By Ella Parke, Sophia Hilmer, and Linnea Plichta
For our final project, we examined the Women’s League Cabin through the lens of changing gender norms. Using the Carleton archives, Carletonian articles, and statements by alumni, we examined the impact of World War II and the Vietnam War on gender norms.
To do so, we measured patterns of rules at Carleton by reviewing the Men’s and Women’s League handbooks, which were given to incoming students when they arrived at Carleton. Each handbook had a separate code of rules by gender, with female students having significantly more rules regulating their movements on campus, dress, and behavior. Over time, these rules increased as female students challenged gender norms such as smoking in public and wearing pants, causing Carleton to push back and add regulations to the handbook. During World War II, the cabin reached the peak of its popularity as women sought to escape these policies. The cabin’s administration was left to the Women’s League, making it exempt from polices regulating pants, and allowing women to engage in traditionally masculine activities.
During the Vietnam War, however, the cabin largely fell out of favor as campus protests reached their peak. Rather than attempting to escape Carleton’s rigid gender norms, female students protested and petitioned against them. Eventually, with the end of the Carleton’s separate codes of conduct in 1970, the cabin’s function as an escape for women from campus rules ended. To read more about each aspect of our project, click the buttons below!
Artifacts Relating to our Research:
Pack of Cigarettes:
Carleton’s 2015 excavation found a Merit Blue Pack of Class A 100 cigarettes, which can be dated to the 1970s or later based on the logo. Considering their relatively intact condition, they are likely from the latter end of that period. During this time, smoking would have been permitted for both male and female Carleton Students. However, Carleton mandated or suggested that cigarette use was inappropriate for women until the 1960s. Students protested this rule as early as 1931, citing its rare enforcement and harsh consequences. Since this artifact was collected before the state of Minnesota raised the purchasing age of cigarettes to 21 in 2021, these cigarettes were likely smoked legally if they were used by a Carleton student. Thus, this pack of cigarettes represents the end of Carleton’s double standard for male and female students. While it may seem odd that an object known to cause serious harm can be a sign of liberation, Women’s League President Margaret Huddle, who objected to the Women’s cigarette ban in 1931, would likely be glad to see this artifact today.
A Comb:
Similarly, Carleton’s 2015 excavation found combs which display proof of life of female students at the cabin. The kind of comb is made of plastic that was primarily used in the 1900s, dating the comb to sometime around then. This comb also displays that people were doing their hair at the cabin. This comb shows the gender norms for women at Carleton like doing their hair and brushing it. Although there were no rules put in place directly for women having their hair done at Carleton, gender norms were not only controlled by rules. They were also put in place by sociatal norms like beauty standards which enforced the use of combs.
Bibliography:
Carleton College Archaeology. “Merit Cigarrettes”. 2015
Carleton College Archaeology. “Comb”. 2015