Esther Amelia Dick, class of 1931

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Overview

Year:: 1982
Contributor:: Dick, Esther Amelia (interviewee); Chase, Dick (interviewer)
Genre:: oral histories (literary works)
Subject:: 1930s; Academics; Clothing and fashion; Dormitories; Employment; Family; Gender expectations

Abstract:: Dick begins by speaking of her childhood in Reading, PA; coming to Pembroke and struggling early on with Meniere's syndrome; campus rules & requirements; clothing standards and restrictions with alcohol and smoking; access to the Brown campus; she gives her opinions of several professors. She discusses being deeply affected by the Great Depression and cooking all her meals in the science labs. She speaks of being discriminated against as a woman by the University as a student and later as a woman doing research in the sciences. She mentions a potential discrimination lawsuit when she was threatened with being fired at age 60. She discusses going to live theater downtown Providence, and hearing Amelia Earhart speak at Pembroke Chapel as well as hearing Pablo Casal play at Brown. Later in life she married Walter Henry Snell in 1975.
Notes:: Class year: 1931; Biographical note: Esther Amelia (Snell) Dick grew up in Reading, Pennsylvania, where she went to an all-girls high school. She graduated from Brown University in 1934 with a degree in botany. She worked at Brown from the time of her graduation until her retirement in 1975. During her career as a botanist she published numerous papers and a book on fungi in collaboration with her husband, Walter Henry Snell, who was a professor at Brown.

"Esther Amelia Dick, class of 1931" (1982). Pembroke Center Oral History Collection. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:577721/

Pembroke Center Oral History Collection

This collection contains oral history interviews with alumnae of Brown University, which admitted its first women students in 1891. The Women's College at Brown was renamed Pembroke College in 1928, and in 1971, Pembroke College merged with the Men's College …
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