In this interview, Ancelin Vogt, class of 1968, discusses her parents' backgrounds as intellectuals and graduates of Harvard University and Radcliffe College. She notes that Radcliffe was her first-choice school but after being denied there it was a scholarship to Pembroke College that influenced her decision to attend. She explains the lack of support she felt from Pembroke administrators when her mother died during her sophomore year, and the general inequality she witnessed between services and activities offered to female versus male students. Wolfe identifies the Sock and Buskin theatre group as the only place she experienced fair gender integration and equal treatment between Pembroke and Brown students. She goes on to recall the strictly regulated social lives of students but fondly remembers her academic experience, reminiscing about professors Gregory Polletta, John Schroeder, Elmer Blistein, Edwin Honig, Reginald Archambault, and William Jordy who influenced her decision to work for the Rhode Island State Historical Preservation Commission. Wolfe also shares the stigmas surrounding sex on campus and in a wider cultural setting. She recalls getting the birth control pill in her junior year from a private doctor as well as the experience of a friend who traveled to Puerto Rico for an illegal abortion prior to the passage of Roe v. Wade. In the middle of her interview, Wolfe explains that she disapproved of the Pembroke-Brown merger because Pembroke lost its identity and dissolved. She concludes the interview with details about her life after graduation including her near-immediate marriage and the proliferation of post-graduation marriages during that time. Wolfe also details her position as Assistant Director for University Relations at Brown and the changes she observes on the campus.
Notes:
Class year: 1968
Biographical note: Ancelin Vogt was born in Corning, New York and soon moved to Massachusetts with her family. She attended Pembroke College and graduated in 1968 with her A.B. in English and American Literature. After moving around as a Navy wife, Wolfe resettled in Rhode Island where she worked for the State Historical Preservation Commission writing nominations for buildings to the National Register of Historic Places. In 1983 she became the Assistant Director for University Relations at Brown University.
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 …
