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Curfew Craziness
While Northwestern's male students didn't have curfews and other restrictions on their social lives, female students lived with women's rules until the early 1970s. "In my day, Frances Willard's presence was still here," says Virginia Landwehr (S54). "There was a book called Read and Be Right, and if you didn't, you were in trouble." Willard, best known for her work in the temperance and women's rights movements, was the University's first dean of women and set many of Northwestern's inaugural rules for females. "Life was definitely controlled, constrained and constructed by Read and Be Right," says Landwehr, who was dean of students from 1975 to 1992. "Women had to check out, sign out, indicate their destination and the person with whom they were going. When you returned home, you signed in. If you were seven minutes late, that was recorded by your name. Fifteen minutes of late time equaled a date jerk -- staying in on a Friday or Saturday night." Curfew in most cases was 10 p.m. on school nights and 1 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. Such regulations didn't bother Joan Viant Lindsay (S52, GSESP74), who was chosen as Evanston's and Northwestern's Centennial Queen in 1951. "At the time, I had just come in from a small town in Indiana, and I had so many other things to think about," she says. "The scholastic challenges were considerable." The most important change she's seen for Northwestern women is more intercollegiate athletics. "I really enjoyed athletic competitions, and there really weren't any," Lindsay says. "It's certainly changed now. I think that's terrific." Nor did Sudie Shelton Moseley (WCAS56) mind the restrictions. "I had transferred from a very strict women's college in Virginia," Moseley says. "I thought Northwestern was very liberal." The regulations covered more than curfews and keeping men out of women's residences. A 1955 booklet of house rules listed what women could wear and when they could wear it, to offer just one example. "Blue jeans, shorts, Bermuda shorts, or slacks are never worn at dinner," the book said. "Sunday noon, we dress in afternoon dresses, hose and heels rather than sweaters, socks and saddle shoes. Thursday night is candle-light dinner, and dress is the same as for Sunday dinner." The Bermuda shorts also couldn't be worn to classes, the student union or the library. To Rosalie Vernon Strom (SESP51), that's simply how female students dressed at the time. "Women didn't even wear slacks," says Strom, who commuted to campus. "I was quite mortified when I went to finals and some of the girls who lived on campus came in in slacks. I just thought, how slovenly that looks." The first protest against the double standard came in 1967, resulting in a trial run that allowed women visits to male living units. "Although students had the option of coed visitation, underclass women still had a dorm curfew," according to a centennial history supplement. "Further protest led the administration in March 1968 to provide all sophomore women with keys. ... The 'liberation' also caused the death of mandatory attendance at house and hall meetings." The first coed dorms appeared in 1970, effectively killing any lingering remnants of the women's rules. -- S.A.M.
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