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| The Stephens Look |
It’s 1945 and Muriel King is hired as director of the Fine
and Applied Fashion Department.
This is a big deal.
King was one of America’s first well-known fashion
designers, working as an illustrator at Vogue before opening her own salon. She
designed personal wardrobes for Katharine Hepburn and film clothing for Rita
Hayworth and Ginger Rogers.
In the 1945 Stephensophia, we’re told: “In order to acquire
the personal assurance and poise that are fast becoming a part of The Stephens
Look, President Wood this year brought to campus Miss Muriel
King, one of
America’s leading fashion designers. Miss King now is the director of the Fine
and Applied Fashion Department which offers a program of courses in Personal
Appearance, Clothing and Fashion Design.”
Of course, this is the foundation on which our School of
Fashion and Design was built. In fact, the student designer fashion show, The
Collections, just celebrated its 70th anniversary Saturday (you can
read a recap of the show here).
Another female pioneer, Dorothy Thompson, visited Stephens
this year “interpreting the news of the
moment as she saw it.”
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| Dorothy Thompson, right, talks with Paul Weaver. |
For those too young to remember or not interested in
journalism, Dorothy Thompson is a big deal, as well. She’s essentially the
“first lady of American journalism” and was once named Time Magazine’s second most
influential woman (second to Eleanor Roosevelt). Her visit was sponsored by the
Foreign Relations Club.
Foreign relations is a key theme of the 1945 Stephensophia,
which would have been published in the spring, meaning World War II was still
raging throughout the school year.
The book is dedicated to “a spirit of fellowship, democracy
and cooperation among the nations of the New World…Through fellowship among
faculty and students, democracy in student leadership and religion and sincere
cooperative efforts, it is our hope that Stephens students, individually and
collectively, may exemplify those qualities of citizenship essential to
constructive Pan-American relations and the ideals of world peace.”
W.W. Charters remains director of research this year and
pens a strong letter to students. He begins by quoting a letter from the mother
of a Stephens student. She wrote: “My husband and I are deeply grateful that
our daughter who lived under Nazism for seven years can attend Stephens while
such a tragic war is going on. She appreciates her privileges as an American in
America. I hope that every Stephens woman comprehends to some extent, at least,
the great blessings which she possesses.”
Charters goes on to warn Stephens women not to be selfish.
He writes: “She who accepts gifts without a commitment to improve them is a
parasite who accepts all and gives nothing. If Stephens women achieve the
aspirations of their alma mater they will be known in their spheres of life as
participants in all movements to maintain the heritage of the young of America.
They will watch the efficiency of democratic processes; they will cooperate
with their neighbors in improving the methods by which American ideals are
realized. They will forever remember that every individual is a person of worth
who must be given a democratic opportunity to develop the best of which he is
capable; be the amount great or small. They will vote; they will drive for
better things; they will cooperate; and they will enjoy the life which they
help to build. Stephens women should be nobly characterized as those who give
more than they have received.”
As in the past couple of years, Stephens seems torn between
holding on to pre-War gender roles and allowing women to take advantage of new
opportunities.
On one hand, President James Madison Wood is still urging
women to remember that when the men return from war, they’ll return to roles of
homemaker. And Henry Bowman is still stressing that being a wife and mother is
a woman’s “basic role in life.”
Meanwhile, Stephens women are taking advantage of the
aviation program, which includes flight training in college-owned planes,
ground school training and drafting for use in aviation manufacturing plants.
We suspect the women of 1945 found their own paths, be it
professional or in more traditional roles.
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