Pembroke College Department of Physical Education records (OF.1OA.1ZP)

This collection contains the records of the Pembroke College Department of Physical Education. Established in 1897, this department was part of Pembroke College, the women's college in Brown University until the women's and men's colleges merged in 1971. This collection includes physical education course materials, financial records, correspondence, conference materials, meeting materials, and museum objects. Materials date from 1914 – 1978 and are arranged into 9 series.

Series 1, Courses: Hygiene and other instruction, 1915-1955, includes correspondence, syllabi, pamphlets, reports, lecture notes, material from other colleges, exams, and course evaluations by the students. The bulk of this series is material used by freshman course (referred to as Hygiene and Body Mechanics) instructors, but it also includes files used to teach gymnastics, camp counseling and water safety, and how to teach games. This series documents an important part of the required curriculum at Pembroke College, including implicit, if not explicit, definitions of what Pembroke women should know and how they should carry themselves and act. Since the freshman course had counterparts at most, if not all, women's colleges in the northeast, this series can be used to add to that more general history as well as to the social history of women at Brown. This series is arranged alphabetically by course title and then chronologically.

Series 2, Courses: Recreation and sports, 1915-1961, contains correspondence, exams, clippings, articles, rules, announcements, material from other colleges, reports, pamphlets, and results of inter- and intra-collegiate events. A number of instructional clippings, and printed pamphlets were discarded; a sampling was kept. In addition to the file of exams at the end of the series, exams appear throughout this series. Although Bessie Rudd was probably the primary owner of many of these files, some predate her arrival and many were added to and used by other instructors. In addition to documenting the variety of sport and recreation courses the department offered and some of the pedagogy used, this series provides information about early intercollegiate and intramural athletics. This series is arranged alphabetically by course title.

Series 3, Classes of 1933-1969, contains statistics (e.g. the class's combined weight), lists of potential athletes, notes taken during first year and senior student conferences, grades, results of swimming and other tests, lists of students restricted from specific physical activity and why, lists of students with dysmenorrhea, lecture notes, clippings, and some reunion material. It does not include posture pictures, which were destroyed (for one example, see series VI). Early files were marked "statistics". Portions of almost all of the flies in this series are closed until eighty years after the year of graduation. For a sample of some of the closed items, see the first folder in the series. The closed material includes all information regarding student grades and medical and physical descriptions. The first year and senior student conferences were conducted by Bessie Rudd, and later by Arlene Gorton. During those conferences. Rudd and Gorton noted such attributes as a student's height, weight, ideal weight, physical (e.g. severe acne) and emotional (e.g. moody) descriptions, if she had dysmenorrhea, notes regarding posture and corrective requirements therein, medical restrictions (e.g. has asthma--may drop out), athletic interests. and career plans. For more information on posture pictures, read The Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal in The New York Times (January 15, 1996) and listen to these Pembroke Center Oral History Project interviews. This series is arranged chronologically by class year.

Series 4, Financial records, 1967-1968, includes work orders, invoices, purchase orders, and receipts that document some of the department's fiscal activity during one academic year. This series may provide insight into such diverse matters as what kinds of equipment the department had, and their reliance on taxicabs.

Series 5, Student organizations and events, 1914-1961, contains correspondence, programs, lists of Athletic and Recreation Association board members, score cards, and an Archery Club report. It includes lists of events, planning material, and results from the inter-class competition and demonstration days, sometimes known as Field Day. This series provides fragmentary evidence of the relationship between the department and student activities; more such documentation is available in series 8.

Series 6, Resources and correspondence, 1919-1972, documents the department's ties with other colleges including exhibitions and their sharing of resources, particularly regarding posture. Items include pamphlets, correspondence, programs, reports, speeches and radio scripts written by Pembroke College department staff and others. This series also contains the only posture pictures (all of one woman) found in these records, which are closed for research pending administrative review. For more information on posture pictures, read The Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal in The New York Times (January 15, 1996) and listen to these Pembroke Center Oral History Project interviews. This series is arranged chronologically.

Series 7, Conferences and Professional Organizations, 1923-1976, contains reports, announcements, handouts, and correspondence, from conferences and organizations within which department staff were active. For material from organizations in which staff do not appear to have been active, see series 6. Many of these files were kept by Bessie Rudd, who continued to go to meetings and conferences and to collect material after her retirement. Because her files continue those begun in these departmental records, they remain in this collection. For the participation in similar organizations by former members of the department after the merger, see University Archives OF-lOA-2. The organizations represented here include: the Annual Conference of Instructors of Body Mechanics (the name of which changed several times, see the files for the name at any given time); the American Association for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation and its relational Section on Women's Athletics, Division for Girls and Women's Sports, Eastern District Association, and Rhode Island DGWS; the Eastern and, National Associations for Physical Education of College Women; the Women's Division of the National Amateur Athletic Federation; the [New England Women's Intercollegiate Sailing Association; and the Rhode Island Association for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation. Material from the body mechanics conferences documents the philosophy driving curriculum in Pembroke College's Freshman Course and similar courses in other departments, as well as illustrating the curriculum itself. This series provides the context of national, regional and state organizations within which the department acted. This series is arranged alphabetically by name.

Series 8, Women Coaches, 1968-1978

Series 9, Museum Objects, 1934-1976

The folder titles in this collection were virtually all taken from the titles on the files when they arrived in the archives. Unfortunately, these files do not provide much information about the Department of Physical Education before 1930. Although there is only one folder specifically devoted to the Pembroke College Athletic and Recreation Association, the work of this student organization is evident throughout these records.