Hello, everyone, and welcome back to then Again, the podcast of the Northeast Georgia History Center. I am Marie Bartlett, the Director of Education here, and today we will be talking about a topic very close to my heart women's education. Now, did you know that the University of North Georgia was the first campus in Georgia to offer coeducation to both men and women? When the institution began in 1873, the university was known as a North Georgia Agricultural College, and in its first year, it enrolled 98 males and 79 females. Today I have with me Dr. Katherine Rohr to talk more about this fascinating history.

Thank you for having me, Marie. It's great to be back again.

So can you tell us about the founding of Ung? And do we know why the University of North Georgia decided to offer coeducation and to be one of the leaders in the state to do so?

Before I directly answer that question, I just want our audience to know that what we call the University of North Georgia has had a number of different names during its history. So Ung was founded, as you said just a moment ago, as the North Georgia Agricultural College, but it has also held the names of North Georgia College and north Georgia College and State University. And so to eliminate confusion in this podcast, I will consistently use the University of North Georgia or Ung name. I likewise want to tell our audience that what I share today pertains primarily to the Delanica campus. Ung is a new school, just over ten years old, and it is a merger of North Georgia College and State University with the much newer Gainesville State. North Georgia College and State University simply had a very different identity and history from that of Gainesville State. And so, Marie, I guess that I would suggest that the Northeast Georgia History Center interview an expert on Gainesville State on a future date. But back to your question. The University of North Georgia, then a branch of the University of Georgia, was incorporated in 1871 and held its first classes in 1873. Ung provided an education to enrollees at no cost. During that first academic year, as you mentioned, ung welcomed 98 men and 79 women. So not a 50 50 male female ratio, but about 45% of those first year enrollees were women. And honestly, it was President David W. Lewis who pretty much single handedly made the decision to admit women and specifically his daughter. Today, this is something for which Ung should be proud to put all this into regional and temporal perspective. Ung opened as the first coeducational institution of higher education in Georgia, as well as the south. No other public institution of higher education in Georgia would offer admission to women until the late 1880s. Georgia Normal and Industrial College, down in Millageville, was chartered as a female only institution in 1889, while State Normal School in Athens was established as a coeducational institution in 1891, and women were not admitted at the University of Georgia until 1918.

Yes. I actually was at UGA during the 100 year anniversary of women being at UGA. And I thought that was pretty cool.

And just one year before they got the right to vote. Yeah.

So you mentioned President Lewis. So in 1879, Willie Lewis became the first woman to earn a degree from the college. And in this act, the University of North Georgia became the first public college in Georgia to confer a degree upon a woman. So can you tell us a little bit more about Willie Lewis and her experience at Ung?

Sure. So, as we know, among those first women enrolled at Ung was Willie B. Lewis. And as I mentioned a moment ago, willie was the daughter of the institution's president, David W. Lewis. And in 1879, Willie Lewis graduated from ung. She was just one of ten graduates and the only female in Ung's first graduating class. Unfortunately, virtually no archival material exists that would give us a very complete picture of what Willie Lewis's experience at Ung would have been like.

That said, in addition to serving as.

Ung's first president, david Lewis also served as one of only two professors in the first few years of Ung's existence. So we can safely say that Willie was taught Greek and English literature by her father. Likewise, we do know that the chancellor, whose name was Patrick Mill, was very, very reluctant to award Willie Lewis her bachelor's degree. But in the end, he relented. Mill came to the conclusion that some men who were awarded bachelor's degrees were not, in fact, technically bachelors. And so he could come to the reluctant decision. Well, neither was Willie. So, kind of an interesting little anecdote there. One of the few pieces of archival material that we do have is a photograph. And that photograph captures that first graduating class at Ung. Willie is seated in the front row in the very center, and I will say she has the most determined expression on her face of anybody in that picture. Willie Lewis has been recognized lewis hall on Ung's Delanica campus as named for her and not her father, even though Daddy was the first president, but she.

Was the first woman to get a degree.

Yeah, that's pretty exceptional.

And you mentioned a moment ago, I didn't really realize until I was researching for this podcast something's so simple, but I just had never really thought about it. But I have a bachelor's degree, and I was just like, oh, well, that's just what we call the degree. I didn't realize that. Oh, they're called bachelor's degree because they were given to young, unmarried men who were, quote, unquote, bachelor's. And that's like, the same word. And my brain just never put those two together. Yes, because a bachelor is a man who is not and has never been married, or a person who holds an undergraduate degree from the university? From a university or college. So I was like, oh, I'm also a bachelor, which I just didn't put together until I was well, I'm glad.

Chancellor Patrick Mill could be flexible enough to stretch that definition of bachelor's degree to accommodate Willie.

Yes, because now it has essentially two definitions. I didn't realize that they're like, oh, it all springs from the one. So can you tell us a little bit about the academic and extracurricular experiences that female students partook in at the University of North Georgia during the late 19th and early 20th centuries? In a more general sense, since we don't know that much about Willie Lewis herself?

Yes, and actually, we know quite a bit about Ung once we get through the first few years, so I can talk in quite a bit of depth on this one. So during its 1st 20 years, ung functioned more as a preparatory academy as opposed to a true university. Ung was reminiscent of anebellum institutions. It offered very traditional coursework that would prepare students to apply to the Georgia College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts, which was part of the University of Georgia. And so, given Ung's purpose as a preparatory institution, few students actually graduated with a bachelor's degree from Ung before 1890. Sometimes as few as three graduated in any given year. Although at least five women received degrees between 1878 and 1890, ung required all students to take coursework in Latin, Greek, English, Literature, history, natural sciences, theoretical mathematics, and philosophy. Notably, this curriculum was identical for male and female students, although military duty was obligatory for men, as stipulated for by the Moral Land Act. Starting in 1878, Ung granted teachers licenses. This was likely a response to the growing demand for teachers as a result of the 1868 Georgia Constitution that called for the establishment of a public educational system. By 1890, approximately 650 men, but mostly women, had earned a teacher's license at Ung. Female graduates of Ung filled countless positions at public schools in the North Georgia region, collectively instructing thousands of area residents who before this time had not been afforded the opportunity of a public education. But let's take ourselves to the last decade of the 19th century. By this point, Ung embraced a more modern and wellrounded educational model for female students. Instruction in art, music, elocution and business vastly expand. At this time, women are just beginning to enter the workforce primarily as teachers, as secretaries in sales, in journalism, and were adopting more public roles in church and civic organizations. Ung knew this and adapted their curriculum to meet these new opportunities for women. Ung, for example, encouraged female students to enroll in penmanship, correspondence, shorthand bookkeeping and typewriting classes. At the turn of the century, women constituted nearly 20% of all graduates. Female students were recipients of teachers licenses, certificates of proficiency, as well as the traditional bachelor's degrees. A fun fact for our audience here female students, while they were on campus wore a uniform that consisted of a navy blue eaten suit and a navy blue cap. And so, while this curriculum could be deemed modern, administrators at Ung still deemed female students as ladies who had to abide by a conservative Victorian culture. For example, men and women were largely separate outside of formal instruction. Female students were required to remain in their room when not attending lecture and could not entertain male visitors. The town of Delanica likewise prohibited the sale of alcohol within a three mile radius, while Ung forbade students from leaving town without written permission and required that all students, male and female, attend weekly services at either the local Baptist or Methodist church. And so this begs the question what activities did Ung students, specifically women, engage in outside of class? And during the 19th century, literary societies were omnipresent social organizations on American college campuses. Despite the name, literary societies typically were not literary in nature. Rather, they operated as the precursors of college fraternities. And sororities there were two such societies open to men. While women could join Corona Heteray, almost every student participated in a literary society. Female members of Corona Heterray met each Monday evening from 08:00 p.m. To midnight. They engaged in heated debates among themselves and periodically opened their debates to the public. Likewise, a handful of women assumed positions as class officers, typically as secretaries, treasurers, or this is an interesting title via class poet. The curriculum at Ung continued to expand during the early 20th century. Ironically, with this expansion in course offerings came even greater segregation of the sexes for men. Ung steadily augmented its coursework in agriculture and added a department of electrical and mining engineering in 19 four. For women, Ung established a dressmaking department in 19 five and a domestic science department, which included an emphasis on cooking in 19 six. Undoubtedly, women gravitated to domestic science, the arts, normal and business and secretarial classes at Ung during the early 20th century, where they pursued a curriculum that would prepare them to enter the workforce, presumably only until they got married or for lives as competent housewives. Outside of the classroom, female students pursued a wider range of extracurricular activities than did their predecessors. Most notably, women's athletics grew more visible at Ung, for example, women joined the tennis team as well as multiple basketball teams. Other clubs and societies available to women included the Athenian Society Cyclops, which was the Ung yearbook, the Young Women's Christian Association, the YWCA dramatics and music.

That's so interesting to think about. When it started, it was very similar. They were taking very similar courses, both men and women. And it's so interesting to me, as you said, as it goes on, that it becomes kind of more polarized that there are more women's classes and then men's classes almost here. It wasn't exactly explicitly stated as that, but there was a general feeling of this is what you're supposed, more societal pressure.

But ironically, this is happening during the progressive era. And the educational, or I should say the administrators genuinely thought this was a very progressive, modern educational model.

I find that astonishing almost because us, 100 years later, looking back on it, we're like, oh, how polarizing.

How it does sound conservative. Although it's interesting, you look at what women were taking in basically homet classes and they're learning some serious chemistry in the process. Like it's pretty rigorous.

Yes, baking is really a science.

It is.

Some people would say cooking is more of an art where baking is a science because if you put in too much flour or something, you're going to have disasters cooking. You might be able to salvage it. But yes, I do think cooking is indeed baking is indeed a science. Now, how did these academic and extracurricular experiences change for women after World War II and beyond? Because we've covered the late 18 hundreds and early 19 hundreds. But then of course there's the Great Depression, World War II, and our society really comes out different after both of those very large and encompassing events. So how did those events change women's experiences at Ung?

Okay, well, the Great Depression did bring very hard times to Ung. And for about 15 years, from the early 1930s to the late 1940s, ung actually operated as only a two year institution. However, after World War II, the student body grew, especially as young servicemen and veterans took advantage of GI. Bill educational benefits. And in 1946, Ung was reinstated as a four year college. And during this time, Ung assumed a decidedly more conservative identity. This, after all, the 1940s and 50s late forty s and fifty s was a time defined by the Cold War internationally and the beginnings of the civil Rights movement and mass resistance, regionally and domestically. And the cyclops remember that's a Ungz year book subtly emphasized gender differences. As women students were celebrated for their participation in campus beauty pageants, their designation as the Battalion sweetheart, or they would literally be described by their male students, quote unquote, their quiet and cheerful demeanors and always referencing their, quote unquote, big smiles. But in spite of this more conservative climate, female students embraced a diverse array of curricular and extracurricular pursuits during the 1950s, specific to academics, more women are earning degrees still, mainly in female dominated fields such as secretarial science, elementary education and home economics. But more are beginning to pursue majors in traditionally male fields like chemistry or mathematics. Specific to extracurricular pursuits, the number of academic honor societies, professional clubs, athletic teams and particularly religious organizations offered at Ung are exploding during the early postwar era, and women are going to be especially well represented in them. For example, women served on the staff of the Bugler, which was the college's quarterly literary magazine. Women are absolutely going to dominate the future Teachers of America Club. Women hold leadership positions in the Baptist Student Union and the Wesley Foundation, and women are even going to join stereotypically male organizations, even holding leadership positions in the Chemistry Club and Physics Club. Likewise sort of challenging gender norms, ung in the 1950s is going to establish a women's varsity rifle team. So the baby boom generates a larger than ever population of college ready students beginning in the mid 1960s and continuing into the early 1980s. Ung, for the most part, is going to remain a socially and politically conservative institution. During this time, however, change, especially demographic change, is going to come to Ung. Putting this into perspective, nationwide public support for the military declined in wake of the painful defeat in the Vietnam War. This trend even affected Ung, an institution largely defined by the military training it provided, and there was a palpable decline of emphasis on the military department. However, in relevant to this discussion, this decline of emphasis on military education engendered greater interest in Ung among women. Between 1965 and 1975, the percentage of women students enrolled at Ung catapulted from 25% to 53%. Now, in the majority, female students participated in an even wider variety of extracurricular activities and assumed leadership positions on campus. For example, relative to the latter, in 1975, three women filled positions as vice president, treasurer, and secretary in the Ung student government, as well as served as the editor of the college year book Cyclops. Women further embraced their political agency by a participation in the Women's Student Government Association, which was a self governing organization through which women's students actively influenced the broader student government.

So those are some interesting changes that are happening, and I'm sure we're about to dive into several of those different changes and look at them a little bit more closely. So can you tell us a little bit more about one of the first large changes at Ung, which is desegregation? So, for most of the time that we've been talking about during this podcast, ung existed as a segregated institution where it was only allowing white men and women to participate in its classes. Now, I was trying to research and trying to find who was the first woman of color at Ung, and I was having a very hard time trying to figure out who that person was. All I was able to find is that one of the first black applicants to Ung was a girl named Mary Wilson, who in 1951 wrote a letter to the then president of Ung, Mr. Hoag, inquiring about the possibility of her being admitted to Ung. Hoag did not answer her directly. Instead, he just referred her to the Board of Regents, who then just reiterated to Mary Wilson that the state of Georgia prohibited racial integration in schools. So can you tell us a little bit more just about the broader process of desegregation at Ung, since we don't really have specific accounts of people and their lived experiences of that?

Sure, and it's not surprising that you had a difficult time unearthing anything because really, unfortunately, the University of North Georgia, and the whole state for that matter, has very little archival material on the desegregation process at this institution. My colleague Allison Galup, who is a special collections and digital initiatives librarian at Ung, has dug through records at the state archives in Morrow, in addition to newspaper articles, mainly Atlanta Constitution articles, and has only located a couple of articles that even referenced Desegregation and Ung's first African American student. This is in contrast to the very well documented story of the desegregation of the University of Georgia back in 1961, which received much publicity in newspapers throughout the state and nation and has received scholarly attention by historians in more recent years. The story of desegregation at Ung was much quieter and probably purposely underplayed. At Ung, the first black student was a member of the Corps of Cadets and enrolled in 1967. So six years after UGA, in an interview with the Atlanta Constitution, a dean at Ung succinctly stated that the quote, first black student enrolled, producing mixed reactions but no trouble, end quote. That's literally what the statement was short and sweet. The racial integration of dorms took place in the early 1970s. I saw a date as late as 1974. Maybe this was because the number of enrolled black students was just so low. Until then, I have no definitive answer on that front. Going back to my colleague Alison Galup, she did share with me an informal conversation she had had with a Ung alum who had been a freshman the year that Ung integrated. According to Galup, it was just a story in passing and that she had no way to corroborate it and likewise does not have it on recording. However, the alum told Galup that his parents were very upset about Ung's integration and had written letters to administrators, but that relations remained civil within the corps because, in the Alum's words, all cadets were being yelled at by the officers on a daily basis, and that race ultimately didn't matter in such situations. From my own digging, especially in some of Ung's old cyclops, again, that's a yearbook. I did find a black female student, Trudy Carmichael, who in 1975 served as both the treasurer of Ung's student government and as the editor of the yearbook. To me, this suggests that a significant swath of the student body at Ung had begun to accept their black peers and welcome them into leadership positions. In the nearly half century since Trudy Carmichael, ung has always had a low black enrollment by low I'm, meaning under 5%, especially at the Delanica campus. Keep in mind that most public regional comprehensive universities, whether that is Ung or Valdosta State or the University of West Georgia, tend to attract students within a 50 miles or so radius. As many of our listeners know, the North Georgia Mountains, where the Delaniga campus is located, is a part of a state with the lowest black population. For example, Lumpkin County, where Ung is located, has a black population of 1.1%. To a large degree, this reality is a product of history. Quite simply, many fewer blacks live in extreme northern Georgia because this is a part of the state where widespread cotton production during the 19th and early 20th centuries was pretty much nonexistent. North Georgia was not an area of large farms, plantations, slaves, or sharecroppers. It was a region made up mostly of yeoman, farmers and poor whites. This is in contrast to public institutions further south in the state where you have much higher black student populations. They simply come from areas of Georgia where there has always been a larger black population. That said, Ung has made strides, especially on its Gainesville campus, to recruit black students. But it's pretty obvious that concerted efforts will be needed for many years ahead to continue to make students of color feel comfortable.

As someone who came from UGA, and especially came from UGA, and very recently at UGA, we have very much in the past few years, very much been acknowledging and celebrating the integration of UGA and still honoring those who were the first to integrate certain spaces, whether that be just classrooms or the football team. And I thought while looking at Ung's history, I was kind of surprised that there's not more about it, because those people still have to be alive. They might be a little bit older, but they're certainly still here. And I would be so interested and maybe if anyone who is listening to this podcast knows of people who experienced early desegregation at Ung to get in touch with perhaps your friend to get an oral history interview.

Yeah, I was just going to say that we would love to be able to get their memories recorded, seeing that the written record is so scanned.

That's why historians, we love records. We love keeping all those old pieces of paper, all those letters, all those documents. And also, I think perhaps oral history interviews are some of the most powerful because you're talking it's a first hand account of a person, and it's their narrative, it's their story. Those are so important. And maybe this podcast could help find those.

I hope so.

Now, you also were mentioning women finally being allowed to be cadets at Ung. And for a while, when I was not as familiar with Ung just as an institution, I almost took that as women were not allowed to be students at Ung until 1973. But it's really that women were not allowed to be cadets. They were allowed to be students from the beginning, which is incredible, but it's been almost 100 years from the founding to wherein they got to be cadets. So can you tell us a little bit more about the history of the military at Ung, how it's a military college and still very much is to this day, and how women kind of existed outside of that very integral part of Ung's identity for almost 100 years before being welcomed in.

So the university of north Georgia is one of only six senior public military colleges in the United States. Military education has been a defining characteristic of the university of north Georgia since its founding in 1873. Ung was actually established by funds from the moral act piece of federal legislation, and as such the institution was required by law to teach military tactics. However, military programs did not appreciably expand at the university of north Georgia until world war I with the passage of the national defense act of 1916, a piece of legislation that created the reserve officers training corps, what we know as ROTC. And so fast forwarding to 1973, ung became the first school in the nation to accept women into the army ROTC. However, such women known on campus as cadets with spelled C-A-D-E-T-T-E-S. So maybe a little bit of a slight towards women. They were segregated for men, they donned uniforms different from those worn by men, and they drilled only one day per week separately from men. And so very, very few women participated in the cadets with an E-T-E-S. Between 1973 and 1977, the largest number of women enrolled in ROTC at Ung in any given year stood at a mere 18 students. So this equated to no more than 4% of the female student body. And by the spring of 1977, only two women had been commissioned as officers. However, in 1977, women were fully integrated into the corps of cadets. In practical terms, this meant that such women would follow the same military routine, including arising at six each morning, dressing in uniform every day, and drilling every day. Though female cadets did not barrick with men, they did not drill alongside men or endure the same physical training as did men. And so UG is exceptional. It is the third institution after Texas A and M and Norwich military academy up in Vermont in the country to offer identical military opportunities to its male and female ROTC students. And so much more recently, Ung celebrated its first female cadet to achieve the rank of colonel. That was Greta Railsback, who was a 1999 graduate of Munchy.

Now, I'm just wondering that almost brings us up to the fairly recent present. What do you feel like is the current environment at Ung for all genders? How is that going in the modern sense? Since you are there, you're witnessing it, you're a part of that history now. When you look at campus, what do.

You see specific to the ROTC? Or do you think, or are you asking in general?

I was thinking more in general, but you could answer in general. And then to the ROTC question, I.

Was going to say specific to the ROTC. Seen that I just spoke on that. I'm impressed by the extent to which male members of the ROTC seem well integrated with the women. So when I'm lecturing to them, they're fully integrated. It's not like you have your male ROTC students on one side and your female ROTC students on the other. So I think they very much have garnered the respect of their male counterparts. They're viewed as equals, which is saying something, because even to this day, in 2023, ung is going to be more on the conservative side politically and socially. But I have really seen a lot of evidence of friendship, cooperation, and respect between the sexes on campus sort of gender overall. That's an interesting question. Ung, when we're thinking more broadly, it, after all, has five campuses, with Gainesville being the second most populous campus. That has a much more liberal vibe compared to some of the other campuses. And so you're much more aware of an open dialogue on that campus on gender issues, and especially LGBT plus issues. That's not to say you don't see it on the Delanica campus, but I think each of the five campuses of Ung have a unique identity, and so they're sort of grappling with what gender means to them, I think, kind of independently of one another.

Do you have any final thoughts on this podcast?

Well, I had a lot of fun talking with you today, Marie, and this is sort of a budding interest for me, the history of higher education. And so I last year prepared a chapter for a book that the University of North Georgia Press published in commemoration of the institution's 150th anniversary. And so for me, this was just such a rewarding experience because I felt by learning more about my institution's history, just felt more connected to the school each time I walk on campus with the students. And so it's an interest I'd like to keep pursuing, and I like that. I today was able to talk to you about placing Ung within a wider regional perspective. So I hope people find this amusing, even those who were not graduates or had a family connection to Ung.

Thank you so much for talking with us today. It is always wonderful to have you on the podcast. If anyone's interested in other podcasts with Dr. Rohr, we have done one on women's really changing roles in Reconstruction in the south, and also one about suffrage and also the anti suffrage movement in Georgia, which is incredibly fascinating. So thank you again, Dr. Rohr, for being here today and talking with us about the history of women at Ung.

Thank you.

Then again is a production of the Northeast Georgia History Center in Gainesville, Georgia. Our pod. Cast is edited by Media producer Guada Rodriguez Our digital and onsite programs are made possible by the Ada may I? Vister education center. Please join us next week for another episode of Then Again.