Читать книгу Westward. Encounters with Swiss American Women онлайн

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In her last year of high school, Margot was elected class president. “Today it is big news for a female to have that post,” she states, “but in those times both students and teachers were less conscious of role differences. I was used to studying in a mixed classroom. On the other hand it was unusual for a young woman to plan for any professional career other than that of teacher, nurse or secretary. Those who did continue their education were not really taken seriously.” Margot failed the College entrance exams in her last year of high school, but passed the following year and was admitted to Vassar College. That year interval was to have been spent in a Haushaltungsschule, a domestic management school, in Switzerland, but the outbreak of the Second World War cancelled this plan.

Vassar College, founded in 1861 in Poughkeepsie, NY, was the first all women’s college in America. In those days young women usually attended a finishing school, in preparation for marriage. However, Vassar was established with the dedicated goal of preparing women for independence and careers of their own beyond housewife and motherhood. Margot was eighteen years old and living in a women’s dormitory on college campus. It was her first time away from home. She dreamed of becoming a medical researcher, “to discover the cure for cancer. Our housemother advised me to get a medical degree before going into research work. I had no idea that this field would be open to women. When I presented this plan of four more years of tuition, father quietly said ‘Well, if that is what you want.’”