To know her own history : writing at the woman's college, 1943-1963 / Kelly Ritter.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ritter, Kelly

Series:

Pittsburgh series in composition, literacy, and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women's colleges--United States--History--20th century.

Women's colleges.

Academic writing--Study and teaching (Higher)--Case studies.

Academic writing.

Women--Education (Higher)--United States--History--20th century.

Women.

Composition (Language arts)--Study and teaching (Secondary)--United States.

Composition (Language arts).

Composition (Language arts)--Study and teaching (Secondary).

Women--Education (Higher).

History.

Academic writing--Study and teaching (Higher).

United States.

Genre:

Case studies.

Physical Description:

viii, 256 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Pittsburgh : University of Pittsburgh Press, [2012]

Summary:

To Know Her Own History chronicles the evolution of writing programs at a landmark Southern women's college during the postwar period. Kelly Ritter finds that despite its conservative Southern culture and vocational roots, the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina was a unique setting where advanced writing programs and creativity flourished long before these trends emerged nationally.

Ritter profiles the history of the Woman's College, first as a normal school, where women trained as teachers with an emphasis on rhetoric and exposition, then as a liberal arts college. She compares the burgeoning writing program here to those of the Seven Sisters and to elite all-male universities to show the singular progressivism of the Woman's College. Ritter presents lively student writing samples from the early postwar period to reveal a blurring of the boundaries between "creative" and "expository" styles.

By midcentury, a quantum shift toward creative writing changed administrators' valuation of composition courses and staff. Killer follows the plight of individual instructors of creative writing and composition, showing how their compensation and standing were made disproportionate by the shifting postwar position of expository writing in relation to creative writing. Despite this unsettled period, the Woman's College continued to gain in stature, and by 1964 it became a prize acquisition of the University of North Carolina system. Book jacket.

Contents:

Her history matters: the United States normal school and the roots of women's public education

In her own words: the yearling and first-year writing, 1948-51

Revisionist history: general education reform from Harvard University to the woman's college, 1943-56

The double-helix of creative/composition: Randall Jarrell, May Bush, and the politics of writing programs, 1947-63

What's in a name? women's writing histories and archival research in composition studies.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780822961864

0822961865

OCLC:

755904538