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Oral History Interview with Marguerite Tolbert, June 14, 1974. Interview G-0062. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007).
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  • Abstract
    Marguerite Tolbert worked in South Carolina schools and universities to improve educational options for adults, especially women and illiterate individuals. This interview starts with a description of her education and graduation from a high school in South Carolina in 1910. She retells a few stories about her life from a book she cowrote titled South Carolina's Distinguished Women from Laurens County. She recounts how she earned a scholarship to Winthrop College and discusses the greatest achievements of her teaching career. Tolbert also describes her colleagues in the teaching profession, including Wil Lou Gray and Dr. D. B. Johnson, the president of Winthrop. She recounts two speeches she made before the South Carolina State House. She explains her views on the suffrage movement and the views of the Winthrop College president. Tolbert also recalls President Hoover's visit to Kings Mountain State Park in 1931 and Jane Addams's visit to Winthrop. Tolbert taught in a variety of schools and describes her course content and methodology. She describes directing a training school for boys and how she dealt with a sexist salary clash between teachers in the 1940s.
    Excerpts
  • Teaching one of the few professions open to women in the early 1900s
  • Secretly working for a tuition scholarship to go to college
  • Promoting lifelong education
  • Tolbert's success with the Winthrop College organ fund
  • Winthrop's president embraces women's suffrage
  • South Carolina Federation of Women's Clubs lobbies for an equal rights amendment
  • Learning new ways to interact with black colleagues
  • Father sets an example of civic involvement
  • Two local women advocate suffrage ahead of their time
  • Winthrop College incites two controversies over equal rights in the workplace
  • Learn More
  • Finding aid to the Southern Oral History Program Collection
  • Database of all Southern Oral History Program Collection interviews
  • Subjects
  • Women--Suffrage--South Carolina
  • Women--Education--Southern States
  • 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.