Crack open a Feb. 26, 1930 copy of the Trinitonian, flip to page three, and nestled between an advice column about roommates and a first-year’s essay about freight solicitors, you’ll find a comic that has quite possibly stood the test of time. In it, a woman, shown frazzled, crying and surrounded by chores, says to her (presumably) husband “NONSENSE I’m so glad you brought your friend home to dinner – th’ baby’s sick – I’m only half through with my washing, and there isn’t a bite in th’ house to eat — but that’s allright — I’ll run over to th’ store right away.”
When I began my quick dive into the Trinitonian’s archives anticipating writing a women’s history editorial, I expected early issues of the Trinitonian to be filled with reactions to the changing landscape of women’s rights. I searched through issues from the year 1920 expecting to find opinion columns about women’s suffrage, flicked through the 1940s in search of mentions of women in the workforce and scoured the editions immediately following the decision in Roe v. Wade for any hint as to how the Trinity community was reacting to the ruling.
In my limited search I found nothing about these national changes. These early editions of the Trinitonian were so concerned with relating a who’s who of Trinity that this tucked-away comic stood out as an almost anachronism.
What I did start to find in later editions, however, was the story of a slow progression of changes in the rules governing the women who attended Trinity, their representation in campus positions and how “women’s issues” were studied and handled on campus. These later copies of the Trinitonian present a narrative of women’s history at the micro and hyper-local level that increasingly move towards the center of the spread.
In honor of Women’s History Month and our Women’s History special edition of the Trinitonian, I invite you to take a cursory stroll through the Trinitonian’s archives with me. These snippets tell an incredibly small fraction of Trinity women’s history, but one that nevertheless helps to tell the story of Trinity and the Trinitonian.
1958: Coleen Grissom arrives at Trinity and promptly shakes everything up
There is perhaps no name that came up more frequently in my search than that of the late Coleen Grissom. She arrived as the head resident and counselor for the McFarlin dorms in 1958, but quickly rose through the administrative ranks to become associate dean of Student Life, dean of students and then vice president for Student Affairs. She was directly responsible for dismantling a whole host of regulations that governed the lives of women on campus, including heavily gendered “acceptable attire” rules, curfew policies and divided housing.
“The men had no rules. The women had a thousand. And they weren’t called women, they were called girls,” Grissom said to the Trinitonian about that time in an Oct. 19, 2018, issue of the Trinitonian.
She was also responsible for doing away with a controversial system that sent letters to parents rating their daughter’s “popularity, frequency of dating, study habits, relationship to the university, and housekeeping.”
“It is an affront to the girls; it is indicative of distrust on the part of the administration, and even if this is not so and the administration trusts the girls completely, the sort of atmosphere which follows from this manner of action is one of distrust and is, therefore, unhealthy. My evidence for the latter observation is the remarkable number of girls who are asking, ‘Who’s watching me?’” one guest columnist wrote about the letters in a Dec. 18, 1963, edition of the Trinitonian.
Throughout her time at Trinity, Grissom was a frequent contributor to the Trinitonian. At one point, she even had a regularly scheduled spot in the Trinitonian called “The Short List” where she would share her advice, reading recommendations or whatever else was on her mind at the time to students. This dedication to improving student life at Trinity, combined with the fact that, for a long time, she was the only woman amidst “men in suits who chart the course the university will take,” means that Grissom is at the very top of this short list.
1960s: Women take charge of the Trinitonian
Like the university, since its founding the Trinitonian has been co-ed. While in early editions women mostly led sections about society and arts, on May 15, 1964, the Trinitonian announced on the front page that, for the very first time, it had an all-woman staff.
“‘Men Wanted’ could well be the new Trinitonian motto as an all-girl staff led by Editor Linda Tarpley and Managing Editor Donna Davis embark on a year of campus publishing,” the subheading joked.
This feat was made possible by the fact that the two positions that were set aside to be occupied only by men — sports editor and advertising manager — had not yet been filled. In fact, it would take almost 10 years for a woman to lead the sports section, when, in a Feb. 9, 1973, issue, sports editor Claudia White announced that she would be filling the position.
“I suppose Trinity athletes thought the Simon Pure adoption was the final blow to their herculean endeavors. Well, here’s another — me. I’m not the first female sports editor of a newspaper (I’m pretty sure Incarnate Word has one) and I hope I’m not the last. The point is that I enjoy sports as much as the next guy (or girl) and hope my sports coverage is adequate. ‘Nough said,” White wrote under the headline “Ms. invades sports.”
‘Nough said I guess.
1989: Moving towards the women and gender studies minor
Debate about the creation of a women’s studies minor dominated editions of the Trinitonian in 1989. That year, a group of students and faculty members prepared a proposal to create an interdisciplinary minor in women’s studies. In a March 3, 1989 edition of the Trinitonian, Student Association President Ben Hughes defended the proposal to create the minor.
“A Women’s Studies minor would not preclude the integration of women’s issues into the rest of the curriculum. Many courses already include issues of gender, race, and class, and attention to these matters is essential in many academic fields,” Hughes wrote. “The minor would provide more in-depth exposure to the experience of women in our culture which has been ignored for centuries.”
On April 7, 1989, the women’s studies minor went before the Program Subcommittee of the University Curriculum Council, and on Nov. 9, 1989, the minor became available to students with an advisory committee of six faculty members. The minor offered classes including “Women and Religion” and “Sociology of Women.”
1990s: Grappling with sexism and sexual violence
The 90s saw increased attention to sexism on campus in the Trinitonian, including an April 10, 1992 special edition called “Rape at Trinity,” and a recurring column called “Feminist Viewpoints,” which made its debut in 1993. The “Rape at Trinity” special section included columns, statistics and an article debunking myths about rape.
“When does a date become a crime? It happens when a man forces a woman to have sex against her will. And even when it involves college students, it’s still considered a criminal offense. A felony. Punishable by prison,” one information box read.
Throughout the early 90s, reports of sexist incidents started to pop up frequently in the Trinitonian. An April 12, 1991 edition discussed an incident that involved a Women’s History Month poster being taped “in the bull’s eye position in a men’s room urinal.”
“The photo caused me two simultaneous reactions: Nervous laughter at the juxtaposition and then enormous pain. Not only had I produced the poster, but it also had announced the first Women’s Studies-sponsored speaker from outside Trinity,” professor Carolyn Warmbold wrote. “It says that we haven’t come such a long way, Baby.”
The sentiment that “we haven’t come such a long way” was reflected frequently in columns. One column written by the Women’s Interest Center as part of the “Feminist Viewpoints” series stressed the importance of feminism in environments like this.
“Feminism was not conceived out of a need to prescribe lifestyles or to create subscribers called ‘feminists’; it was created to liberate individuals [women and men] from the oppression of our traditionally sexist society,” the column read. “Feminism is about realizing gender inequality and doing what we can about it.”
There is so much more to women’s history than I have room to include here, but I hope these brief glimpses into Trinity’s past help set the stage for our discussion of women’s history. Happy Women’s History Month, and I hope you enjoy this very special edition of the Trinitonian.
