Amid Division, Students Broke Down Gender Line

As a Radcliffe correspondent for The Crimson her freshman year, Priscilla B. Potter ’61 witnessed the debate over integrating Harvard and Radcliffe organizations reach its pinnacle during the 1957-1958 academic year, after surfacing in University Hall the previous year.

Potter characterized The Crimson as a somewhat intimidating environment while these changes took place. She described it as a “scary place” in which all the “big boys” wore suits and ties.

“We had civil rights but it was before the birth of feminism...We hadn’t had our consciousness raised yet,” Potter said.

In late September 1957, the Harvard and Radcliffe student councils came together to consider whether Radcliffe women should be allowed to become official members of Harvard organizations, giving them the right to vote and hold positions.

But not every student group was in favor of such a shift. With the prospect of change came a number of questions, compelling students to debate whether group names would have to be amended or joint boards would be required to include at least one Radcliffe student at all times.

‘A BITTER FIGHT’

To gauge public opinion, a committee of Harvard and Radcliffe students sent questionnaires to organization members, finding that only nine of 33 Harvard groups polled were opposed to admitting women.

As the issue continued to rage among students and administrators, in late October Phillips Brooks House (PBH) became the first to request a merger.

“There was quite an argument between various people about whether it was better or worse to integrate,” William W. Freehling ’58, then-president of PBH, said recently. “What I recall is that it was a bitter fight and that it was close.”

A month later, the councils voted for integration, and the deans gave official permission to form joint groups.

But Freehling also noted that even among Radcliffe women, opinions were split regarding the potential merger.

“Not all of them were sure that they would thrive in what was at that point a minority membership,” Freehling said.

MOVING BEYOND ALL BOYS’ CLUBS

The Crimson followed PBH’s lead in the spring of 1958, opting to extend full membership privileges to women.

While Potter discussed the difficulties of being a woman on The Crimson at the time, Alice P. Arlen ’62 (originally Alice P. Albright), said she did not recall much adversity.

“Boys used to like girls in those days,” said Arlen, who was the first woman officially elected to The Crimson’s staff and is now an award-winning screenwriter. “They weren’t very threatened by us.”

Arlen was featured in TIME Magazine the following year as an emblem of the changing tide.

“Last week the young men of the Harvard Crimson made another bow to the inevitable encroachment of womankind,” TIME wrote.

But Arlen recently said that she was uncomfortable with the national recognition she received.

“I thought [the male editors] were terribly attractive,” she said of her decision to join the staff, calling it “ignorance.”

TAKING IT SLOW

Although organizations such as PBH, The Crimson, the Harvard Dramatic Club, and the Harvard and Radcliffe United Nations Councils embraced the idea of integration, other groups were far less receptive to the prospect of change.

At the time, each school’s Hillel and the Christian Fellowship chose to stay independent. According to club officials, “separate functions” made a merger unnecessary.

Similarly, Harvard Yearbook Publications rejected the possibility of a joint Harvard-Radcliffe yearbook.

When asked in October 1957 whether the Harvard Lampoon, a semi-secret Sorrento Square social organization that used to occasionally publish a so-called humor magazine, would consider accepting Radcliffe members, a spokesman for the group replied, “Assuredly not.”

“I don’t think it even came up because the Lampoon was a male organization, and I don’t think that anyone was even considering at that point letting women come in,” former Lampoon President James D. Stanley II ’59 said recently. “Women didn’t ask to come in, and the men didn’t ask them to come in.”

He characterized the Lampoon—which did not integrate until 1971—as primarily a social organization, noting that the weekly dinners hosted by the organization would likely have been unappealing to women.

“The groups that had a real function let women in much earlier because women contributed,” Stanley said.

“Those dinners that they had at the Lampoon were pretty raw, and I don’t think that women would have enjoyed them at all.”

Despite the resistance to change, other forces in addition to the rise of feminism ultimately compelled groups to become more inclusive.

“When the Beatles came, I think that that helped a lot,” Stanley said.

—Staff writer Lindsay P. Tanne can be reached at ltanne@fas.harvard.edu.