Helen Hoff, class of 1923

Full Metadata

Overview

Year:: 1987
Contributor:: Hoff, Helen (interviewee); Baker, Dorcy (interviewer)
Genre:: oral histories (literary works)
Subject:: 1920s; Academics; Family; Great Depression; Professors; Student Activities

Abstract:: Helen Hoff Peterson begins her interview by discussing her childhood education in New Jersey and her family background. She explains that a high school superintendent convinced her to apply to Pembroke, making her the first person in her town to attend college. She discusses her experiences in various academic departments and her extracurricular involvement, which centered around the Christian Association. After an unhappy stint teaching, she went on to work for the Young Women's Christian Association. Helen describes her favorite teachers at Pembroke as well as her graduate studies at Ohio State University.
Notes:: Class year: 1923; Biographical note: Helen Hoff Peterson grew up in a small town between New Brunswick and Princeton, New Jersey. She was the eldest of ten children and came from an old New Jersey agricultural family. She attended elementary school in a one-room schoolhouse and then commuted by train to high school, where the school superintendent convinced her to apply to college. She began Pembroke in 1919, the first from her town to go to college. At Pembroke College, she studied European History. After marrying in 1928, she obtained her Master's in American History from Ohio State University.

"Helen Hoff, class of 1923" (1987). Pembroke Center Oral History Collection. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:583333/

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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