Yes, I know you don't come here to find out much in the way of useful information, but I had an interesting search request this morning, and it piqued my interest to no end, dealing, as it did, with the subject of co-eds, and my beloved alma mater.
The inquiry: Names of the ladies admitted to Alabama Polytechnic Institute when it went coed
Now THAT'S the kind of Fun With Referrer Logs I like. So, first off I did a bit of messing around with the search term to put API in quote marks and took out a few extraneous words, and landed on the Wikipedia page dealing with Auburn University. As you can read, the University started out as a Methodist institution named East Alabama Male College, and was charterd on May 6, 1856, and opened its doors to students in 1859. The college closed during the Late Unpleasantness, and then reopened again in 1866.
In 1872, the college was tranferred from the Methodists to the State of Alabama, and it became the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama, and then we finally find a bit of information useful to our task at hand:
[...] In 1892, two historic events occurred: women were first admitted to the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama, and football was first played as a school sport. Eventually, football replaced polo as the main sport on campus. In 1899, the school name was again changed, this time to Alabama Polytechnic Institute. [...]
Football AND girls! I bet those guys were happy as larks! Even if they were elitist polo playin' snobs up 'til then.But, it was interesting to note that the college went co-ed seven years before it became API, and that gave me a little bit more to search around for. Well, the Internet is a marvel, that's all I got to say. In about five minutes I managed to find a truly remarkable paper written by Leah Rawls Atkins, entitled BLOSSOMS AMID THE DEEP VERDURE -- A Century of Women at Auburn 1892-1992. Absolute gold--well documented and well written, with excellent background information on Auburn as well as the long series of fits and starts that eventually led to the decision to allow "young ladies the privilege of becoming students of the college."
From Part 1, the answer to the inquiry:
[...] On the sunny fall morning of September 13, 1892, three young ladies walked briskly toward Samford Hall (called Old Main Hall until 1929) to take examinations for admission to the junior class at A.P.I., the agricultural and mechanical college. Kate Conway Broun led the group, her black hair twisted into a bun at her neck with her "straight-forward gray eyes" under heavy brows watching the path before her. Like her companions, Willie Gertrude Little and Margaret Kate Teague, she wore a long dark skirt and "a snow-white shirt-waist with high, boned collar and long sleeves puffed at the top." Mollie Hollifield recorded that Kate took the girls up the south steps of Samford Hall and into her father's office. President LeRoy Broun smiled, aware of the historic nature of the moment.(55)
For some time Kate had been determined to matriculate at Auburn, and the other two had joined her plea.(56) Willie Little's father was a businessman, farmer, and mayor of Auburn, while Kate Teague had come to Auburn from Arkansas after her mother's death to live with her aunt, Mary Teague Hollifield. Her Uncle Hal had helped prepare her for the examinations. The three girls were taken to a long room where many young men were taking entrance examinations for the freshman class. In order not to compete with the female seminaries of the state and to limit entrance to mature young ladies, A.P.I. had restricted admittance to those who were qualified to pursue the studies of the junior class, so it was necessary for the girls to do well on the exams.(57) They were required to stand examinations in mathematics and either English, History, or Latin.(58)
The three young women received good marks on their examinations and were admitted to the junior class. Strict rules excluded women from the campus except while attending class, but otherwise there were no rules since the girls all lived at home. They were required when they entered the campus to walk directly to class and to leave the campus immediately after class dismissed. No loitering or flirting with the cadets was allowed. Later a room in Samford Hall was furnished as a study and rest room where girls could stay between classes.(59)
Auburn male students made no objection to the addition of women to their classes, and "the general belief is that the association with studious, ambitious, earnest girls is very beneficial to a youth."(60) In 1893 President Broun reported to the trustees that coeducation at Auburn had been "widely published in the state" and recognized it as a movement in "the spirit of the age."(61) He noted that all the women who applied were accepted, and their rank was "with the best students" and their "influence eminently inspiring and beneficial." The Montgomery Advertiser wrote that the girls had proved "their ability successfully to cope with the best of their male competitors, and in some instances to obtain the mastery over them." (62) [...]
Special thanks to Leah Rawls Atkins for writing their story. Dr. Atkins (API '58)seems to be a pretty interesting sort of woman herself, judging by her bio. In addition to being all smart and an author and historian and everything, she is also the first woman to have been inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame. Obviously, I must note that she looks pretty danged hot in a swimsuit.
Posted by Terry Oglesby at February 2, 2006 10:31 AM
