Social life of a single female academic in Montgomery, Alabama
Stone briefly discusses her social life while teaching at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama. At several points in the interview, Stone addresses what it was like to be a single woman with a professional career during this era. Her comments here are revealing of the kinds of activities a woman such as herself could enjoy socially. In addition, her comments demonstrate the social atmosphere of Montgomery in particular.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Olive Stone, August 13, 1975. Interview G-0059-4. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- SHERNA GLUCK:
-
Well, Olive, what were your social ties within Montgomery and the South
during that period at Huntingdon?
- OLIVE STONE:
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To begin with in the college and through it and through fellow
alumnae in the community. I was introduced
socially to some members of the country club set and elsewhere but I had
very little interest in that. I did play bridge and learned from my
Montgomery experience not to let them know at William and Mary that I
played bridge, because in Montgomery it was still a small enough city
that it was difficult to accept one bridge luncheon and not another. I
liked social affairs and enjoyed them to some extent; but too much
partying is burdensome to a studious person. I like to read. Don't
you?
- SHERNA GLUCK:
-
So most of your ties were to old classmates then, in other words?
- OLIVE STONE:
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Heavens, no! I met legal, medical and other professionals. I hope it
doesn't sound invidious to say Montgomerians were delightful but less
cosmopolitan than people in the Upper South.
- SHERNA GLUCK:
-
Well how about the people in the study groups, where did they come
from?
- OLIVE STONE:
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Professional people like myself with open minds looking for fresh
approaches to social problems - teachers, social workers, a Rabbi, a
journalist, a wholesale merchant, etc. - and finding few answers in such
traditional institutions as the schools, churches and courts. I've
already characterized them as liberals. And some of that little
Montgomery group (four of them) came up to Chapel Hill the latter half
of the 1935 Summer Quarter. We rented a cottage and lived together. They
went to school—took sociology and so forth. And at the
conclusion we visited a labor college in the mountains, sponsored by
Frank Graham of U. of NC, as I recall and others.
- SHERNA GLUCK:
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Were there any faculty members besides yourself in this group?
- OLIVE STONE:
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No. I would invite faculty members from time to time.
- SHERNA GLUCK:
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Did you detect no interest?
- OLIVE STONE:
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No special interest in social issues.
