[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So at that time, out of the 300 or so boys, I would say probably 80 percent were Kalenjin from Nandi County, Uasin Gishu County to the north. A few from Kericho. The other 15 or 20 percent were from other communities. Kikuyu, Luhya, a few Luos. Most of those came from the Rift Valley, from other districts in the Rift Valley. And at the time I went, I think we probably had 12 teachers to cover all the classes. And there were, each class that I taught in was roughly 35 to 40, 40 plus each. Each of the forms or classes was split into two streams. And they were I think, as I recall, ranked by performance. So there was an A stream and a B stream.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] It was pretty traditional.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] And I had been to a boarding school in New England before Yale. So guess what? And Dan Fitts had grown up, his father taught at Phillips Andover.

[Assistant] Oh, no kidding.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] It was pretty traditional.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] And I had been to a boarding school in New England before Yale. So guess what? And Dan Fitts had grown up, his father taught at Phillips Andover.

[Assistant] Oh, no kidding.

[User] So I showed, he showed up and he said, I heard you were here. Welcome. And he said, you're going to find quite a bit of this quite familiar. We had a headmaster at that point who'd been in Kenya for several years, but he had been from a public school in London and Oxford. And so there was an English, if you will, orientation. And of course the exam system that was the foundation came out of the, as they call them, the Cambridge exams. Out of the 12 teachers we had when I started, there were, I would say, if we were 12, I think we were. There were eight.

[Assistant] Are these all men teachers as well?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And I had been to a boarding school in New England before Yale. So guess what? And Dan Fitts had grown up, his father taught at Phillips Andover.

[Assistant] Oh, no kidding.

[User] So I showed, he showed up and he said, I heard you were here. Welcome. And he said, you're going to find quite a bit of this quite familiar. We had a headmaster at that point who'd been in Kenya for several years, but he had been from a public school in London and Oxford. And so there was an English, if you will, orientation. And of course the exam system that was the foundation came out of the, as they call them, the Cambridge exams. Out of the 12 teachers we had when I started, there were, I would say, if we were 12, I think we were. There were eight.

[Assistant] Are these all men teachers as well?

[User] No, there are a couple of women.

[Assistant] Oh, there were.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So I showed, he showed up and he said, I heard you were here. Welcome. And he said, you're going to find quite a bit of this quite familiar. We had a headmaster at that point who'd been in Kenya for several years, but he had been from a public school in London and Oxford. And so there was an English, if you will, orientation. And of course the exam system that was the foundation came out of the, as they call them, the Cambridge exams. Out of the 12 teachers we had when I started, there were, I would say, if we were 12, I think we were. There were eight.

[Assistant] Are these all men teachers as well?

[User] No, there are a couple of women.

[Assistant] Oh, there were.

[User] Yep.

[Assistant] And were they foreign or?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And when it came to written material, often it was stuff I would type on my little Olivetti and then we'd run it off on a mimeograph machine and, and carbons and everything like that. So we were. I knew the material, I'd read it and I had a few resource books but. And one more anecdote you might enjoy.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] About language. We had a really terrific group of Kenyans and a couple of Tanzanians who taught us Swahili through the whole training period in the U.S. They'd all gone to school in the U.S. Some were hoping to stay on or planning to stay on, and they were hired by Peace Corps, in some cases multiple times, as language teachers.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] So when we finished training, we were all given a FSI test. And I think the expectation was, well, everyone's had three months, a month of immersion and then 2 hours a day for two more months. Some of it must have sunk in. And one person in our group got a zero plus.

[Assistant] A zero plus.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] About language. We had a really terrific group of Kenyans and a couple of Tanzanians who taught us Swahili through the whole training period in the U.S. They'd all gone to school in the U.S. Some were hoping to stay on or planning to stay on, and they were hired by Peace Corps, in some cases multiple times, as language teachers.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] So when we finished training, we were all given a FSI test. And I think the expectation was, well, everyone's had three months, a month of immersion and then 2 hours a day for two more months. Some of it must have sunk in. And one person in our group got a zero plus.

[Assistant] A zero plus.

[User]
But he was able to go to Kenya and eventually his Swahili got quite a bit better. And I did okay with that. But when we got to the, when I got to the school, um, one of the things the headmaster, English headmaster, told me is the boys do not, are not permitted to speak their vernacular language. It's not right, because we have different groups here and different languages. And so Swahili is all right and English is all right. But they may not speak Nandi. So we were walking out of a school assembly early in my time and I heard the voice talking and I finally I talked to Dan, who had been teaching there for two years, and I said, are they speaking Swahili? And he said, no, no, they're speaking Nandi. They're not supposed to. I said, what a relief, because I didn't understand a word. What a relief.

But the Swahili was not something that I used in the classroom. However, it made my contact with people, particularly around the school and outside the school, a whole lot easier, because in many cases, these are people who weren't speaking much English. And on the school grounds and campus, English was the language that I taught in. But, uh.

[Assistant] So what were your living arrangements then?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User]
But he was able to go to Kenya and eventually his Swahili got quite a bit better. And I did okay with that. But when we got to the, when I got to the school, um, one of the things the headmaster, English headmaster, told me is the boys do not, are not permitted to speak their vernacular language. It's not right, because we have different groups here and different languages. And so Swahili is all right and English is all right. But they may not speak Nandi. So we were walking out of a school assembly early in my time and I heard the voice talking and I finally I talked to Dan, who had been teaching there for two years, and I said, are they speaking Swahili? And he said, no, no, they're speaking Nandi. They're not supposed to. I said, what a relief, because I didn't understand a word. What a relief.

But the Swahili was not something that I used in the classroom. However, it made my contact with people, particularly around the school and outside the school, a whole lot easier, because in many cases, these are people who weren't speaking much English. And on the school grounds and campus, English was the language that I taught in. But, uh.

[Assistant] So what were your living arrangements then?

[User] There was a house that must have been built almost at the time the school was built in the 1920s.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] A three bedroom house with, uh, a small kitchen just outside it. And, you know, living room. Dining room. Two big bedrooms, one small one. And bathroom. Running water. Electricity.

[Assistant] 24 hour electricity?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] It was on the school generator for a while. And then they went onto the main grid.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] And then the road that ran by the school was being paved. So, as I say, this was not just a soft landing on arrival, it probably got softer. So I never got defensive about it except to say, look, I was asked to do, carry a very heavy teaching load and really focus on doing that and doing that well. And I was able to.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And I know a lot of my friends who are teaching in schools that didn't have the same facilities or resources. They faced challenges that I didn't face, but they weren't able to. The culture wasn't necessarily there to promote dedicated teaching. Maybe you could say the infrastructure wasn't there. Leadership wasn't there. So their experiences were different in lots of different ways. So I just think in terms of what Peace Corps sent me there to do and what I was asked specifically to do. Um, I. Yeah, I had all kinds of, if you will, comfort and support to focus on doing it.

[Assistant] I take it you how to cook and.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And then the road that ran by the school was being paved. So, as I say, this was not just a soft landing on arrival, it probably got softer. So I never got defensive about it except to say, look, I was asked to do, carry a very heavy teaching load and really focus on doing that and doing that well. And I was able to.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And I know a lot of my friends who are teaching in schools that didn't have the same facilities or resources. They faced challenges that I didn't face, but they weren't able to. The culture wasn't necessarily there to promote dedicated teaching. Maybe you could say the infrastructure wasn't there. Leadership wasn't there. So their experiences were different in lots of different ways. So I just think in terms of what Peace Corps sent me there to do and what I was asked specifically to do. Um, I. Yeah, I had all kinds of, if you will, comfort and support to focus on doing it.

[Assistant] I take it you how to cook and.

[User] How to cook.

[Assistant] Did you pay for that through your Peace Corps salary or how did?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And then Peace Corps paid the school, I believe, $15 a month towards the rental and maintenance of the house. So that kind of just passed through. And it was, the funds were put in our bank account at the Commercial Bank of Africa in Nairobi, and you could take a check from that account and go down to the local store in, um, in the town of Kapsabet, where I was.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] Or in Eldoret, if I went up there shopping. And in terms of moving around, we were encouraged by Peace Corps to hitchhike.

[Assistant] Hitchhike?

[User] Yeah. It took some patience because sometimes there'd be long waits before you'd see a vehicle. The number of vehicles on the road in 1968 was a tiny, tiny fraction of what you'd see today.

[Assistant] Is that hitchhike instead of taking like a local bus or something?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] But if you wanted to hitchhike, that was fine. There were no.

[Assistant] No restrictions.

[User] Yeah. And so sometimes I can remember going off for a weekend. I'd get all the way to Nairobi hitchhiking.

[Assistant] Wow. Well.

[User] That's 130 miles.

[Assistant] That's a good question. Um, what? So you taught these basic courses. Did you have any other responsibilities in the school?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And this is the part of Kenya where all the great runners come from.

[Assistant] Oh, really?

[User] So in, uh, the beginning of my teaching, someone pointed out to one of the guys in the classroom, and like several of them, he looked like he was probably about as old as I was, maybe early twenties. And they said, Julius won't be here all year because he's going to the Olympics. And I thought, well, that's fine.

[Assistant] That's nice.

[User] We're all proud of him. And so he did. He went to the Mexico City Olympics as a member of the team, and then actually went to Munich in '72 and won a gold medal. So.

[Assistant] Wow, he must have been a hero when he came home.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So in, uh, the beginning of my teaching, someone pointed out to one of the guys in the classroom, and like several of them, he looked like he was probably about as old as I was, maybe early twenties. And they said, Julius won't be here all year because he's going to the Olympics. And I thought, well, that's fine.

[Assistant] That's nice.

[User] We're all proud of him. And so he did. He went to the Mexico City Olympics as a member of the team, and then actually went to Munich in '72 and won a gold medal. So.

[Assistant] Wow, he must have been a hero when he came home.

[User] He was, yeah, he was. Kipchoge Keino was the best known of the runners then.

[Assistant] Yes, of course.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Came from the same general area. But yeah, so track and field was important. Sports were important. They had organized sports. So we had a rugby team, we had track and field.

[Assistant] Really?

[User] They had, they played field hockey, which men do in the Commonwealth.

[Assistant] Yeah, sure.

[User] We played, had a basketball court, all the pretty simple stuff. The annual tuition boarding costs for the boys were probably close to what I was being paid every month, $100 plus or minus. And that was a real stretch for a lot of families.

[Assistant] Their families paid for that?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] They had, they played field hockey, which men do in the Commonwealth.

[Assistant] Yeah, sure.

[User] We played, had a basketball court, all the pretty simple stuff. The annual tuition boarding costs for the boys were probably close to what I was being paid every month, $100 plus or minus. And that was a real stretch for a lot of families.

[Assistant] Their families paid for that?

[User] Families did.

[Assistant] There weren't scholarships or anything like that?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] There were some scholarships, but it was pretty informal. And, uh, you know, I got a sense from getting to know the kids, getting to know the boys, of what a deep commitment there was to education in Kenya. And that continues to this day.

[Assistant] Uh huh.

[User] That it was and, you know, there were high expectations that boys would go through. They would take their Form 4 exam and some would go on to upper secondary and university. But coming out of this school in that part of the country, if you came out with a good record, you might go to work in a junior manager job in the tea estates or get a job in government, get a job, go to teacher training college. So, you know, families had high expectations for what their, uh, what their boys could achieve. But we were, we were a boarding school, kind of a self- contained community.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] And so I'll just jump ahead for a moment and say that, uh, in the middle of my second year, I wrote to Peace Corps and said, what would be the opportunity to go and teach in another country?

[Assistant] Oh, in another country?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And an interesting thing happened at the turn of that year. I wasn't sure if this was an official policy change, or whether the rule just got relaxed so that several people kind of failed to observe it, including me. But I've talked to a couple of friends from my time there and they said no. Country director of Peace Corps said as of late 1969, if you want to get a vehicle and run it at your own expense, you may do so.

[Assistant] Really?

[User]
Now that's, that's probably a very short slice of time in the whole history of Peace Corps in Kenya. But I asked my friend and I said, did I break a rule? He said, you didn't break rules as far as I remember. It was okay. So you got, you bought a used VW bug from a teacher who was, was leaving. And I'd had, you know, a lot of friendly contact with a lot of the boys at school. They'd say, sir, you know, come meet the family. I'd say, how are we going to get there? And they said, well, you know, we'll walk home. It's about 24 miles. You want to walk?

And Peace Corps in 1968 and '69 particularly looked at the school vacations as time when we should not, as the volunteers, teachers, we should not be idle. We need something to do. So they would say, all right, we have a project to do vaccinations, smallpox and BCG vaccinations. And we need eight or ten volunteers to go to Kilifi on the Kenyan coast. So I spent three or four weeks there on one school holiday.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] The end of 1968, I went to the north, to Samburu district.

[Assistant] Oh yeah, yeah.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, I think it opened my eyes in a very lasting way to, you know, the breadth of human experience and another society. And it, it fueled and rewarded my curiosity. I think I became a more open, curious person when I was there, and that shaped my career.

[Assistant] Hmm.

[User] I'd grown up in a very traditional upper middle class family in Connecticut, the son and nephew and grandson of attorneys. My mother's family had been in the state of Connecticut since they founded it. My father's, my father's father had come to go to college at Yale and so forth. And, you know, they were very deep rooted in a medium sized city in New England. And nobody was forcing me down that lane. But I think just learning a bit about Africa, beginning to read widely about it, and seeing the change that Africa was experiencing, I said, let me go see what that's. Let me play some role in helping as a teacher.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] As a volunteer. And when I came back, what I knew was I needed to find a career that was going to continue to spark and reward my curiosity.

[Assistant] And what did you decide to move into then?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And they said, well, that's fine, because it's a small program. We have several PhDs every year, um, and so far a minority have chosen to be in academics. Others have done different things. That's fine with us. And a lot of anthropology departments, including the main department at Columbia, had a very traditional view that that's what you did. You went to teach, you went to get a, a scholar's position.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] And this applied anthropology program based at Teacher's College just had a different, a different view. It's the right place for me. So I spent two and a half years doing coursework there, and then I went to Kenya to do my research.

[Assistant] Oh, really?

[User] I went to Kakamega District, what was then Western Province, and I did my research over 18 months looking at.

[Assistant] And what was your research focused on?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And then learning Luhya on top of that, which is a related language.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] And then having some other good fortune, which was I found a very kind of well-located place to live, a shop that had been sort of converted into a house. Um, I got, I made friends at the sugar company. I made friends in the district government. Everybody knew I was there because, one, you had to explain yourself a lot. And everyone said, well, this is interesting to know how this is really going to change things.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] So stay out of local politics and stay out of trouble. And, um, yeah, if you want information, we think, you know, go interview people. If you want to look at the land records and see who has a title deed and who didn't because of whatever. So I had access to everybody at any level of society. And I think without Peace Corps and three years in the country before and Swahili, I would never have done that. It turns out the provincial commissioner, which is a, like a governor of the province, well, his nephew had been my student and I had just gotten his nephew a scholarship to the University of Wyoming.

[Assistant] That's where it starts.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And then having some other good fortune, which was I found a very kind of well-located place to live, a shop that had been sort of converted into a house. Um, I got, I made friends at the sugar company. I made friends in the district government. Everybody knew I was there because, one, you had to explain yourself a lot. And everyone said, well, this is interesting to know how this is really going to change things.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] So stay out of local politics and stay out of trouble. And, um, yeah, if you want information, we think, you know, go interview people. If you want to look at the land records and see who has a title deed and who didn't because of whatever. So I had access to everybody at any level of society. And I think without Peace Corps and three years in the country before and Swahili, I would never have done that. It turns out the provincial commissioner, which is a, like a governor of the province, well, his nephew had been my student and I had just gotten his nephew a scholarship to the University of Wyoming.

[Assistant] That's where it starts.

[User] This is not unusual in Kenya that all the, you connect dots or dots get connected.

[Assistant] Is it still existing, that, uh?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] The factory actually shut down about two years ago due to some chronic mismanagement and corruption.

[Assistant] Oh.

[User] And it undercut the livelihoods of thousands of people.

[Assistant] Of course.

[User] Yeah. Did I see that coming in 1974? I saw some weaknesses because it was very top down. The farmers were told what to do, when to do it, and they really made no decisions as farmers except.

[Assistant] Were the managers Africans, I mean Kenyans I guess?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah. Did I see that coming in 1974? I saw some weaknesses because it was very top down. The farmers were told what to do, when to do it, and they really made no decisions as farmers except.

[Assistant] Were the managers Africans, I mean Kenyans I guess?

[User] At that time when they started, there was a large cadre of people who, who knew, you know, engineers and managers. It became, it became Kenyan run, you know, within a few years. And it did well for a long time, but it was a mono crop situation. Eventually the soil begins to exhaust from the same crop year after year. And then there was a lot of, uh, a lot of games being played and, you know, procurement fraud and other things. It's a very sad story. I've been back there a few times, but not for the last ten years, not since this really sad chapter.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] I get back to my Peace Corps site, which is closer to Nairobi, more frequently. And I'll just add a word. The school that I taught at, and I have to say it makes me feel great, but this is not my achievement, is now regarded as the best boys high school in Kenya.

[Assistant] Really? Isn't that lovely.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] It is harder to get into than the Ivy League.

[Assistant] Wow. Wow.

[User] That is, 65,000 kids put it down as their first choice and 400 got in.

[Assistant] 65,000!

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Not hundred. 65 thousand.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And number one is named Tony. So I think we've got to get him into a great college here in the U.S. someday. But it's gratifying to see that and I, uh. One of my students, ex-students, several of them have been on the board of governors of the school, generous to the school. I think what I do feel is, I don't know where all the students are. I taught several hundred in three years.

[Assistant] Of course.

[User] But there's a good number where I've been able to see where they've gone in life and to have an influence on that. And if I, uh, if I'm, if I'm there, I could run into one of them on the street in Eldoret and they'd say, mwalimu. Teacher.

[Assistant] Exactly.

[User] And I'd say, please just call me Tony. Well, I couldn't call you by that, by your first name. Yes, they can now. So it's just, I've been back in Kenya every year except for two since 19-, since I went there.

[Assistant] Wow. Every year.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] After the PhD in anthropology, I went to work with DAI, a development consulting firm here in Washington.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] A lot of DAI's work, when I joined them in 1977 and the next couple of years, was in East Africa, in Tanzania and Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan.

[Assistant] Convenient.

[User] So that was, I think, you know, one reason they thought I could help them and join the staff. So I always had, you know, once I realized I could put Kenya on the travel itinerary for good reasons, legitimate reasons, it was there. And it kept me in touch with the place, with the larger society, made me feel a part of, of another country as more than a sentimental second home. I mean, I'm very deeply identified with it.

[Assistant] So Peace Corps has three, these three goals of provide technical assistance, better understanding Americans, and understanding of other people by Americans. Have you been able to help on that third goal in any way?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] My experience, or through the lens of my experience. I've done some. Written occasional pieces for my school newsletter and things like that here.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] But I think I remain internationally focused most of the time. And, and the pull was strong and I always responded to the pull.

[Assistant] The pull.

[User] Because I know it was great, great opportunities to, uh, to keep learning.

[Assistant] Well, let me ask this. Your background now in anthropology and in being an outstanding manager and developer of a consulting firm and having world views and so on. The Peace Corps has been in business now a little over 50 years, 55 or whatever is it is.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] But I think I remain internationally focused most of the time. And, and the pull was strong and I always responded to the pull.

[Assistant] The pull.

[User] Because I know it was great, great opportunities to, uh, to keep learning.

[Assistant] Well, let me ask this. Your background now in anthropology and in being an outstanding manager and developer of a consulting firm and having world views and so on. The Peace Corps has been in business now a little over 50 years, 55 or whatever is it is.

[User] Uh huh, right.

[Assistant] What's your feeling about the future of the Peace Corps? Is it, should it be, should it continue to do the same things it's been doing for 55 years? Should there be some new direction? What's your personal feeling?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And, you know, really trying to share and teach out of my own experience, going back to when I started and then the professional experience that I had. Teaching ways of approaching and understanding and solving problems that are, the problems are deeply ingrained in the places where they show up and to look at them and think about them in in a different way.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] To sort of understand they're not probably up to, they're not going to be solved through a single discipline or a single model. And how do you, how do you understand and begin to map out a problem and make some wise choices about what to do. That was really a large part of what I did and so was a large part of what I tried to teach to a generation that was in many cases, obviously younger, but in a significant number of returned Peace Corps volunteers were right there.

[Assistant] That's great.

[User] And so and some of them have gone into domestic work as well as international work. So what I found that was a good way of connecting some dots from the beginning through the end of, or the later part of my career. I guess my career is not coldly over.

[Assistant] Well, we want to thank you very much.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] To sort of understand they're not probably up to, they're not going to be solved through a single discipline or a single model. And how do you, how do you understand and begin to map out a problem and make some wise choices about what to do. That was really a large part of what I did and so was a large part of what I tried to teach to a generation that was in many cases, obviously younger, but in a significant number of returned Peace Corps volunteers were right there.

[Assistant] That's great.

[User] And so and some of them have gone into domestic work as well as international work. So what I found that was a good way of connecting some dots from the beginning through the end of, or the later part of my career. I guess my career is not coldly over.

[Assistant] Well, we want to thank you very much.

[User] Good.

[Assistant] It was a lovely interview and I'm sure people will appreciate this. And thank you again for your time.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User]
I’m home free.

Well, the only thing—

What did I not cover?

Well, it seemed to me, and I think it’s a flight connection. [Dr. Jeannette] Piccard.

Jeannette Piccard, the wife of the stratosphere balloon pilot of the 1930s, was hired by Dr. Gilruth to be a special assistant to him for much of the time that I worked at NASA. She was a unique individual. She was a hot air balloon pilot. She told this story about flying over the state of Michigan in foggy weather. She was lost. She yelled down to the ground, “Hello down there! Where are you? Where are we?” She would tell this story to visitors and just amaze them. She was an elderly lady because her husband was not a young man when he flew into the stratosphere in the 1930s. This was almost 40 years later. Fantastic!\n\n There was another lady who didn’t have anything to do with NASA directly, but Grace [K.] Winn was brought into the organization as a liaison between NASA and Houston. She was a link to the community. Phil [Philip T.] Hamburger, who had been a councilman in Houston, became a special government liaison for MSC with the Congress. They both worked with us in the Special Events Office because they were aware of the special visitors they could help facilitate getting into MSC. They supported us very much, and the public, in NASA’s relationship in the communities around here. Grace Winn and Phil Hamburger were instrumental in being extensions of MSC’s public relations. They were very good at their assignments!

[Assistant] Thanks for adding that. That’s pretty interesting.

[User] They were unique individuals. They had a role they were very good at. Okay.

[Assistant] Thank you so much for sharing so much today.

[User] You think you got something?

[Assistant] Yes, a few things.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I was interested of course because my father was in that field, and I even learned the word chemistry before I could talk. I continued to be interested in chemistry and physics and mathematics in college. When I was a sophomore I decided that I would like to do chemical research and that I would need a PhD. I never changed my mind, and that’s how I became interested and how I planned my life after.

[Assistant] You went to Southwest Missouri State College [now Missouri State University, Springfield], where your father was a professor.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Were there many other girls interested in the field of science when you were in those classes?

[User] None.

[Assistant] Can you tell us what that was like? Did the male students accept you as a serious student?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Were there many other girls interested in the field of science when you were in those classes?

[User] None.

[Assistant] Can you tell us what that was like? Did the male students accept you as a serious student?

[User] Oh, I don’t know. At first nobody would sit beside me, so I don’t really know what that meant, but little by little that changed and nobody said anything about it.

[Assistant] Well, apparently it didn’t bother you. I understand you graduated as the first person who had scored a perfect score from that college. That’s quite an accomplishment.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] None.

[Assistant] Can you tell us what that was like? Did the male students accept you as a serious student?

[User] Oh, I don’t know. At first nobody would sit beside me, so I don’t really know what that meant, but little by little that changed and nobody said anything about it.

[Assistant] Well, apparently it didn’t bother you. I understand you graduated as the first person who had scored a perfect score from that college. That’s quite an accomplishment.

[User] It lasted for 24 years.

[Assistant] Goodness, and with a lot of science classes too.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh, I don’t know. At first nobody would sit beside me, so I don’t really know what that meant, but little by little that changed and nobody said anything about it.

[Assistant] Well, apparently it didn’t bother you. I understand you graduated as the first person who had scored a perfect score from that college. That’s quite an accomplishment.

[User] It lasted for 24 years.

[Assistant] Goodness, and with a lot of science classes too.

[User] Yes, that’s right.

[Assistant] When you left there, I believe you went to University of Chicago.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] It lasted for 24 years.

[Assistant] Goodness, and with a lot of science classes too.

[User] Yes, that’s right.

[Assistant] When you left there, I believe you went to University of Chicago.

[User] Yes, I did for a year. I took the courses that the first year student needed to be a PhD. After that I was approached by the University of Illinois to become an assistant to a professor, which meant that I would have 30 students and meet with them every day between his lectures and give a wider view to his lecture, and give a short test to them for 15 minutes. That was supposed to prepare them in a better way for the subject. That was very uneventful. No problem.

[Assistant] During that time were you able to pursue other science aspects of what you were interested in as you were the assistant to this professor?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, that’s right.

[Assistant] When you left there, I believe you went to University of Chicago.

[User] Yes, I did for a year. I took the courses that the first year student needed to be a PhD. After that I was approached by the University of Illinois to become an assistant to a professor, which meant that I would have 30 students and meet with them every day between his lectures and give a wider view to his lecture, and give a short test to them for 15 minutes. That was supposed to prepare them in a better way for the subject. That was very uneventful. No problem.

[Assistant] During that time were you able to pursue other science aspects of what you were interested in as you were the assistant to this professor?

[User] Yes. Most of my assistance was this work with the 30 students. He had about three people in the same position working with approximately 30 people. The students liked this. Very shortly we had [US] Force people taking the courses. Particularly they were chosen to take a medical degree [MD], and for the time that they were at the University of Illinois we gave them all the science courses that they needed to have before they could start work on a MD. For that, they had to promise to stay in the Air Force a certain number of years. I think that was three.\n\n That was a good thing for people who really wanted to be an MD. They were hardworking students. They didn’t have much time to work because they were being drilled and lectured to, but there were some very good students. The thing that was unequal was that there were people who had graduated with an AB degree [Bachelor of Arts] or whatever they had, and there were people who had finished high school and that was all. But they worked hard. If they missed a month of not making passing grades, they were sent away to the war, so they were very frightened people. One of them said to me one day, “If I took you out for dinner would you give me a better grade?”

[Assistant] I guess that didn’t work, huh?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes. Most of my assistance was this work with the 30 students. He had about three people in the same position working with approximately 30 people. The students liked this. Very shortly we had [US] Force people taking the courses. Particularly they were chosen to take a medical degree [MD], and for the time that they were at the University of Illinois we gave them all the science courses that they needed to have before they could start work on a MD. For that, they had to promise to stay in the Air Force a certain number of years. I think that was three.\n\n That was a good thing for people who really wanted to be an MD. They were hardworking students. They didn’t have much time to work because they were being drilled and lectured to, but there were some very good students. The thing that was unequal was that there were people who had graduated with an AB degree [Bachelor of Arts] or whatever they had, and there were people who had finished high school and that was all. But they worked hard. If they missed a month of not making passing grades, they were sent away to the war, so they were very frightened people. One of them said to me one day, “If I took you out for dinner would you give me a better grade?”

[Assistant] I guess that didn’t work, huh?

[User] It didn’t work. No. He knew it and looked as if, “Well, I tried.”

[Assistant] I guess you were an exception even at that time. Were you the only female assistant that the professor had in this field?

[User] Right.

[Assistant] You earned your PhD from University of Illinois. Can you talk about your work for your thesis? I understand it had a lot to do with radioactive fallout.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] It didn’t work. No. He knew it and looked as if, “Well, I tried.”

[Assistant] I guess you were an exception even at that time. Were you the only female assistant that the professor had in this field?

[User] Right.

[Assistant] You earned your PhD from University of Illinois. Can you talk about your work for your thesis? I understand it had a lot to do with radioactive fallout.

[User] Yes. It was to work with radon, which is not a manmade element, but is found in nature. It is a gas, and it deteriorates through certain other molecules. Some of those were solids at ordinary temperature, so the question was, “What happens to these?” Do they agglomerate? Which they might. Some of them stay as a gas, which probably they did. My study was with an electron microscope. The material which was going to be looked at in the microscope had to be deposited on a slide so that you had a sample. After much much trying to get what I hoped were the particles in focus, I could see the shadows of them as I moved the microscope around. It was at least three weeks of not knowing what I was seeing, until one night I saw this in the microscope, and was the happiest person in the whole place. The next step involved looking at different times to see if there were any changes.\n\n The particles did agglomerate, then they crystallized, so this was an indication that you would have particles big enough to be blown around by air. Later that was called fallout. I went back to the University of Chicago and talked with some of the people who were studying a similar thing; similar but not with an electron microscope. So far they had decided that they had no indication of what was really happening. They were very glad to look at the research work that I had done. Some of them thought it was significant, and some didn’t of course, but in a way I think it encouraged all of us that this was a very vital barrier to get over, so that’s the way I got back to the University of Chicago.

[Assistant] Why did you choose this subject to do your work in?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes. I was able to rent a very nice room and the two people who lived there were very nice people. There were only about five people who lived there, so it was quiet. They gave me the living room. It was nicely furnished. The only thing was you had to open a couch to sleep at night, but that was okay. They worked for a club, and the man did the cooking, and the woman I guess did the hard work. Frequently they’d bring me something very nice to eat or drink from there, and put it in my room, and I’d find it. That was very nice. Another time, they were having trouble with a vacuum cleaner. I said, “I think I could fix that for you.” So I did. It was a very minor problem. They wanted to give me a drink of 20-year-old whiskey.\n\n These things are good to remember.

[Assistant] So you fixed that vacuum cleaner and realized that you had all these mechanical abilities as well.

[User] I had to have certain mechanical abilities. I had to be able to blow glass, and I had to be able to fix pumps and things like that, but for many people I did do these simple things. Of course they all thought it was beyond them to do it.

[Assistant] What a payment, 20-year-old whiskey. Did you stay with Pioneering? You just stayed with them for about a year or so, is that correct?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Then you went to the—


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I had to have certain mechanical abilities. I had to be able to blow glass, and I had to be able to fix pumps and things like that, but for many people I did do these simple things. Of course they all thought it was beyond them to do it.

[Assistant] What a payment, 20-year-old whiskey. Did you stay with Pioneering? You just stayed with them for about a year or so, is that correct?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Then you went to the—

[User] Oak Ridge [Laboratory, Tennessee].

[Assistant] Again you were in radiochemical research. Is that correct?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Then you went to the—

[User] Oak Ridge [Laboratory, Tennessee].

[Assistant] Again you were in radiochemical research. Is that correct?

[User] That’s correct.

[Assistant] Can you talk about working in that environment? Now you’re in a different state, of course more south, so it’s a different environment.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oak Ridge [Laboratory, Tennessee].

[Assistant] Again you were in radiochemical research. Is that correct?

[User] That’s correct.

[Assistant] Can you talk about working in that environment? Now you’re in a different state, of course more south, so it’s a different environment.

[User] I was just married. It was kind of a culture shock, Tennessee. Everybody lived in an apartment or a house that was built for the people who worked there. It was chosen by some way, but it included how many children you had, and what your status was. But [US Navy] Captain [Hyman G.] Rickover, perhaps you’ve heard of him, had a house for the bachelors. My husband had been one of those that lived in that house. Captain Rickover made it possible for us to move in immediately. Otherwise you had to wait in line, so he proved his power. That was very fine. He wasn’t as mean as people have said.

[Assistant] I’m sure you got to know him on a different level than his sailors did.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] That’s correct.

[Assistant] Can you talk about working in that environment? Now you’re in a different state, of course more south, so it’s a different environment.

[User] I was just married. It was kind of a culture shock, Tennessee. Everybody lived in an apartment or a house that was built for the people who worked there. It was chosen by some way, but it included how many children you had, and what your status was. But [US Navy] Captain [Hyman G.] Rickover, perhaps you’ve heard of him, had a house for the bachelors. My husband had been one of those that lived in that house. Captain Rickover made it possible for us to move in immediately. Otherwise you had to wait in line, so he proved his power. That was very fine. He wasn’t as mean as people have said.

[Assistant] I’m sure you got to know him on a different level than his sailors did.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] You were there at the same time as your husband. Did you work on the same projects?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I was just married. It was kind of a culture shock, Tennessee. Everybody lived in an apartment or a house that was built for the people who worked there. It was chosen by some way, but it included how many children you had, and what your status was. But [US Navy] Captain [Hyman G.] Rickover, perhaps you’ve heard of him, had a house for the bachelors. My husband had been one of those that lived in that house. Captain Rickover made it possible for us to move in immediately. Otherwise you had to wait in line, so he proved his power. That was very fine. He wasn’t as mean as people have said.

[Assistant] I’m sure you got to know him on a different level than his sailors did.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] You were there at the same time as your husband. Did you work on the same projects?

[User] No. I worked in a chemistry laboratory. He was there to learn what was learned during the war. He worked at NACA [National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics] at that time, and he was selected by them to come for a year.

[Assistant] I remember reading that one of the everyday processes that you did, you had to wear protective clothing because of what you were working with. Could you talk about your work there and why you had to wear that clothing, and what that was all about?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] You were there at the same time as your husband. Did you work on the same projects?

[User] No. I worked in a chemistry laboratory. He was there to learn what was learned during the war. He worked at NACA [National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics] at that time, and he was selected by them to come for a year.

[Assistant] I remember reading that one of the everyday processes that you did, you had to wear protective clothing because of what you were working with. Could you talk about your work there and why you had to wear that clothing, and what that was all about?

[User] Yes. I was working on triple fission of uranium. The bomb was made with one break, and presumably there could be a third one in which there’d be new products, and those could chemically be identified. So it was a matter of trying with analytical chemistry to find if there were any new products.\n\n I worked for a very nice section head who was anxious to help with different methods that would be—to his belief—a good test of whether it really existed. I didn’t finish that work in the time that I was there, but I learned that the man assigned to it after I left had found indications of triple fission. That was a very interesting program.\n\n I don’t know whether you remember that one of the things that the Oak Ridge Laboratory had was a pile—as it was called—where you could artificially cause a material to become radioactive. I used that and thought how much money had been spent, and here just a chemist in the laboratory had it at her fingertips. It was exciting. It was really very exciting.

[Assistant] It was a brand-new concept in America, wasn’t it, to do this laboratory in a peacetime effort?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No. I worked in a chemistry laboratory. He was there to learn what was learned during the war. He worked at NACA [National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics] at that time, and he was selected by them to come for a year.

[Assistant] I remember reading that one of the everyday processes that you did, you had to wear protective clothing because of what you were working with. Could you talk about your work there and why you had to wear that clothing, and what that was all about?

[User] Yes. I was working on triple fission of uranium. The bomb was made with one break, and presumably there could be a third one in which there’d be new products, and those could chemically be identified. So it was a matter of trying with analytical chemistry to find if there were any new products.\n\n I worked for a very nice section head who was anxious to help with different methods that would be—to his belief—a good test of whether it really existed. I didn’t finish that work in the time that I was there, but I learned that the man assigned to it after I left had found indications of triple fission. That was a very interesting program.\n\n I don’t know whether you remember that one of the things that the Oak Ridge Laboratory had was a pile—as it was called—where you could artificially cause a material to become radioactive. I used that and thought how much money had been spent, and here just a chemist in the laboratory had it at her fingertips. It was exciting. It was really very exciting.

[Assistant] It was a brand-new concept in America, wasn’t it, to do this laboratory in a peacetime effort?

[User] Right. There was much talk of course that it should be stopped because the work wasn’t going to be useful to anyone, which wasn’t true. You might not have an idea of what it would be useful for, but something would turn up after you had opened the new door.

[Assistant] Because it was a peacetime effort, did you have long hours working there?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes. I was working on triple fission of uranium. The bomb was made with one break, and presumably there could be a third one in which there’d be new products, and those could chemically be identified. So it was a matter of trying with analytical chemistry to find if there were any new products.\n\n I worked for a very nice section head who was anxious to help with different methods that would be—to his belief—a good test of whether it really existed. I didn’t finish that work in the time that I was there, but I learned that the man assigned to it after I left had found indications of triple fission. That was a very interesting program.\n\n I don’t know whether you remember that one of the things that the Oak Ridge Laboratory had was a pile—as it was called—where you could artificially cause a material to become radioactive. I used that and thought how much money had been spent, and here just a chemist in the laboratory had it at her fingertips. It was exciting. It was really very exciting.

[Assistant] It was a brand-new concept in America, wasn’t it, to do this laboratory in a peacetime effort?

[User] Right. There was much talk of course that it should be stopped because the work wasn’t going to be useful to anyone, which wasn’t true. You might not have an idea of what it would be useful for, but something would turn up after you had opened the new door.

[Assistant] Because it was a peacetime effort, did you have long hours working there?

[User] You couldn’t work except during the hours of 9:00 to 5:00.

[Assistant] How did you like living in that part of Tennessee, newly married?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Right. There was much talk of course that it should be stopped because the work wasn’t going to be useful to anyone, which wasn’t true. You might not have an idea of what it would be useful for, but something would turn up after you had opened the new door.

[Assistant] Because it was a peacetime effort, did you have long hours working there?

[User] You couldn’t work except during the hours of 9:00 to 5:00.

[Assistant] How did you like living in that part of Tennessee, newly married?

[User] Well, I liked it all right. But that brings up the thought of what we were warned against. Don’t drive on any road that isn’t paved. You’ll probably be met by a shotgun and a man ready to use it.

[Assistant] Might have found a few moonshiners in the backwoods. You think?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] You couldn’t work except during the hours of 9:00 to 5:00.

[Assistant] How did you like living in that part of Tennessee, newly married?

[User] Well, I liked it all right. But that brings up the thought of what we were warned against. Don’t drive on any road that isn’t paved. You’ll probably be met by a shotgun and a man ready to use it.

[Assistant] Might have found a few moonshiners in the backwoods. You think?

[User] I’m sure. It was a dry county, by the way.

[Assistant] I had found some research about the dresses; you had to wear a specific type of gown every day. Is that correct?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, I liked it all right. But that brings up the thought of what we were warned against. Don’t drive on any road that isn’t paved. You’ll probably be met by a shotgun and a man ready to use it.

[Assistant] Might have found a few moonshiners in the backwoods. You think?

[User] I’m sure. It was a dry county, by the way.

[Assistant] I had found some research about the dresses; you had to wear a specific type of gown every day. Is that correct?

[User] That’s correct. It was a prisoner’s gown. It was light blue and it came just to your knee. It was made like a balloon.

[Assistant] It wasn’t very fashionable, was it?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I’m sure. It was a dry county, by the way.

[Assistant] I had found some research about the dresses; you had to wear a specific type of gown every day. Is that correct?

[User] That’s correct. It was a prisoner’s gown. It was light blue and it came just to your knee. It was made like a balloon.

[Assistant] It wasn’t very fashionable, was it?

[User] It wasn’t very fashionable. I also had to wear lead-toed shoes, which were not very comfortable. The reason for that was that if you were working with a radioactive material in that you shouldn’t touch it in any fashion; that you had to build a sort of house of lead bricks. That had been considered to be a safety risk so severe that you had to wear lead-toed shoes. Wasn’t any fun, any of those things, but you had to do it. It just became routine.

[Assistant] Were you able to build on the work that you had done at the university so that you were learning more about the subject you were interested in as well?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] That’s correct. It was a prisoner’s gown. It was light blue and it came just to your knee. It was made like a balloon.

[Assistant] It wasn’t very fashionable, was it?

[User] It wasn’t very fashionable. I also had to wear lead-toed shoes, which were not very comfortable. The reason for that was that if you were working with a radioactive material in that you shouldn’t touch it in any fashion; that you had to build a sort of house of lead bricks. That had been considered to be a safety risk so severe that you had to wear lead-toed shoes. Wasn’t any fun, any of those things, but you had to do it. It just became routine.

[Assistant] Were you able to build on the work that you had done at the university so that you were learning more about the subject you were interested in as well?

[User] Yes. A lot of work that had been done, nobody knew about it, so it was a very good education.

[Assistant] When you left there, is that when you went on to the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] It wasn’t very fashionable. I also had to wear lead-toed shoes, which were not very comfortable. The reason for that was that if you were working with a radioactive material in that you shouldn’t touch it in any fashion; that you had to build a sort of house of lead bricks. That had been considered to be a safety risk so severe that you had to wear lead-toed shoes. Wasn’t any fun, any of those things, but you had to do it. It just became routine.

[Assistant] Were you able to build on the work that you had done at the university so that you were learning more about the subject you were interested in as well?

[User] Yes. A lot of work that had been done, nobody knew about it, so it was a very good education.

[Assistant] When you left there, is that when you went on to the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago?

[User] That’s right. Again I worked with uranium. This time it was to see if you could build with uranium a special kind of molecule which had attached not by the usual binding but by more or less an accident. Some of those that showed up would be like acetylene for the solvents that you might use. While I was there, again it wasn’t a finished job. Another person took it on. I know that it was successful in some ways, and they actually put my name on a paper, so that was nice.

[Assistant] Were you able to publish at all at these first jobs, or were you just building up that experience?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes. A lot of work that had been done, nobody knew about it, so it was a very good education.

[Assistant] When you left there, is that when you went on to the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago?

[User] That’s right. Again I worked with uranium. This time it was to see if you could build with uranium a special kind of molecule which had attached not by the usual binding but by more or less an accident. Some of those that showed up would be like acetylene for the solvents that you might use. While I was there, again it wasn’t a finished job. Another person took it on. I know that it was successful in some ways, and they actually put my name on a paper, so that was nice.

[Assistant] Were you able to publish at all at these first jobs, or were you just building up that experience?

[User] No, it wasn’t possible at that time. It was just an education that you were getting.

[Assistant] A big one. After your time there, I believe it was in 1949 you went to Lewis Research Center [Cleveland, Ohio] to become part of the NACA.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] That’s right. Again I worked with uranium. This time it was to see if you could build with uranium a special kind of molecule which had attached not by the usual binding but by more or less an accident. Some of those that showed up would be like acetylene for the solvents that you might use. While I was there, again it wasn’t a finished job. Another person took it on. I know that it was successful in some ways, and they actually put my name on a paper, so that was nice.

[Assistant] Were you able to publish at all at these first jobs, or were you just building up that experience?

[User] No, it wasn’t possible at that time. It was just an education that you were getting.

[Assistant] A big one. After your time there, I believe it was in 1949 you went to Lewis Research Center [Cleveland, Ohio] to become part of the NACA.

[User] That’s right. Now that’s where my husband had come from. The Argonne trip was that he wanted to do some research there. They let him have another year. He brought back a lot of information and big lectures around the lab. So it was useful quickly.

[Assistant] It was fortunate that because of your background, being married, they found a space in the laboratory so that you were able to do your work as well.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No, it wasn’t possible at that time. It was just an education that you were getting.

[Assistant] A big one. After your time there, I believe it was in 1949 you went to Lewis Research Center [Cleveland, Ohio] to become part of the NACA.

[User] That’s right. Now that’s where my husband had come from. The Argonne trip was that he wanted to do some research there. They let him have another year. He brought back a lot of information and big lectures around the lab. So it was useful quickly.

[Assistant] It was fortunate that because of your background, being married, they found a space in the laboratory so that you were able to do your work as well.

[User] Yes. It was very good. Of course my husband was known in these places, and it wasn’t as if I had filled in an application for a job.

[Assistant] Talk about the work that you did for the NACA. The Center had just changed its philosophy and its research goals to investigate all types of propulsion.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] That’s right. Now that’s where my husband had come from. The Argonne trip was that he wanted to do some research there. They let him have another year. He brought back a lot of information and big lectures around the lab. So it was useful quickly.

[Assistant] It was fortunate that because of your background, being married, they found a space in the laboratory so that you were able to do your work as well.

[User] Yes. It was very good. Of course my husband was known in these places, and it wasn’t as if I had filled in an application for a job.

[Assistant] Talk about the work that you did for the NACA. The Center had just changed its philosophy and its research goals to investigate all types of propulsion.

[User] That’s right.

[Assistant] I believe you were assigned to the Fuels and Combustion Division, and did some studies on flames.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes. It was very good. Of course my husband was known in these places, and it wasn’t as if I had filled in an application for a job.

[Assistant] Talk about the work that you did for the NACA. The Center had just changed its philosophy and its research goals to investigate all types of propulsion.

[User] That’s right.

[Assistant] I believe you were assigned to the Fuels and Combustion Division, and did some studies on flames.

[User] That’s right.

[Assistant] Were you assigned that job or was that your study—you wanted to do, flames?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] They were more like a week.

[Assistant] This was in the late ’40s, early ’50s. How did you travel to Europe?

[User] I went on the [RMS] Queen Elizabeth the first time. I traveled on a large oceangoing vessel. I was first class when I made the first trip. I guess it was like you read about. I did enjoy it. I read some books, and sat on the deck, and didn’t go swimming because it was too cold. We were taking the northern route.

[Assistant] Then you were selected for that $10,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.

[User] That’s right.

[Assistant] You were in Europe for almost a year.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I went on the [RMS] Queen Elizabeth the first time. I traveled on a large oceangoing vessel. I was first class when I made the first trip. I guess it was like you read about. I did enjoy it. I read some books, and sat on the deck, and didn’t go swimming because it was too cold. We were taking the northern route.

[Assistant] Then you were selected for that $10,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.

[User] That’s right.

[Assistant] You were in Europe for almost a year.

[User] That’s right.

[Assistant] Tell us about that experience of being in the midst of those scientists there, and then working together to exchange your information.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] That’s right.

[Assistant] Tell us about that experience of being in the midst of those scientists there, and then working together to exchange your information.

[User] Well, I was actually working in a laboratory there. It was free radicals.

[Assistant] Not ions.

[User] No. One of the students who was working for his PhD had set up, made all the equipment that was needed. I was to work with him, and he was from Germany. He’d been an [Waffen] SS [Nazi military force] person. At first it was a little bit frightening because we had a lot of batteries together which gave a big jolt of electricity, and I just thought what if he would turn them on when I—that’s a terrible way to feel. But in those days we were frightened of Germans. He was as hungry as I was. The food was rationed, a lot of it. You didn’t have but one egg a week. Sugar was rationed and butter was rationed. I lived in an international house. They rationed it right down to you. You had so much sugar and so much butter to eat. They had the egg for the week on Sunday evening. So that was some celebration, but they insisted upon making Toad in a Hole. Do you know what that is?

[Assistant] You’ll have to share that with me. No I don’t.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, I was actually working in a laboratory there. It was free radicals.

[Assistant] Not ions.

[User] No. One of the students who was working for his PhD had set up, made all the equipment that was needed. I was to work with him, and he was from Germany. He’d been an [Waffen] SS [Nazi military force] person. At first it was a little bit frightening because we had a lot of batteries together which gave a big jolt of electricity, and I just thought what if he would turn them on when I—that’s a terrible way to feel. But in those days we were frightened of Germans. He was as hungry as I was. The food was rationed, a lot of it. You didn’t have but one egg a week. Sugar was rationed and butter was rationed. I lived in an international house. They rationed it right down to you. You had so much sugar and so much butter to eat. They had the egg for the week on Sunday evening. So that was some celebration, but they insisted upon making Toad in a Hole. Do you know what that is?

[Assistant] You’ll have to share that with me. No I don’t.

[User] It’s a hardboiled egg which has been covered on the outside with sausage meat and recooked so that the sausage meat was done, and inside was the toad, which was a hardboiled egg.\n\n There were other strange foods too. They liked to serve hare that had been hanging for some time to be, I guess, better by their taste than if it were eaten after it was first killed. So we were rationed. Things were hard to get. We had three meals a day. That was good.

[Assistant] Did you spend most of your time in Cambridge? Or were you in different labs as well?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] It’s a hardboiled egg which has been covered on the outside with sausage meat and recooked so that the sausage meat was done, and inside was the toad, which was a hardboiled egg.\n\n There were other strange foods too. They liked to serve hare that had been hanging for some time to be, I guess, better by their taste than if it were eaten after it was first killed. So we were rationed. Things were hard to get. We had three meals a day. That was good.

[Assistant] Did you spend most of your time in Cambridge? Or were you in different labs as well?

[User] I went to other laboratories to see what they were doing, and to be entertained by them, which turned out to be very nice. Mostly they were people whose work I had read in papers they had published. Sometimes they would be ones who had come to the Combustion Institute for their annual meeting, so I knew the people to some extent. They were very friendly and wanted to show me things. Cathedrals. Going to one of the meetings with the government, it was good to see also. I walked a lot.\n\n Everybody walks or rides a bicycle, or did then. I had injured a knee in high school doing field hockey. I just didn’t think I could go very far on a bicycle.

[Assistant] Can you share some of your recollections of what the countryside looked like in those countries that you visited? It was soon after the war had ended that you were there.

[User] Yes it was. Rural districts, they seemed to go on as they’d gone on for years and years, but in London and places you still saw the remnants of houses and buildings of many types that they hadn’t repaired or rebuilt. It wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be because they had done a lot of work, but you could see really it’s demolished. It must have been very horrible living through the war.

[Assistant] What do you remember about going to Paris? That must have been an exciting time to be able to go to France.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] That’s a good thing.

[Assistant] Dr. Simon, what you were working on then to separate the oil from the sands, is that somewhat of what oil companies are doing now? What I think they refer to as fracking? Is that something different?

[User] No, that’s a different thing entirely. It starts with shale, not with the oil sand. The shale is supposed to give up the oil if you break it all up. But as you know, a lot of states and cities and places are fighting because they don’t want the pollution and they don’t want the chance of getting cancer. That’s two reasonable things to think about. Also recently it has been found that there isn’t as much oil shale as was originally predicted. I think the prediction was 100 years for supplying the United States. Now probably it’s 10 years.

[Assistant] That’s a big difference.

[User] A big difference.

[Assistant] Well, I have to think it was a big difference moving from the Dallas area up to Massachusetts.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No, that’s a different thing entirely. It starts with shale, not with the oil sand. The shale is supposed to give up the oil if you break it all up. But as you know, a lot of states and cities and places are fighting because they don’t want the pollution and they don’t want the chance of getting cancer. That’s two reasonable things to think about. Also recently it has been found that there isn’t as much oil shale as was originally predicted. I think the prediction was 100 years for supplying the United States. Now probably it’s 10 years.

[Assistant] That’s a big difference.

[User] A big difference.

[Assistant] Well, I have to think it was a big difference moving from the Dallas area up to Massachusetts.

[User] Well, indeed it was.

[Assistant] Did you and your husband make a decision that this was where you were going to be for a while because of the opportunities?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] A big difference.

[Assistant] Well, I have to think it was a big difference moving from the Dallas area up to Massachusetts.

[User] Well, indeed it was.

[Assistant] Did you and your husband make a decision that this was where you were going to be for a while because of the opportunities?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Tell us about that transition and starting a new job with this company. For instance, were you able to pick the area that you wanted to work?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes. But it was a promotion, and that always makes one happy when you’re promoted.

[Assistant] Your boss was not of a technical or scientific nature, so you were the one that these ideas filtered through before they got to him. Is that correct?

[User] That’s correct.

[Assistant] Did you have many proposals that came through on a routine basis? How did you make up your mind which ones you felt were good, in the interest of the company? How did you discard the rest or make them a lower priority?

[User] I asked the head of the engineering department what they believed was good about the work that was going on. Then from my education and what I could decide to do, as I came in, helped me to see whether this was just being written for the money’s sake or whether there was experience and a real interest in what was being proposed.\n\n I learned that some companies went against the rules by having the proposals, for example to the Navy, worked on before they knew what the Navy was going to ask. It was specifically so that it would help them to get the proposal. That was not supposed to be allowed, but people talked about it frankly. I think I prevented that from happening. If you were caught it would not be so good.

[Assistant] Avco was quite a conglomerate at the time, wasn’t it?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] That’s correct.

[Assistant] Did you have many proposals that came through on a routine basis? How did you make up your mind which ones you felt were good, in the interest of the company? How did you discard the rest or make them a lower priority?

[User] I asked the head of the engineering department what they believed was good about the work that was going on. Then from my education and what I could decide to do, as I came in, helped me to see whether this was just being written for the money’s sake or whether there was experience and a real interest in what was being proposed.\n\n I learned that some companies went against the rules by having the proposals, for example to the Navy, worked on before they knew what the Navy was going to ask. It was specifically so that it would help them to get the proposal. That was not supposed to be allowed, but people talked about it frankly. I think I prevented that from happening. If you were caught it would not be so good.

[Assistant] Avco was quite a conglomerate at the time, wasn’t it?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] So you had diverse types of projects that were coming through for your review. Is that correct?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I asked the head of the engineering department what they believed was good about the work that was going on. Then from my education and what I could decide to do, as I came in, helped me to see whether this was just being written for the money’s sake or whether there was experience and a real interest in what was being proposed.\n\n I learned that some companies went against the rules by having the proposals, for example to the Navy, worked on before they knew what the Navy was going to ask. It was specifically so that it would help them to get the proposal. That was not supposed to be allowed, but people talked about it frankly. I think I prevented that from happening. If you were caught it would not be so good.

[Assistant] Avco was quite a conglomerate at the time, wasn’t it?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] So you had diverse types of projects that were coming through for your review. Is that correct?

[User] No. The only ones that came through were the scientific ones.\n\n [pause]

[Assistant] Before we took a break we were starting to talk about your role at Avco.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] So you had diverse types of projects that were coming through for your review. Is that correct?

[User] No. The only ones that came through were the scientific ones.\n\n [pause]

[Assistant] Before we took a break we were starting to talk about your role at Avco.

[User] Right. Before that I said I never worked for the Atomic Energy Commission. That is not true that I didn’t. They had the laboratories of Oak Ridge and Argonne, but I didn’t realize now today that I had had to get different secret clearances and everything.

[Assistant] Did you have a secret clearance for working for NACA?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No. The only ones that came through were the scientific ones.\n\n [pause]

[Assistant] Before we took a break we were starting to talk about your role at Avco.

[User] Right. Before that I said I never worked for the Atomic Energy Commission. That is not true that I didn’t. They had the laboratories of Oak Ridge and Argonne, but I didn’t realize now today that I had had to get different secret clearances and everything.

[Assistant] Did you have a secret clearance for working for NACA?

[User] Oh yes. I had top secret.

[Assistant] So you’ve almost always worked under a very secluded environment.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Right. Before that I said I never worked for the Atomic Energy Commission. That is not true that I didn’t. They had the laboratories of Oak Ridge and Argonne, but I didn’t realize now today that I had had to get different secret clearances and everything.

[Assistant] Did you have a secret clearance for working for NACA?

[User] Oh yes. I had top secret.

[Assistant] So you’ve almost always worked under a very secluded environment.

[User] That’s right. That’s why a lot of the work didn’t come out to people who would like to know.

[Assistant] How did you exchange information with other people like you that were of the same type of clearance? Were you able to talk with them?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh yes. I had top secret.

[Assistant] So you’ve almost always worked under a very secluded environment.

[User] That’s right. That’s why a lot of the work didn’t come out to people who would like to know.

[Assistant] How did you exchange information with other people like you that were of the same type of clearance? Were you able to talk with them?

[User] Yes you could. Not just the two of you, but in a group, and when some of these meetings were held. You’d have a submeeting with people whose work you knew about but had never had a chance to talk.

[Assistant] Dr. Simon, when you went to Avco, I think you mentioned that you didn’t work in a laboratory. After you were there for a little while you became the technical assistant to the boss. Then at some point you became a vice president.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] That’s right. That’s why a lot of the work didn’t come out to people who would like to know.

[Assistant] How did you exchange information with other people like you that were of the same type of clearance? Were you able to talk with them?

[User] Yes you could. Not just the two of you, but in a group, and when some of these meetings were held. You’d have a submeeting with people whose work you knew about but had never had a chance to talk.

[Assistant] Dr. Simon, when you went to Avco, I think you mentioned that you didn’t work in a laboratory. After you were there for a little while you became the technical assistant to the boss. Then at some point you became a vice president.

[User] That’s right.

[Assistant] Tell us how your job changed and what some of the duties were that you were doing as you moved through the company and became more high level in the management structure.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes you could. Not just the two of you, but in a group, and when some of these meetings were held. You’d have a submeeting with people whose work you knew about but had never had a chance to talk.

[Assistant] Dr. Simon, when you went to Avco, I think you mentioned that you didn’t work in a laboratory. After you were there for a little while you became the technical assistant to the boss. Then at some point you became a vice president.

[User] That’s right.

[Assistant] Tell us how your job changed and what some of the duties were that you were doing as you moved through the company and became more high level in the management structure.

[User] When I moved to the highest position in the corporation that I reached, I had to move to New York. Our headquarters were there at that time. My job with the president of the company then was somewhat similar to the one that I had had before, except that he got a lot more people anxious to talk about work they wanted to sell. He would talk to them first and then they would come to me.\n\n You couldn’t help but laugh with some people that thought they had the world’s best program. Usually they were very flawed, and they really didn’t have what they thought they had. One I remember said that he had this fluid that you could put on your car windows and the frozen part would go away immediately and you could see just as clearly as if it had never been there. I started asking him how he mixed this whatever it was, and how he controlled it. Well, those questions had no answers; he was as far from production as you could possibly be. So that one was out.\n\n [pause]

[Assistant] I think when we stopped this last time we were talking about some of the ideas that people brought to Avco. We were talking too about you had gone to New York where you were vice president. You had told us about someone who came in and wanted to put the fluid on the windshields. Do you remember any more? Maybe one that worked that you really were proud of bringing through Avco?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] When I moved to the highest position in the corporation that I reached, I had to move to New York. Our headquarters were there at that time. My job with the president of the company then was somewhat similar to the one that I had had before, except that he got a lot more people anxious to talk about work they wanted to sell. He would talk to them first and then they would come to me.\n\n You couldn’t help but laugh with some people that thought they had the world’s best program. Usually they were very flawed, and they really didn’t have what they thought they had. One I remember said that he had this fluid that you could put on your car windows and the frozen part would go away immediately and you could see just as clearly as if it had never been there. I started asking him how he mixed this whatever it was, and how he controlled it. Well, those questions had no answers; he was as far from production as you could possibly be. So that one was out.\n\n [pause]

[Assistant] I think when we stopped this last time we were talking about some of the ideas that people brought to Avco. We were talking too about you had gone to New York where you were vice president. You had told us about someone who came in and wanted to put the fluid on the windshields. Do you remember any more? Maybe one that worked that you really were proud of bringing through Avco?

[User] Well, mostly they were so small that they would not have impacted Avco at all. What they were doing was trying to begin to get some other areas of work that were not under the government. But the way the government money left us, there was a long period when nothing was coming in. Then they sold out. Not while I was there. The various divisions were purchased by companies that were doing work in their area, so it worked out for the people very well, as well as it could I think. They took over our retirement and paid it to this day.

[Assistant] Oh, that’s good news.

[User] Yes it is good news.

[Assistant] Can we talk about Avco’s and your contributions to the project for the reentry for the spacecraft?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, mostly they were so small that they would not have impacted Avco at all. What they were doing was trying to begin to get some other areas of work that were not under the government. But the way the government money left us, there was a long period when nothing was coming in. Then they sold out. Not while I was there. The various divisions were purchased by companies that were doing work in their area, so it worked out for the people very well, as well as it could I think. They took over our retirement and paid it to this day.

[Assistant] Oh, that’s good news.

[User] Yes it is good news.

[Assistant] Can we talk about Avco’s and your contributions to the project for the reentry for the spacecraft?

[User] Yes I can.

[Assistant] Please tell us how that happened.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] That’s right. It did make an enormous effect on the future.

[Assistant] Did you also transfer that technology for ballistic missiles as well? Did you also work on those projects for some of the nose cones and nose caps and different types of pieces?

[User] Right.

[Assistant] We were also talking about always working under a secret classification. Were you ever concerned about your safety, working so closely to those types of projects during the height of the Cold War?

[User] No, I wasn’t. I wasn’t really worried about that. But when I got on the board of the paper company out in California, they were warning us, if we were driving from work to wherever we lived not to take the same route every day, but to change often the way that we went.\n\n Once I had a telephone call from I guess something called the Arab something or other. He said he had sent letters to the President and to the Secretary of Defense and all these people and that we weren’t fulfilling what we should do. Why he called me I don’t know, but it was startling.\n\n Then he wrote a letter and he said, “I’m in the library in New York, and this is where I’m writing this letter.” So he was not real with it, but anyway it frightens you. As I drove home, I always looked to see if somebody was behind me or following me.

[Assistant] You were with Avco for about 30 years?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] We were also talking about always working under a secret classification. Were you ever concerned about your safety, working so closely to those types of projects during the height of the Cold War?

[User] No, I wasn’t. I wasn’t really worried about that. But when I got on the board of the paper company out in California, they were warning us, if we were driving from work to wherever we lived not to take the same route every day, but to change often the way that we went.\n\n Once I had a telephone call from I guess something called the Arab something or other. He said he had sent letters to the President and to the Secretary of Defense and all these people and that we weren’t fulfilling what we should do. Why he called me I don’t know, but it was startling.\n\n Then he wrote a letter and he said, “I’m in the library in New York, and this is where I’m writing this letter.” So he was not real with it, but anyway it frightens you. As I drove home, I always looked to see if somebody was behind me or following me.

[Assistant] You were with Avco for about 30 years?

[User] That’s right.

[Assistant] That’s a long time to stay in one place.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No, I wasn’t. I wasn’t really worried about that. But when I got on the board of the paper company out in California, they were warning us, if we were driving from work to wherever we lived not to take the same route every day, but to change often the way that we went.\n\n Once I had a telephone call from I guess something called the Arab something or other. He said he had sent letters to the President and to the Secretary of Defense and all these people and that we weren’t fulfilling what we should do. Why he called me I don’t know, but it was startling.\n\n Then he wrote a letter and he said, “I’m in the library in New York, and this is where I’m writing this letter.” So he was not real with it, but anyway it frightens you. As I drove home, I always looked to see if somebody was behind me or following me.

[Assistant] You were with Avco for about 30 years?

[User] That’s right.

[Assistant] That’s a long time to stay in one place.

[User] Yes it is.

[Assistant] But the job kept changing and projects kept changing?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] That’s right.

[Assistant] That’s a long time to stay in one place.

[User] Yes it is.

[Assistant] But the job kept changing and projects kept changing?

[User] I kept changing.

[Assistant] Kept learning more.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes it is.

[Assistant] But the job kept changing and projects kept changing?

[User] I kept changing.

[Assistant] Kept learning more.

[User] I was very glad that when my husband died, I had 10 years more to work there; that my life wasn’t totally interrupted, and that I could continue to save money for the days that I got old.

[Assistant] Worked out well.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I kept changing.

[Assistant] Kept learning more.

[User] I was very glad that when my husband died, I had 10 years more to work there; that my life wasn’t totally interrupted, and that I could continue to save money for the days that I got old.

[Assistant] Worked out well.

[User] Yes, it’s worked out well.

[Assistant] You two worked at the same place for a long time. But not always.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, it’s worked out well.

[Assistant] You two worked at the same place for a long time. But not always.

[User] That’s right. Both of us thought it would be better if we worked at different places, but the way it started is that the only thing I could do was to follow him. Maybe not follow, but together decide that I would go. The only time I was away was when I went to England. He was supposed to come and meet me during one of the two-week vacations they had in Cambridge. Just before, he was accused—this was the time when people were being accused—and he was accused of going to a dance that was sponsored by communists. That’s a great thing. He was with the NACA then. They didn’t take it to heart. They fought it. Finally the conclusion was that he was 95 percent cleared. But that didn’t bother anybody.\n\n Isn’t that a terrible way to—

[Assistant] Yes. Yes.

[User] Of course that whole thing was a scandalous thing.

[Assistant] A terrible time in American history [McCarthy Era].\n\n You were able to come home one time during your year in England, isn’t that correct? I think you came home for Christmas.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] That’s right. Both of us thought it would be better if we worked at different places, but the way it started is that the only thing I could do was to follow him. Maybe not follow, but together decide that I would go. The only time I was away was when I went to England. He was supposed to come and meet me during one of the two-week vacations they had in Cambridge. Just before, he was accused—this was the time when people were being accused—and he was accused of going to a dance that was sponsored by communists. That’s a great thing. He was with the NACA then. They didn’t take it to heart. They fought it. Finally the conclusion was that he was 95 percent cleared. But that didn’t bother anybody.\n\n Isn’t that a terrible way to—

[Assistant] Yes. Yes.

[User] Of course that whole thing was a scandalous thing.

[Assistant] A terrible time in American history [McCarthy Era].\n\n You were able to come home one time during your year in England, isn’t that correct? I think you came home for Christmas.

[User] I did come home.

[Assistant] You made that boat trip twice then.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Of course that whole thing was a scandalous thing.

[Assistant] A terrible time in American history [McCarthy Era].\n\n You were able to come home one time during your year in England, isn’t that correct? I think you came home for Christmas.

[User] I did come home.

[Assistant] You made that boat trip twice then.

[User] So I did. I came home because I was getting a letter about once every day from my husband. He was really depressed. He didn’t know if he was going to be out of a job, and nobody else would have hired him. So anyway it turned out not too bad.

[Assistant] That’s good. It’s reassuring to know he worked with people who believed in him to fight for his expertise.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I did come home.

[Assistant] You made that boat trip twice then.

[User] So I did. I came home because I was getting a letter about once every day from my husband. He was really depressed. He didn’t know if he was going to be out of a job, and nobody else would have hired him. So anyway it turned out not too bad.

[Assistant] That’s good. It’s reassuring to know he worked with people who believed in him to fight for his expertise.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] You spent a long time in Massachusetts. Is that where your home was for a while, you and your husband’s?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So I did. I came home because I was getting a letter about once every day from my husband. He was really depressed. He didn’t know if he was going to be out of a job, and nobody else would have hired him. So anyway it turned out not too bad.

[Assistant] That’s good. It’s reassuring to know he worked with people who believed in him to fight for his expertise.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] You spent a long time in Massachusetts. Is that where your home was for a while, you and your husband’s?

[User] Yes. He was there I guess until the ’70s. He had developed a heart problem so that he only served as a consultant to a few places. Then one day he had a heart attack and that was it.

[Assistant] What a loss. You spent so many years together working in the same location, but not doing the same thing. Did you feel like you had a professional competition or more of a professional partnership?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] You spent a long time in Massachusetts. Is that where your home was for a while, you and your husband’s?

[User] Yes. He was there I guess until the ’70s. He had developed a heart problem so that he only served as a consultant to a few places. Then one day he had a heart attack and that was it.

[Assistant] What a loss. You spent so many years together working in the same location, but not doing the same thing. Did you feel like you had a professional competition or more of a professional partnership?

[User] A partnership. Somebody once started that business of saying, “they are competitive.” Well, what they really should have said was that we were working for “companies that were competitive.” But of course when you read it, it didn’t come out that way. So that’s followed me.

[Assistant] When you first started out, were there many places for you as a female scientist to have been able to be employed? Was there a barrier against you because you were female, or did people just want to hire good scientists, chemists?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes. He was there I guess until the ’70s. He had developed a heart problem so that he only served as a consultant to a few places. Then one day he had a heart attack and that was it.

[Assistant] What a loss. You spent so many years together working in the same location, but not doing the same thing. Did you feel like you had a professional competition or more of a professional partnership?

[User] A partnership. Somebody once started that business of saying, “they are competitive.” Well, what they really should have said was that we were working for “companies that were competitive.” But of course when you read it, it didn’t come out that way. So that’s followed me.

[Assistant] When you first started out, were there many places for you as a female scientist to have been able to be employed? Was there a barrier against you because you were female, or did people just want to hire good scientists, chemists?

[User] I guess I didn’t know if there was a barrier. Even when I graduated with my PhD, I went to three different companies, and every one of them offered me something either I liked or didn’t like. So I didn’t feel that. But there was affirmative action. That was really important for women. When they made the reports, they had one person in a high place.

[Assistant] When I was looking through some information, I read that you gave a report at a conference held in 1964; you reported on the First International Conference on Women in Science and Engineering. Do you remember going to that [international] conference and how that conference came about? Were you involved in making that happen?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] It was in New York.

[Assistant] How exciting.

[User] It was exciting. It really was to me particularly since I had not spoken to these people, but I had had letters from them and in some cases phone calls. I expected to meet them when they came to the conference.\n\n One night each of us in the New York Society of Women Engineers section invited a few to a small dinner someplace. That was very nice. They were to wear the costumes of their country if they wanted to. I had one group, and it worked very well. We were living in the Cornell Club building. My husband became a member of the Cornell Club, so I had use of the dining room. There’s a dining room for women and a dining room for men. All my guests were women of course. They didn’t know that the dining room was a place where men didn’t come. But that was a nice dining room. It was a brand-new building. We were the first people to move in.\n\n Our furniture didn’t all get in till midnight that night. The man who ran it was from Germany I think. His wife was also. That night at midnight she brought us a beautiful cake, so we celebrated together.

[Assistant] That’s great. It was a long way from when you moved to New York for DuPont [Pioneer Research] in the room with the couch that folded out.

[User] That’s right. It was a long way from that. We had a balcony over three rooms, so we really had a real view of the other buildings and out toward the river. It was a very nice place.

[Assistant] Sounds like it. If it’s okay, I’m going to ask Jennifer if she’s got a question for you as well.