1930s. Boyd is torn between her belief in women's political and social equality and her distaste for blatant violations of traditional gender norms, such as when women wear pants. This interview reveals some of the ways in which even those women who were actively pushing for equal rights wrestled with their own assumptions about gender.
    Excerpts
  • Most of Boyd's contemporaries too self-involved to push for women's rights
  • Domestic expectations stifle women's movement
  • Southern women prove their worth in the workforce
  • Hopes to reverse low female involvement in politics
  • Arguments for and against women's suffrage
  • Erosion of gender roles is not entirely a good thing
  • Regret that the franchise did not make American women more politically active
  • Women expect to teach after college graduation
  • 1930s brings change in women's ideas about their future as they start to look forward to entering workforce
  • Elite women tend more toward activism because they have financial security
  • Reconciling belief in women's progress with belief in traditional gender roles
  • Learn More
  • Finding aid to the Southern Oral History Program Collection
  • Database of all Southern Oral History Program Collection interviews
  • Resources for Educators
  • Southern Women Trailblazers Learning Object
  • Subjects
  • Equal Rights Amendment
  • Women--Suffrage--South Carolina
  • The Southern Oral History Program transcripts presented here on Documenting the American South undergo an editorial process to remove transcription errors. Texts may differ from the original transcripts held by the Southern Historical Collection.

    Funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services supported the electronic publication of this title.