Zelda Fisher, class of 1936

Full Metadata

Overview

Year:: 1988
Contributor:: Fisher, Zelda (interviewee); Oster, Sasha (interviewer)
Genre:: oral histories (literary works)
Subject:: 1930s; Academics; Administration; Children; Employment; Fraternities; Gender Expectations; Great Depression; Marriage; Pembroke College Traditions; Professors; Religion; Social Life; Student Activities

Abstract:: Zelda Fisher Gourse starts by describing her decision to enter Pembroke, Dean Margaret Shove Morriss, and her favorite professors. She and the interviewer discuss travel in Israel and Ms. Gourse's daughter, author Leslie Gourse; annual student events like Sophomore Masque and Junior Prom; her older sister's decision to return to college; being elected SGA President ("why not a Jewish girl?"); and other campus activities. Gourse then describes her marriage and her career as a librarian at Bristol Community College. She ends the interview with an account of the Elizabethan club and the Erasmians. Note: The interviewer indicates that the tape failed to capture the final 10 minutes of the interview
Notes:: Class year: 1936; Biographical note: Harva Zelda Fisher Gourse, known by "Zelda," was born in Providence to Harry and Ida (Zurier) Fisher. Zelda's father was a Russian émigré with a grammar school education who became a real estate developer in Providence; her mother was an emigrant but schooled in the Providence schools. After studying Economics at Brown, Zelda received her Master's in Library Science From URI in 1966. She was the coordinator of library services at Bristol Community College in Fall River, Mass., until her retirement in 1978.

"Zelda Fisher, class of 1936" (1988). Pembroke Center Oral History Collection. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:583314/

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 …
...