Perhaps most interesting, Cora and her friends filled scrapbooks with mementoes of these activities, including cheap photographs (which felt very much like modern selfies) in which Cora and her girl friends posed with the “Dudes” they had met in town. This kind of scrapbook became an important part of the plot of Scholarly Pursuits.
However, it wasn’t until I discovered the Blue and Gold, the university yearbooks (digitized and available for free online at the HathiTrust), that I got the specific material I needed to flesh out what the lives of Berkeley students were like in 1880-81.
In these yearbooks, I found ample evidence that the women who attended Berkeley in this period experienced an environment that included both subtle and not-so-subtle hostility to their very existence at the school. For example, when the members of the senior class of 1881 were asked if they believed in co-education, every one of the men said no. And while they might have said they were just joking—many of their answers to other questions were obviously meant to be satirical—I suspect that the women in that graduating class (who all answered yes to the question) might not have found the joke amusing. In fact, one of the women said her future occupation was going to be “Women’s Rights.”
There was no indication that any of the writers or editors of the yearbook were female, and hostility towards women on campus showed up in a number of other ways as well. The description of a cottage where female students lived was called “the hen-coop,” and numerous illustrations in these yearbooks portrayed women unflatteringly as ugly old maids or overly masculine. One entry in the 1879 Blue and Gold was all about a fake society called the Marthenian Literary Society, which stated that the goal of this society was “…to promote the noble cause of co-education” but then went on to say that the most popular debate of the society was: “Resolved that old maids are neither useful nor ornamental…” which was “…decided in the affirmative.”
Such frequent references to old maids reflected the belief put forth in Edward Clarke’s hugely popular book, Sex in Education (1873), that women who got an education would become unfeminine, unfit for marriage, and in some cases become so ill that they might die.
While none of this material surprised me, since it simply confirmed what Radke-Moss found in her study of women on college campuses, what did surprise me was the hypermasculinity that characterized the behavior and attitudes of many of the male students. It was in these yearbooks that I found the details about the scandals and student divisions hinted at in the official Berkeley history.
The yearbooks and concurrent newspaper reports described the role excessive drinking and violent hazing rituals played on campus. Fraternity members appeared to be leaders in the development and defense of this hypermasculinity, and men who didn’t conform were targeted, not only by hazing, but by ridicule in the Blue and Gold yearbooks. It appears that the formation of the anti-fraternity paper, the Oestrus, was one reaction against this.
The two sources that were particularly useful in providing historical background for what I was finding in the primary sources were The Company He Keeps: A History of White College Fraternities, Nicholas Syrett (2009), and The Lost Boys of Zeta Psi: A Historical Archaeology of Masculinity at a University Fraternity, Laurie Wilke (2010), which was a study of the Berkeley chapter of this fraternity. These sources described this period as one where fraternities played an important role in developing and then defending the specific class, race, and gender attitudes I was seeing played out on the Berkeley campus.
Finally, to ensure the historical accuracy of the sections of the book describing Annie’s pregnancy, including the kinds of fears that late nineteenth-century women faced in childbirth, I turned to Brought to Bed: Childbearing in America: 1750-1950, Judith Leavitt (2016).
As with all my historical mysteries, I hope this book both educated and entertained, because, I must say, doing the research for Scholarly Pursuits certainly enlightened me!
Other Works by Author
Victorian San Francisco Mystery Series
Maids of Misfortune (Book 1)
Uneasy Spirits (Book 2)
Bloody Lessons (Book 3)
Deadly Proof (Book 4)
Violet Vanquishes a Villain (Novella)
Pilfered Promises (Book 5)
Kathleen Catches a Killer (Novella)
Boxed Set (Books 1-4)
Dandy Delivers (Novella)
Victorian San Francisco Novellas (collection)
Scholarly Pursuits (Book 6)
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Victorian San Francisco Stories
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Madam Sybil’s First Client
Dandy Detects
The Misses Moffet Mend a Marriage
Mr. Wong Rights a Wrong
Victorian San Francisco Stories (Collection)
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Medieval to Modern: An Anthology of Historical Mystery Stories
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Paradisi Chronicles series
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Between Mountain and Sea (Caelestis Series Book 1)
Under Two Moons (Caelestis Series Book 2)
Through Ddaera’s Touch (Caelestis Series Book 3)
Caelestis Series Books 1-3 Plus Aelwyd
“Aelwyd: Home” in Chronicle Worlds: Paradisi
The Stars are Red Tonight (Canistro Series Book 1)
Information about all Locke’s works, including her Paradisi Chronicles Science Fiction series, can be found at https://mlouisalocke.com
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To find out how to get a free electronic copy of Victorian San Francisco Stories and to get notifications about promotions or new publications in her historical mystery series, please sign up for her Victorian San Francisco Mystery newsletter.
About the Author
M. Louisa Locke, a retired professor of U.S. and Women’s History, has embarked on a second career as a writer of historical mysteries and science fiction.
Her best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series features Annie Fuller, a boarding house keeper who supplements her income as a clairvoyant and business consultant, and Nate Dawson, her lawyer beau. All the novels and short stories in this series explore the experiences of women who worked in San Francisco at the end of the 19th century, based on Dr. Locke's doctoral research.
Not just content with writing about the past, Locke has recently turned to writing about the future as one of the founders of the Paradisi Chronicles, an open-source science fiction world created by multiple-authors. So, if you’ve read all her Victorian San Francisco series, you might give her science fiction a try, since they include a similar mix of mystery, suspense, humor, and light romance—only set in the future rather than the past!
Locke is an active member of the Historical Fiction Authors Cooperative, and you can find more about her journey as an indie author and gain a deeper glimpse into the worlds of Victorian San Francisco and New Eden, Paradisi, if you check out her website at http://mlouisalocke.com/
If you enjoyed this story, please let the author know at [email protected]. Since positive word of mouth is crucial for any author to succeed, please consider writing a review. To find out how to get a free electronic copy of Locke’s short story collection, Victorian San Francisco Stories, and hear about new promotions and publications, subscribe to her newsletter. Your email address will never be shared. Connect with the author @mlouisalocke online at: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my appreciation to all the family and friends who gave their support during the research and writing of this book. I am particularly indebted to the numerous fans of the series whose encouragement was invaluable throughout the long writing process.
My beta readers have made this a better book than I could have achieved on my own, so thanks to Jim Brown, Ann Elwood, Julie Evans, Micheline Golden, Robin Harsh, Casey Jones, Judy Mahony, Abigail Padgett, and Katie Ritter.
I want to give special thanks to Michelle Huffaker, who conti
nues to produce such wonderful covers, and my editor, Jessica Meigs, who has the eye for detail I lack.
Finally, this book, as always, wouldn’t have been possible without the support of my loving husband Jim, and my daughter Ashley, who both provide me the motivation to keep on writing.
Scholarly Pursuits Page 38
