{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/4j09w09j25/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Skinner, H. Catherine W., 2007 June 12"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/013/original/yale-blue.png?1678220072","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Preferred Citation"]},"value":{"en":["Skinner, H. Catherine W., 2007 June 12. Oral Histories Documenting Yale University Women (RU 1051). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.\n\n https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/12/resources/2559."]}},{"label":{"en":["Source Metadata URI"]},"value":{"en":["https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/12/archival_objects/801929"]}},{"label":{"en":["Publisher"]},"value":{"en":["Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library."]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["Access to the materials is partially restricted. See Collection Contents for details.\n\nOriginal computer files may not be accessed due to their fragility. Researchers must consult access copies."]}},{"label":{"en":["Identifier"]},"value":{"en":["mssa.ru.1051 (EAD ID)","RU 1051 (Call Number)","ru_1051_2012-a-053_skinner_h_catherine_w_audiorecording.mp3 (Digital Object ID)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2007 June 12 (Creation)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["The materials are open for research. (Accessrestrict)","H. Catherine W. Skinner was born in Brooklyn, New York, on January 25, 1931.  She took her B.A. at Mount Holyoke College in 1952, followed by an M.A. from Radcliffe College in 1954.  She met and married her husband, Brian Skinner, when they were both graduate students and thereafter her career followed his.  While he was completing his Harvard Ph.D., she worked as a crystallographer at Harvard Medical School, 1954-1955.  The Skinners moved to Australia when he was appointed to a position at the University of Adelaide.  She gained her Ph.D. in mineralogy there in 1959. Brian Skinner’s appointment at the United States Geological Survey in 1958 prompted their return to this country. With three small children, Catherine Skinner worked as a mineralogist at the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases, at the National Institutes of Health, 1961-1964, and then at the National Institute of Dental Research 1965-1966.  In 1966, Brian Skinner’s appointment as Professor of Geology brought them to Yale University.  Catherine Skinner has held a number of faculty positions at Yale, including Research Associate, Department of Surgery, 1967-1972; Senior Research Associate, Department of Surgery, 1972-1975; and Associate Professor of Biochemistry in Surgery, 1978-1984; as well as a variety of lectureships and affiliated positions since 1967 in the departments of Biology, Geology, Orthopedic Surgery and the Peabody Museum.  She was made a Senior Research Scientist in Geology in 2006 at the age of 75. \n\nDuring 1977-1983, Catherine Skinner was the first woman Master of Jonathan Edwards College and during 1985-1994, served as the first female President of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences.  She has held a number of visiting professorships at the universities of Harvard, Cornell, Wyoming, Adelaide and Stanford.  She was made a Fellow of the Geological Society of America (1989) and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1993).  In addition she has chaired national committees at the National Academy of Science, the Geological Society of America and the National Research Council, as well as chairing or serving on many committees at Yale University and Yale-New Haven Hospital.  She has written over 70 scientific papers on geology and health, and written or edited four books including Asbestos and other Fibrous Materials (Oxford University Press, 1988), Dana’s New Mineralogy (John Wiley, 1997), Geology and Health: Closing the Gap (Oxford U.P., 2003), and most recently a chapter in The Earth, Source of Health and Hazard: an Introduction to Medical Geology (Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 2007). (Bioghist)","Catherine Skinner talks about her family background and influences and the social expectations of young women in postwar America.  She reflects extensively on her social and intellectual experiences at Mount Holyoke and Radcliffe colleges, and more generally on the importance of women’s colleges as empowering intellectual communities for women of her generation. She recalls how and why newer scientific fields like molecular biology and environmental science have provided opportunities for women determined to pursue scientific careers in ways that the more traditional disciplines, like her own chosen field of geology, did not.  Throughout the interview she talks about scientists, mostly male, who helped her carve out a career in academic science, and the personal qualities and social support systems she believes helped her to succeed.   She reflects on the challenges she encountered in balancing marriage and family with a career, and how she negotiated the experience of often being the only woman in a man’s world (as she describes it).  She describes in detail how she found, and retained, employment as a scientist at Yale University, at a time when spousal hire was not an option, and addresses issues of status and salary in respect to women in the scientific community.   A major part of the interview is devoted to Dr. Skinner’s life as a College Master.  She speculates on why she was offered the job, and the challenges it brought, especially during the 1977 Yale strike, and the effect it had on her family life.  She also talks about the early years of co-education at Yale and how it and affirmative action changed the social and intellectual life of the university. (Scope and Content Note)","https://preservica.library.yale.edu/explorer/explorer.html#prop:4\u0026amp;433e57a4-1583-4b8a-8178-c4fd7fa03fbb (Other Finding Aid Note)","This material was originally acquired in 2009 as a direct network transfer from Yale shared network attached storage and artificial logical AD1 forensic images were created. AD1 images were extracted in May 2020 and resulting files processed. Audio files which had been originally recorded in short sequential tracks, were merged together into a single processed master wav file with fre:ac software. (Processinfo)"]}}],"summary":{"en":["The materials are open for research.","H. Catherine W. Skinner was born in Brooklyn, New York, on January 25, 1931.  She took her B.A. at Mount Holyoke College in 1952, followed by an M.A. from Radcliffe College in 1954.  She met and married her husband, Brian Skinner, when they were both graduate students and thereafter her career followed his.  While he was completing his Harvard Ph.D., she worked as a crystallographer at Harvard Medical School, 1954-1955.  The Skinners moved to Australia when he was appointed to a position at the University of Adelaide.  She gained her Ph.D. in mineralogy there in 1959. Brian Skinner’s appointment at the United States Geological Survey in 1958 prompted their return to this country. With three small children, Catherine Skinner worked as a mineralogist at the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases, at the National Institutes of Health, 1961-1964, and then at the National Institute of Dental Research 1965-1966.  In 1966, Brian Skinner’s appointment as Professor of Geology brought them to Yale University.  Catherine Skinner has held a number of faculty positions at Yale, including Research Associate, Department of Surgery, 1967-1972; Senior Research Associate, Department of Surgery, 1972-1975; and Associate Professor of Biochemistry in Surgery, 1978-1984; as well as a variety of lectureships and affiliated positions since 1967 in the departments of Biology, Geology, Orthopedic Surgery and the Peabody Museum.  She was made a Senior Research Scientist in Geology in 2006 at the age of 75. \n\nDuring 1977-1983, Catherine Skinner was the first woman Master of Jonathan Edwards College and during 1985-1994, served as the first female President of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences.  She has held a number of visiting professorships at the universities of Harvard, Cornell, Wyoming, Adelaide and Stanford.  She was made a Fellow of the Geological Society of America (1989) and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1993).  In addition she has chaired national committees at the National Academy of Science, the Geological Society of America and the National Research Council, as well as chairing or serving on many committees at Yale University and Yale-New Haven Hospital.  She has written over 70 scientific papers on geology and health, and written or edited four books including \u003ctitle render=\"italic\"\u003eAsbestos and other Fibrous Materials\u003c/title\u003e (Oxford University Press, 1988), \u003ctitle render=\"italic\"\u003eDana’s New Mineralogy\u003c/title\u003e (John Wiley, 1997), \u003ctitle render=\"italic\"\u003eGeology and Health: Closing the Gap\u003c/title\u003e (Oxford U.P., 2003), and most recently a chapter in \u003ctitle render=\"italic\"\u003eThe Earth, Source of Health and Hazard: an Introduction to Medical Geology\u003c/title\u003e (Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 2007).","Catherine Skinner talks about her family background and influences and the social expectations of young women in postwar America.  She reflects extensively on her social and intellectual experiences at Mount Holyoke and Radcliffe colleges, and more generally on the importance of women’s colleges as empowering intellectual communities for women of her generation. She recalls how and why newer scientific fields like molecular biology and environmental science have provided opportunities for women determined to pursue scientific careers in ways that the more traditional disciplines, like her own chosen field of geology, did not.  Throughout the interview she talks about scientists, mostly male, who helped her carve out a career in academic science, and the personal qualities and social support systems she believes helped her to succeed.   She reflects on the challenges she encountered in balancing marriage and family with a career, and how she negotiated the experience of often being the only woman in a man’s world (as she describes it).  She describes in detail how she found, and retained, employment as a scientist at Yale University, at a time when spousal hire was not an option, and addresses issues of status and salary in respect to women in the scientific community.   A major part of the interview is devoted to Dr. Skinner’s life as a College Master.  She speculates on why she was offered the job, and the challenges it brought, especially during the 1977 Yale strike, and the effect it had on her family life.  She also talks about the early years of co-education at Yale and how it and affirmative action changed the social and intellectual life of the university.","https://preservica.library.yale.edu/explorer/explorer.html#prop:4\u0026433e57a4-1583-4b8a-8178-c4fd7fa03fbb","This material was originally acquired in 2009 as a direct network transfer from Yale shared network attached storage and artificial logical AD1 forensic images were created. AD1 images were extracted in May 2020 and resulting files processed. Audio files which had been originally recorded in short sequential tracks, were merged together into a single processed master wav file with fre:ac software."]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["Access to the materials is partially restricted. See Collection Contents for details.\n\nOriginal computer files may not be accessed due to their fragility. Researchers must consult access copies."]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Manuscripts and Archives Yale University Library"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Manuscripts and Archives Yale University Library"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/013/original/yale-blue.png?1678220072","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/public/images/audio-default.png","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - open-uri20210827-32762-1cm91np.mpga"]},"duration":11537.592,"width":640,"height":40,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/public/images/audio-default.png","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-yalemssa.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/122/274/original/open-uri20210827-32762-1cm91np.mpga?1630069831","type":"Audio","format":"audio/mpeg","duration":11537.592,"width":640,"height":40},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["ru_1051_2012-a-053_skinner_h_catherine_w_edited_transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SKINNER061207\r\n\r\nINTERVIEWER: It is the 12 of June, 2007 and I am here in the Klein Geology Lab to interview Catherine Skinner.  \r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: We're off and running?\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: I think we are. Yes, yes.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Well first of all, Florence I wanted to say basically that this is a very exciting moment for me.  I have been a woman on my own for so long in the field of science at Yale that I feel very honored to be part of this oral history.  Second of all I'm delighted to have the interview be in Florence.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Well thank you very much.  So we're off at a gallop.  I think as we talked before I thought that the best way to structure the interview is to divide it into basically three sections. The first looking to the background and influences, then second is about your career here at Yale, what it's like to be a woman in science and all the things that you've achieved at Yale which I know there are a great number of things.  And then I hope if we have time at the end to look at the third section which is the big picture, the bigger picture of looking at women in higher education, what do you perceive the situation to be and what you think the trajectory is going to be because I think it is still something that is very debated.  We haven't arrived there yet.  And it would be great to hear your views as somebody who has been in the game for 15 years or more.  And it would be great to hear what you think about where we should be going, what we should be aiming for.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Good.  I certainly will look forward to that last option.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Good.  Now you're an east coaster.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Would you like to start on my background?\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yes.  Yeah let's talk a little bit about your family and where you grew up and what sort of expectations do you have from your mother and other relatives.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Yes.  I grew up in New York City, I was born in Brooklyn.  I also ended a very long time in undergraduate materials at Mt. Holyoke, but let me start very early by saying that my father didn't have a son but I was the first born and he was in construction.  And I think he sort of understood that I would never go into construction, it was no anticipated, but that I could go out and collect all the rocks from the construction sites.  And I think it probably colored everything I did thereafter because I am still a mineralogist and I still look at rocks.  But I think the major influence on me was my mother who at a very early age before she was married was a person in the retail side of New York City's big department store as a buyer at a very young age.  She went abroad as a buyer for Stearns, which was one of the big department stores in the '20s and '30s.  And when she got married, she did what most women did and that was left her job and stayed at home.  She was a help meet for my father's business but I think she felt very strongly that he didn't run it as strongly as she might have being an organized lady and full of enthusiasms for things that she could organize.  And I think the apple is not falling far from the tree.  My other earliest remembrances are of family associations in which no one discussed anything related to science.  So I think I have to understand that my background through my earliest stages of first being at public schools and then going to a very small high school in which the graduating class was 16, male and female.  Which was private in Forest Hills.  And I have to say that I remember that with great fondness on one level and the fact that I then got into Mt. Holyoke College as a result of what I did there because the woman who was not the head of the school but the person who organized people applying to college, was very insistent that myself and two other members of our class.  Now out of 16, that was a rather large proportion.\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=0.0,300.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: All went to Mt. Holyoke, and all got in.  And yes it was 1948 but there were three of us who went and three of us who graduated.  And only two of us are still alive but only myself graduated in a science.  Anyway to move on more specifically from my education -- \r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Are you implying from that then that academic success was not a priority amongst the girls in your peer group when you were at high school?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Absolutely.  I do believe that the other members of the class even though they all went on to higher education, did other things constructively but were not encouraged to have careers.  It was not the time for a career and when I graduated in 1952 from Mt. Holyoke, I still think that was the, in fact it was even more so because that was the return of service men who wanted family and normal life, whatever that was from their perspective.  And I think most women felt that that was what was due.  I think my mother felt that that was what was due and she was horrified when I wanted to go on to graduate school.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: So you planned in your mind at least that you wanted a career?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I think I did in the sense that I was fascinated by the geology graduate work that I could see was on the horizon.  Not that I knew much about it, but I associated with young men who were at Amherst College who were doing geology because we founded a small geology talk group  between what was then three colleges, no four, Amherst, University of Massachusetts, Smith and Mt. Holyoke for the geologists to invite people to come and speak to this group as an independent to what they might do in their college activities.  And to give you the first story that relates to Yale, when I was President of that group in my senior year at Mt. Holyoke, we invited John Rogers up.  Now John Rogers was then a bright young star here at the Yale Geology Department and we invited him up to give a talk.  And I can't really remember anything that he said in detail except that he was [instructurial] geology that was three dimensional and everything that went along with why I thought minerals were wonderful.  But the interesting part of the story is that when I was doing my work in Australia as part of my PhD, we sent my first paper to John Rogers to be published in the American Journal of Science and it was accepted and then many years later when we arrived here, I became very close with John.  And I can still remember his being at Mt. Holyoke because he wanted ice cream after his talk and we thought that was wonderful.  We all liked ice cream.  Anyway, I'll go back to that if there's any reason to do it.  But the person who I remembered from my experiences in geology was not delightedly the people at Mt. Holyoke, but the people at Amherst.  Because when I wanted to go to graduate school, one of my associates whom I was pinned to at the time, which was the way in which young people would know how they would move from college to marriage, was going to apply to Yale and I would go to his lab and work with him at Amherst and I got to know the Head of the Department at Amherst College.  And the Head of the Department at Holyoke told me that I wasn't supposed to apply for graduate school because it was not for women.  So even Mt. Holyoke had people who were not interested.  The other person in the department, it was two men, excuse me, department, David Holly was very supportive of all of the women.  There were four geology majors my year, which was the largest group they'd ever had.  And of those, two out of the four went on to either industry, I went on to graduate school.  But David Holly wrote part of me recommendation which I sent to Harvard and to Yale.\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=300.0,600.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: I wanted to go to Yale of course and be with this young man who was already there.  But too Harvard, I applied to Harvard because that's the only other place I knew about at the time that had a Geology Department.  And the issues that then developed in getting on from and was accepted not at Yale but at Harvard, I just decided to pursue that.  And as I said my family was a little bit disconcerted and my mother made sure that the chap that they thought was appropriate for me at home came up and visited me at Harvard with a large diamond ring which I naturally refused.  But anyway I was obviously an ornery cuss at a very early age.  But on arriving at Harvard I also went ahead of time to have an interview with the Head of the Department interview people.  His name was Cornelius Hilbert.  And I ended up coming because of Cornelius being a very welcoming person.  But the only other thing is I couldn't really sign on at Harvard, I had to sign on at Radcliffe.  So in those days, one didn't go to the male side of the school, one went to the female side of the school.  And as a matter of fact all my exams, even though I was the only woman in the Harvard Geology Department when I arrived, and there was one other who arrived but didn't last, I had to take all my exams at Radcliffe.  So they had to send it over to Radcliffe, I had to go there and sit for the exam in Radcliffe and then they'd send it back to be marked by the very people I was taking my course from.  It was rather, I think back on it as being sort of peculiar but you did what was required in order to get around.  The other thing I did which I really enjoyed when I went to Harvard I had had some experience at being at Mt. Holyoke a junior and a freshman dorm.  The situation at Mt. Holyoke was that you had freshman dorms and you had parietal rules and a house mother and all of those sort of things.  But in each of the dorm there would be 15 juniors who would help you acclimatize yourself to the local environment.  And so as a junior, a group of 15 of us who were together in that dorm which was called Porter, went back as juniors in the freshman dorm.  And so when I got to Harvard, I signed up to do house mothering on occasion if they needed someone to fill in.  And I was accepted and I did that a couple of weekends.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Did you do that at Harvard?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: No Radcliffe.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: I just wanted to check on that here.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Yes and it was Radcliffe only for the women and I had to be in residence for the weekend.  But of course it was kind of fun and games and I loved the opportunity to be in the Radcliffe dorm because I had checked into an apartment in Cambridge with one of my fellow graduates from this Porter group.  She was in doing child psychology and I was in the sciences.  Now having just been on my 55th reunion, Molly Gibson, which was her name, and I who engaged this apartment on [Hidiot] Street, right in the center of what is now bustling Cambridge.  I was bringing various men back to the apartment and one of the men that I brought back who was taking on a graduate study in the geology department was actually thinking of switching into medicine.  Well he and Molly got along extraordinarily well and they've now been married for the same distance of time as my husband and I have 53 years.  Molly and Tex, his name is Basil, Tex we used to call him because he was from Texas, was a charming young man who knew everything and that is why he is still one of the leading people in treatment in the country.  Basil [Pruitt].  And we've spent part of this past weekend at the 55th together and that was a reunion of great delight.  But anyway Basil insists that it is only because I got introduced to geology and then brought him to introduce him to Molly.  But you know that's how things work and it was a very wonderful outcome for both of us.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: So university, as we would say back in the UK was as much a marriage mark as it was an intellectual venture.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Absolutely.  And I knew that the person that my parents had picked out for me, \r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=600.0,900.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: although he was a charming young man, was never going to be interested in the intellectual activities and I saw in the graduate students, all of whom \"accepted me.\"  And I don't think I had any major problems with them.  I mean we all you know sort of went out and drank beer at the end of a long day but I was taken along and somebody would see me home because it was the thing to do.  But I married one of my geology graduate students an we've been doing this geology together for a number of years.  Not in the same field, which we'll get to eventually.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yeah, I'm sure we'll get to that in the end.  I know that there was a lovely quote I came across when I was doing the research for this project by Margaret Mead.  I think she said at one time that women could be educated like men but they were actually taught to prefer marriage.  I think what you're saying, that was possibly the case for most of your peers.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Yes and what's interesting and I'm looking back on it as I said from 55 years, is how many of those are single because of either divorce or widowhood.  And all of them are still manfully, and that's a funny word but it is the way in which people think of sort of shouldering on to do something constructive.  And all of them who have had careers in teaching mostly or in doing good works in the volunteer category, are still doing it.  And I think many of them, are you know, getting frail and cutting back but others are not and still going forward.  I can certainly go through great long stories about individuals whom I admire for what they are still doing.  This group of 15 whom I know very well, Molly for example, that I've already mentioned, has just stepped down from the Board of Education in San Antonia area where she has been on for something like 20 years.  She plays the organ at the church.  I mean these are the kind of things that people have done.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: It is an interesting conundrum in that women of your generation, it wasn't that women didn't have careers but actually most women who are interested in life and their communities have had their careers they just haven't been paid for it.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Absolutely.  And I don't think they're going to get paid.  I think the volunteer organizations never contribute to that level or their volunteers at all in spite of the fact that many of them are essential for the forward motion.  Let me go back to something that you might, or someone might find of interest.  In the process of understanding what women were to do, I think Mt. Holyoke always gave us the courage to do whatever we felt we were capable of doing.  And this was the intellectual courage that all of us needed to carry on what we felt was right and what we felt was appropriate for our environment.  And I mean that in the broadest sense of the word because many of the women who were in my class and I haven't really kept up with as many as I would like, have gone on to be physicians overseas and many of them were not ever married.  But those who did take on other careers I think have always felt that Mt. Holyoke was an amazing source of support, of collegiality, and you know made it possible for this to happen.  At this reunion, I see that they are really continuing that with a broader range of national and international students.  That's their focus, and I was very impressed.  A, with my reunion class, but also the other classes who were there and spoke with people, one of them from South Africa who was extraordinarily busy having married a South African and was back for her, I think she was class of '77.  This is pervasive.  I also have a daughter who is class of '77.  And she is the breadwinner for her family.  It is astounding what the college has done for those people who were willing to take it.  And I think we have to say that the choices to go to college are still basically where one is going to find one's future.  I am more and more impressed by the fact that being accepted and partaking of a full college activity, whether it is Yale or Mt. Holyoke, will suit you for whatever is in the future and I still think that's how women are going to make it.\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=900.0,1200.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"INTERVIEWER: It's interesting to hear you say that because so much of the debate in the post war period in the late '0s and '50s when you look at the sort of reports on education at the time, they seem to be talking about how, what's the best kind of education a woman could have because her main profession would be motherhood.  Marriage and motherhood.  So how best do you educate a woman for that? And yet you're saying at Mt. Holyoke, yes most of them got married, probably most of the women also had children, but they were given an education that allowed them to do whatever they wanted to do.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: And I think that's very important.  Because I think women need to have their own person in what they're understanding about themselves in order to have that courage that I was talking about.  Because the world is throwing things out to us now and most of us are going to have to be on our own two feet without necessarily a partner.  Or if a partner, a partner who may need more dependency situation than we would have anticipated.  So motherhood has now, maybe I think should be personhood.  It should be something that individuals realize that learning to cook is the same as taking a course in chemistry and fixing the plumbing is just a good way of understanding what you learned in physics.  And in order to carry on a good conversation, you need to be schooled in your English and perhaps foreign languages and literature, but you also need to be compassionate.  And I still think women are more compassionate than most men.  And they talk with one another.  I find that I have a lot of close friends and we share things and when I bring them up to my husband, he doesn't want to listen.  He just doesn't have a feeling that he wants to share.  He is a real male, and that real male means to him that he doesn't have some of these feelings at all.  Or he doesn't want to even come to the critical side of understanding his own feelings on a level that he would make himself vulnerable.  And I think that vulnerability is not something that some of my friends are ashamed of.  And I think that's why personhood should be forced in our educational process.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: That is really interesting to hear you say that.  The idea of developing an education that enables everyone the respect of their gender to be whole.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: And that also gets to understanding the sociology and religion and everything that we're sort of tearing about with today in the world scene, horrifying as though it is to read the newspapers and to see people blowing each other up.  Whether they are in the US or other countries in the world.  The understanding that young need that education to be supportive of things that are best for each other and themselves is not taught.  In fact, one of the supporting groups at Mt. Holyoke is really looking into getting women to understand how to do presentations on this level of things to their associates but also to corporations and things like that where it is so important that understanding the other side of the fence.  And I think this is the other side of the fence that people are not honoring yet, but must in our world.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: And in the '50s too I think there was a sense that marriage ad motherhood was a woman's patriotic duty, wasn't it?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Absolutely.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: And that was defending the right values to do that.  How did you find, where were you off that kind of, I suppose we could call it almost propaganda, certainly an ideology.  How aware of it were you in your own life and how did you think about the possibility when you married Brian that would have children and how would you negotiate your intellectual pursuits and passions with the passions of family life?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I think there are two very important points in my life relative to that that I can only sort of document for you.  One is certainly at college, graduation day was marriage day for many of my associates and I was married two years after having gone to graduate school.\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=1200.0,1500.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: But nevertheless thought of this as being the forward motion.  I am sure it came to me from my family.  My mother was very, I only have one sister, but she was very much a believer in family activities and we had a reasonably close although not very you know warm and friendly and fuzzy.  I think we all went out own way in what we were doing.  I also believe that the kind of familial background that she brought with her as an independent woman came through in what I was expected to do.  That she had had a job, it was very wonderful.  She spoke about it a lot.  I think my associates at college necessarily did not have mothers of such variety.  And so the station wagon with four kids in the back was the way in which the future was going to hold for them.  They were all as you said earlier, looking for the college man who was going to make all of that work and give them the lifestyle in which that could take place.  I certainly never even though that I would have a station wagon with four children in it.  That wasn't my interests.  My interests were more in the intellectual side already as I was in.  As I said I was trying to go to graduate school by meeting these young men who were also doing their work.  By the way, the young man in Amherst died as a result of being swept away in his Alaskan work as a graduate student at Yale.  So he didn't live long enough to move on to marriage at any level.  So I regrouped and went to the Harvard group.  And I also think the issues that relate to marriage among graduate students is that several of them arrived at graduate school married and we were very friendly with a couple of those married graduate students, and in fact announced our engagement at one of their apartments.  And kept in touch.  In other words, it was the fact that those people were making it work.  Now neither of the wives of the graduate students worked.  They were stay at home wives.  But the men accepted me.  And in fact one of them became the Head of the US Geological Survey in Washington, D.C. who was a member of my class at Harvard.  I ended up not getting my degree from Harvard because my husband left when he finished his degree and therein lies another intellectual story.  Because I took the opportunity when I finished a masters degree and knew that we were going to be only three more months at Harvard before we were moving to Australia so he could take up an academic position.  I went to work using a opportunity because I was then in x-ray defraction technically trained by one of my professor's at Harvard, Clifford Frendel.  And went to the Yale Medical School with this technique to work for a woman who had just joined the faculty at Harvard Medical School working on molecular biology doing crystal structure work on the proteins, which was a brand new area.  Molecular biology was just coming into it's own.  The crystallography group at Oxford in Cambridge, the ladies who had won Nobel prizes for doing the structure of insulin and the kind of Kathleen Lonsdale who was working on mineralogy of all kinds of things in the human body.  Which I have to say, she must have had a bigger impression because that's what I do today.  Were given great accolades for the work that they were doing which was not trivial.  This required a great deal of calculation, of understanding, of the mathematic side of this, of three dimension array, which again as I was saying was my delights.  On the other hand I didn't realize that when I went to the Harvard Medical School for just the few months while my husband finished his dissertation and before we left for Australia, that I would meet the people who were working in a brand new field and I never looked back.\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=1500.0,1800.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: This has been an area which I have found a great deal of satisfaction in trying to keep up with.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Isn't it interesting that a new field was developing and women were at the forefront in it?  Do you think there's a connection?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Absolutely.  I think there's a connection because I think they were so right that the people in molecular biology at Cambridge, now I'm going to blank on the names because I've been trying so hard to remember them.  Francis Crick and the people who were in the protein area which I really should have looked up before we got started or I opened this conversation.  But I am sure if anybody was looking at molecular biology Nobel prize winners they would see all these same names.  Were willing to take anyone in the lab and these women were very good at calculations and math and they weren’t being sort of put aside for their motherhood activities but were interested in going on.  And yes they were accepted because they were really accomplished women.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Could you not argue that they were accepted because this was routine mathematical work or like in astronomy where there were all those calculators, female calculators at the Harvard Observatory.  This was something the ladies could do?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Yes behind the scenes and weren’t in front.  But you see I think Helen [Bugaw] who was in geology and Kathleen Lonsdale and Dorothy [Crow Fithutchkin] and the first one I mentioned I'm blanking, were so outstanding in thinking through the problem with people.  In other words they were part of teams. That's what molecular biology really was.  And just as the astronomy group required teams, but the team first person was just somebody but they were the one's who did the hard scrabble work.  And I think in this case, this was well before computers could do all this calculation for crystallography and they understood the [Patterson] functions and the [Forie transferums] and all of those things just as any male.  And in fact they were teaching it as well at the time that they were doing this work.  And they stayed on at Cambridge.  Not it is possible that Cambridge and Oxford had a much better understanding of women's capacity because they had whole colleges that were already women.  And I've never looked into the forward motion of what those women did from St. Catherine's or whatever.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: You're not the first person to have brought that up.  I've talked to other women scientists here at Yale that I've been talking to have said exactly the same thing, kind of wondered if there's something about the history and tradition of the women's colleges in Britain has been instrumental in enabling women to excel in science in a way that maybe they haven't been able to in the US.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I think Mt. Holyoke did that.  You see I think as a woman's college, Mt. Holyoke was really very strong and still is strong in science.  And that meant that there was a support and a good education that you could take and move off into in places where your intellectual capacity would be valued.  But maybe you didn't make it all the way up the ladder because of taking on motherhood and other things which was a no no.  I mean often people said you can't have a job.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Somebody else actually did say to me that she often wondered too if there's a kind of British culture that it tolerates eccentricity in a way that American culture maybe does not.  And so being a single woman wasn't quite as kind of odd.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Exactly.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: In the Oxford context because it was just kind of independent and rather eccentric.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I would certainly think of that as a very obvious answer to the issues of what the English women's colleges, especially in the Oxford Cambridge group had. And I think that Bryn Mawr and Mt. Holyoke and Radcliffe and maybe even the other sisters have made differences.  One of my associates at Mt. Holyoke has published way back 25 years ago an article about women\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=1800.0,2100.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: in the women's colleges who graduated and went on to PhD degrees and were making contributions.  I should look that article up and give it to you because that, [Jess Tiakowsky's] daughter was one of those people and Jess Tiakowsky became the science advisor to which President -- maybe it was Eisenhower?  It was somebody, he was the science -- whoever appointed the first Science Advisor, it was Tiakowsky and his daughter was a physics major from Mt. Holyoke College.  And she and another member of her class at Mt. Holyoke published an article in science about the various women's colleges who made major contributions in women in science.  And how they continue to have careers in science.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: I must check Margaret's book on women scientists in the US and see if it's mentioned in the bibliography.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Probably.  But I can always, I'm sure there are many references to this.  In fact I think this has also come up again in more recent history, I don't know it's the last three years but certainly the last five to seven years about what women's colleges are noted for.  And many of them have elected to stay single sex and these are the ones that are still giving the courage and personhood idea, I think.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: I was curious to hear to say that it was almost an accident that you happened upon the molecular biology by doing this three month stint waiting for your husband to finish his doctorate.  Did you ever have any, or did you seek out any kind of mentoring?  Or were you just left to your own devices to figure it out?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I have been asking myself that since we started with this whole idea of oral history.  And I can say that there are some wonderful people along the way, but whether I had any mentors other than my husband, which is a one off kind of thing, I don't think so.  I mean people have been helpful and yes you could call them mentors, but when I moved myself from one level to another, I think I realized what I was looking at.  And maybe it was the fact that I came from a New York City where one was always sort of looking out for oneself, more personal way than maybe from some other environments.  That I realized that I could move and didn't, my mother said well you'll never take no for an answer.  And I think that has characterized my situation.  And it still is.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: I'm kind of pursuing this because I wonder what advice, what career advice Brian had.  Did he have?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Yes, he tells the story about how he graduated in geology at the Adelaide University which was where we were going after he had finished his PhD and they offered him a position for teaching.  And he had been a student there when Sir Douglas Mawson, who was the great Antarctic explorer was on the faculty, and I met him certainly when I arrived there.  But the person who really made a difference to him is that he majored in economic geology and went to a mine in Tasmania.  A mine in [Zeon].  And as he was being the shift boss, which was a pretty lowly position, it suddenly occurred to him that he might need to get some more education and that this was not the life for him.  Because on one of his shifts somebody fell into the shaft and was killed and he had to make out all the paperwork that went along with it and this obviously was pretty awe inspiring, but also looking to the future he didn't want to be spending his life doing that.  And so this person who was his mentor who worked for the mining company said to him, \"My boy, you ought to think about moving off to gain some better education.\"  And Brian had responded, \"Well, I guess I'll apply to Oxford.\"  And this fellow said, \"Oh no\" -- there after the war, this was 1946 -- \"you don't want to go there, they're still recovering from the war.  You want to go to Canada or the US.  Preferably the US.  Just look up some of the institutions there and apply.\"  And so he applied to Harvard and they accepted him.  That's how he came to Harvard.  And that's where I met him.  So yes there's always somebody who is making a suggestion and if you don't act on it on your own advice or own courage,  you're not going to do it.\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=2100.0,2400.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"INTERVIEWER: Did anyone ever tell him well yes you're doing your PhD and you're married, warning him off getting married to soon it would effect once we had all the responsibilities of wife and family that that wouldn't do his career any good?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I don't think I even thought of it and my family didn't make it an obvious thing.  The one thing they were unfortunately unhappy about was that I was moving to Australia.  And they had never met my in-laws, I had never met my in-laws. So courage as I keep coming back to is a very important word.  We had an eight months time to go between the US and Australia and we took it by doing a trip all through Europe and through India.  And I think we got to know each other very well about our various outlooks on life.  I dragged him to all the churches and art things and he looked at all the geology and I kept going on my geology background.  I think that has been the biggest assist in my focusing on the area of geology which was definitely not a woman's field.  Had I not gone and stayed I think in the field of molecular biology side of geology, although my PhD in Adelaide University was on a strictly geologic topic, I think I kept asking questions at that, might be called a molecular and atomic level.  And that I think was instilled by being very interested in this area of x-ray defraction that allowed me to go into molecular biology.  With a group that was getting Nobel prizes, I mean it was obviously the thing to do.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: And it also probably protected you somewhat from the general kind of trying to succeed in a man's world because this was something where women were carving out for themselves.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Exactly.  And the other thing is obviously never wanted to work in a mine.  They wouldn't have accepted me, in fact there were times when I was with Brian going to a mine in which I was not allowed to go underground period.  Now I've been underground in some mines and I'm not anxious to keep going.  I remember the size of the cockroaches and the one in India that certainly put me off.  But that was not my field.  My field was to look at the mineral materials and look at them from the techniques that I had been school in, chemical geology.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: So we've been talking now for three quarters of an hour and we haven't even gotten to Australia yet.  I am really curious to know what it was like when you got to Australia and Brian was settling into his first job and you were pursuing your graduate work?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: No I couldn't because they had no women in the department.  But I had a good background in the educational field and the present Head of the Department had some field projects that he thought would be interesting and I said, \"Oh yes, I'm on for that.\"  One of them was extremely down in the southeast of Australia and so he was in fact willing to let me sign on as the first woman to have a PhD career in geology at the Adelaide University.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Do you think Australia generally was more open to women doing this kind of work?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Yes.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: I mean that is a very broad kind of statement.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I think so because I think the people who were in various, I mean this particular gentleman who was the head of the Department of Geology had been at Cambridge and probably had seen other women in the field.  This was now, 1955 when I arrived there.  And this was just the time when the women in the Oxbridge environment were making a lot of contributions and he would have seen that as part of his -- he wouldn't have been turned off.  He certainly made it very, relatively easy for me to matriculate.  As a student I just signed on, I know I talked about a project, I helped set up the x-ray defraction laboratory with my husband, it was a benefit to the Department and so we never looked back.  I worked with the Commonwealth Industrial Scientific Organization people who were also working on an x-ray defraction project in the same building.  They were very helpful to me in doing my work in my PhD.  I still am in association with them.\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=2400.0,2700.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: I published a book with one of them much later.  But in other words I found a fertile environment for doing my work, but as any graduate student knows, you're on your own.  You find what you can do both from the point of view of equipment that you need, optical scanning scope, whatever else was required.  The x-ray defraction machine, chemistry laboratory. \r\n\nINTERVIEWER: When did you start having children?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I forgot to say, I think the first story that you need to hear is that I took my first born into the laboratory in her pram.  And in the Geology Department.  Arthur Aldman, by the way was the Head of the Department and he brought down to introduce me to a very important person not realizing that my daughter was in the lab.  And came in to see me and there I was trying to calm this babe down.  And the person who was coming in was from the Australia National University checking out on all of the Geology Department activities and I was introduced, I'm sure Arthur Aldman probably never recovered from this.  As a graduate student he had signed up to work on a project.  Nevertheless in three years we did all the work and the PhD went through and I threw it in the door as I left to come back from Australia to the US with my husband who was off on a new job at the US Geological Survey.  But I managed the making work happen by taking the daughter to the lab and going it at all the odd hours day and night to do what I needed to do and write it much to my wonderful family that I inherited from my husband who again couldn't realize what I was about but they were willing to assist and do some babysitting and things of that nature.  \r\n\nINTERVIEWER: So you did actually have some sort of support network?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Oh yes.  And we didn't earn much money but we certainly enjoyed what we did and we traveled down to my field area, which in my father's [humba], my father in law's humba, at one stage when I was very pregnant and he was willing to part with the car so I could gather samples.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: That's a lovely story. So you, how long were you in Australia before then, you came back to your husband worked then at the US Geological Survey.  How long was it before then you both fetched up at Yale?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Ah.  We were, I when I came back I did not come back to a job.  I was offered a position at the US Geological Survey.  However I felt very strongly that the area that I was being offered it could have done all the right things for me, but I had been bitten by the molecular biology and one of the wonderful people I met at the US Geological Survey, a woman named Joann Clark who literally has just died, was a crystallographer and so she and I had common cause.  And she told me that out at the National Institutes of Health in the Institute of Arthritis that there was a new molecular biology group starting up and that she would give me the name of those people and so I went and interviewed with them.  I think they sort of, both of whom were the Head of the section was from England, David Devis, was very supportive of the fact that I would like to work even though I had children and that I would manage it.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Did your children come up?  In your interview?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I don't remember that it did.  But David was a Welshman and I think he was also wrapped up in the new molecular biology and he wanted as many assistants who could manipulate crystals and x-ray defraction gear that I fit the bill perfectly because I had done just that at Harvard before I had left for Australia.  \r\n\nINTERVIEWER: You said that it was a woman who gave you the contact for this?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Absolutely.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: So there was some kind of all girl network beginning.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: It is interesting because this woman, Joann Clark who has just passed on has never been given her just desserts either.  She never was involved but two associates of hers won the Nobel Prize for another kind of calculation.\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=2700.0,3000.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: Of the sort that the people I was talking about earlier could have gotten.  They got the Nobel Prize but she who demonstrated that the calculation would work, has never been honored.  We're going to make sure that that happens because she is a graduate PhD from John Hopkins and I'm going to make sure that that is not glossed over in her future.  The women's issues are that at the National Institutes of Health there were more women doing work than at the Geological Survey in positions of relative scientific power, let's put it that way.   The whole section I was in was all male.  On the other hand there were female in associated sections in the National Institutes of Health who were working on biological problems that were associated with molecular biology and we were all thrown together, eating lunches together and talking about each others research activities.  And this is just burdened, but I have to confess that with family at home and other commitments to geologists, I really saw less of some of the women in the National Institutes of Health, I made friends with men and it was their wives that I would associate with.  And we still have those associates.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: So by that time did you have three children?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I had my third child while I was working, yes.  I was one and a half when I came back, I had the second one before I started in NIH and when she was, let's see 16 months old I put her into a kindergarten that was right across the way from NIH and very shortly thereafter we had number three.  So we have three daughters.  It is determination and the fact you know my husband was willing to put up with it.  But the nicest thing was that where we lived in Chevy Chase was closer to NIH so I could be the mom delivering and picking up of these children while he went down into the center of Washington to be at the US Geological Survey.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Again that reminds me of different things that I've read in the research.  Some people have argued that it was the massive suburbanization of the states in the post war period that actually worked against women working because of this just big traveling of the commuting all the time.  Commuting to kindergartens, to your place of work, and then back.  It just became, it was such a big issue that you'd spend so many hours of the day in the car.  And so it is interesting to hear you say that the kindergarten was just across the street from where you were working.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Yes and there weren’t that many kindergartens.  Again I think was related, this kindergarten was supported by one of the churches.  I think it was Presbyterian or one of that crowd.  And there were a number of women who worked in NIH who had their children in the kindergarten.  And that's how I found out that that was a possibility.  So again there is this informal contribution to everybody's forward motion in the science side.  Because the NIH as you rightly put it was out from the center of Washington in Bethesda and it was growing like leaps and bounds.  There were lots and lots of women who had taken up jobs here.  Many of them were lab tech kind of jobs but they still needed a place to put their children.  And so the idea that one could have a place that would take them while you were at work, which was not trivial it was an eight hour day.  Not just mornings or afternoons.  Although I expect some of the techs worked with that understanding.  And then it was expensive.  So if you weren’t earning any money, that also made it difficult.  And then you needed a supportive husband.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: It is interesting, just what you've outlined is still exactly the same issues that are being discussed today in terms of women getting on in the workplace.  They really haven't changed have they?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: No and I think the corporate structure has not understood that women have so many jobs.  I always go back to -- who was it -- \r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=3000.0,3300.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: -- the President who said he could, somebody said he can't walk and chew gum at the same time?\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: That was Gerald Ford.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Gerald Ford.  I mean if women can't you know, cook dinner, take care of baby and deal with the toddler under their feet and talk on the phone at the same time. And that's what my mother used to say, \"Can't we get you something to do with your feet?\"  I mean it was just amazing how women were able to manufacture everything and keep to a schedule and do it all.  I think we don't honor that as much as we should.  So I agree that today the corporate world needs to be a little more successful in undertaking women's issues in thinking about the forward motion of their corporation from their workers' point of view.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: And of course it is interesting to hear Yale talk about family friendly policies so that both men and women can take advantage of these things.  And I sometimes wonder if it actually the men who are taking advantage of it over the women.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I was about to make that comment.  But since you have I'll go one to something else.  I think the academic community has been lukewarm about this.  And I don't know how much you have really since you've been recently at Yale felt that a lot of the women appointed at Yale now they look to get a job for the men.  But when I came to Yale, they weren’t looking to get a job for me.  Although Brian was coming to a very responsible position.  And obviously I was a working wife.  I had to bring my own money, I had to come with a grant and then maybe they would appoint me in one of the places where I could have a physical site.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Did you even, because I think you and Brian came here what, in 1966?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: That's correct.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yeah.  Did you or Brian even think of the possibility of trying to get you hired?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I think I thought but I don't think he thought.  I think he felt as though what I was going to do would be secondary.  I had three children, I was a caring mother but I knew I wasn't going to spend 24 hours a day at that.  And although I think the department wasn't very welcoming to me, I think he knew that I was going to find someplace.  And the person who really helped me out a lot on that level was Fred Richards.  Who was in molecular biology and who actually took the job that I started at Harvard's Medical School when I left.  He went into that position and then it became a position.  And Fred is a remarkable person, still is, still works on molecular biology and he was welcoming to support my application for getting a role in any place I could find it.  When I was at the NIH I started with the Arthritis Institute, but after I had been there for about three years, four years, a position opened up in the National Institute for Dental Research.  And they were looking for someone with my background and I applied and got the job.  Now the only unfortunate thing about that is it was very shortly thereafter that my husband was offered the job at Yale.  And so I realized that I was going to leave my newly found job, which I was only in for a little over a year at the Dental Institute, but they were willing because of a woman who was in the upper ends of that Dental Institute, Marie Nylon who said we'll give you a grant opportunity to take to set you up at Yale.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: So you could take the job that way?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: No.  Yale could give me a position because I would bring my own money.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Ah, right I understand.  Yes.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I think that is still the case.  I don't know how many double salaries Yale is putting out for faculty.  I mean one of the problems basically was because Brian and I would be in the same department, it would look like nepotism.  And I think Yale frowned on that.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Was the word nepotism ever mentioned in your presence?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I think it was subliminal all the time.  Because I am clearly not a person to take a back seat.  \r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=3300.0,3600.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: So if there is a question to be asked and if I think I want to know the answer I will ask it whether it is the Professor of Geology or Surgery or whomever it is.  I need to voice my question because I am intellectually curious.  And I don't think that's unique to me.  Nepotism was definitely on his mind.  Because he has always had a problem with the Geology Department and my getting a position here.  That is for later on in our discussion.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Right.  OK.  So you came with your money from NIH.  So where did you actually have your (inaudible).\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: No.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Are you comfortable?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Yup.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Where did you actually base yourself?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I was given a position in Orthopedics because a gentleman named Jim Albright heard of me, I was going around looking for somebody, I was coming form the Dental Institute.  Yale did not have a dental group.  I was introduced to them, they did not have any laboratory space it was all clinical and industry.  They were very pleasant to me.  I was on a couple of committees they had as soon as I got a position in the Medical School.  And the reason I got into the Medical School is that Jim Albright was very anxious that someone with my background in mineral, which of course is why bone is very important.  Without minerals I keep saying, we'd be jellyfish.  So it is important that he got somebody that could set up a lab.  So when I got my grant, I wrote it with the express reason that I would set it up in the orthopedics department with Jim.  And he and I have got a book together and things like that, we're still great friends.  The Department of Surgery of which orthopedics was in a subset was a little unnerved I think.  Because I don't think they had any women in the department at all.  But since I was a researcher and I was not going to be you know, Professor of, I was going to be a research associate or something of that nature, it was OK.  And the lab got set up and I was, I got two rounds of the grant and then the third round did not work for funding.  And of course that was tough because by that time I had really got a lot of insight into things that I really wanted to carry through on and I then ended up spending a little time teaching in various places.  But the first place I went to was Harvard because the Associate in Peabody Museum known as Fuzz Crumpton, he was the Head of the Peabody Yale, moved to Harvard's Peabody Museum, actually Museum of Comparative Zoology.  So when I was having a lot of trouble, I had been teaching with Evelyn Hutchinson and he was a terrific mentor to women of all sorts.  I'm sure he had men as well, in fact some of his students are extremely well known Professors and writers and so on. But he was an extreme mentor to women.  He suggested to Fuzz when I was having all of this problem in getting a new grant to keep the lab going that I go and have a sabbatical at Harvard teaching in the Biology Department.  Which I did.  And that was really courtesy of Evelyn going to Crumpton whom I knew personally knew of me.  And I went up and taught at Harvard, well it was supposed to be a semester but I stayed a year.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: So did that then give you leverage to come back?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I'm not sure what it really did.  This is a question I actually asked Brian just this past week because I knew we were going to have this.  I said, \"I'm not sure whether it gave me leverage so much as they wanted you, Brian to stay at Yale and if I took a job at Harvard, which is what they were offering me, that you might move to Harvard.\"  And his answer was, \"Oh I don't think so.\"  And I thought, think that one through a little more.  No, I do believe that I was lucky again to be in the right place at the right time, doing something that I thought was useful and when I got up to Harvard I think the issues there were that they were also interested in the kind of things, Fuzz was extremely interested in bone.  That's why I went.  He is somebody that still works in the field.  Again Ferris Jenkins, all the people that I was associating with at the Harvard Department I still see in the Vertebrate Paleontology Group.  \r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=3600.0,3900.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: But I was more focused now on modern bone rather than on paleontological.  Which is why the association with the Medical School and the Orthopedic Department made much more sense.  And my PhD which was not on bone but which was on precipitation of mineral in a lagoon in the southeast of south Australia was all about the molecular level of mineralization and that's what I'm interested in as my intellectual pursuit and bone just became the main focus.  And that will continue.  I'm still on it.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: When you went to Harvard, I take it your children were still at home, or had they already gone off to college?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I had one child at home and she was a teenager.  And the issue there was that our other two that were older one had just graduated and was married and the second one was just graduating from Mt. Holyoke.  Two daughters who went to Mt. Holyoke and graduated.  And the third one that was born when I first came back at NIH ended up living with us in college.  And I think I was thinking that in order for her to have everything that she could do, she was enjoying her life here in our home here in Connecticut in New Haven but that if I were a working mother, perhaps a time as master where I would be at home, she would be at home would be perfect.   I don't think it worked out as well.  I think there was too much responsibility from mastership that I didn't really fully appreciate.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Back to that in a moment.  At the moment I'm curious about how you managed being at Harvard, Brian here and then kid at home?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: He took up with her as a teenager, learning to cook.  And has become a wonderful Chinese cook.  And so she has and right now her field of endeavor is wine and food.  So I think all of this sort of has come to fruition in the positive way that it should.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: That's interesting that your husband took up the slack when it was required.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Yes he's been a good fellow.  Very good.  And as I say, we get along just fine as long as we can keep our understandings on what we agree on about (inaudible).  We respect each other, that's what its about.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: One of the things that has come again and again and again especially in your remark in the book on women scientists in America that so many women, very, very accomplished scientists end up never getting full faculty positions and they end up research associates.  They have funny little names, little titles.  I just wondered looking at the time when you came to Yale and your time subsequent to that, what kind of nomenclature did you have and how do you think about it?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Well I was appointed as a Research Assistant in the department and as I said I set up the lab so I was given the kudos for having set up a lab and all of that.  On the other hand the whole of the Surgery Department was not particularly welcoming I think to women.  And I think Orthopedics where people keep talking about them as carpenters and people who need a lot of physical strength, really didn't, I mean I was just way out in left field on there.  And Jack Cole, who was the Head of the Department of Surgery offered me a faculty position in the Medical School and I turned it down for a very important reason.  I felt very strongly that the kind of things that I was doing belonged on this side of camp.  In other words, the science side of campus rather than the medical side.  And I really wanted to make a name for myself in the Geologic Paleontologic field although I realized that part of the things that I was interested in was really an orthopedic overtone.  I think Jack Cole was very predisposed because of people in the department knowing that I was making strides, publishing papers and so on.  Wayne Southwick was the Head of the Orthopedic Section.  He was very supportive.  He's still extant.\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=3900.0,4200.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: I think the fact that Jim Albright was so supportive and really worked with me on things.  I had his brother as a student who was matriculating as an intern resident in the department.  I had many people like the person who is now going to do some surgery on my food, Enzo Sella(sp?) who was a student.  I mean there were lots of people in the department who were rostered through the lab that I was doing something that they might have been interested in.  And it was important to have an intellectual component to their clinical side and I represented that.  They then went to get other people who were dealing with Will Fine's problems which were mechanical and they had a whole section on the spine at one stage.  So we represented a very interesting side of the Department of Surgery in Orthopedics.  Which I think had other parallels in other parts of the Surgery Department.  But as far as getting an appointment other than my refusing a clinical appointment, I think it would have been a clinical appointment.  When I discussed with Kingman Brewster about an appointment and you know the letter, which you may just want to refer to, I went to Harvard by '76, that's when that letter was giving me the option of becoming an intellectual.  I was offered there again a faculty appointment at Harvard and I think that when I came back and wanted and realized that my daughter and my husband were struggling with their food and I missed them and that Harvard was probably not going to offer something to Brian, that going to Jonathan Edwards was a very good thing for me to do.  The Department of Surgery appointed me an Associate Professor in Biochemistry.  They've never had anything like that.  They made up a term for me so that I could have an official term while I was Master of the College.  But the interesting thing is that the Geology Department wouldn't come out.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: And was there attempts to?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Well I wanted it but I wasn't offered it and they never came good.  So I had a Medical School Appointment and I would come over here and talk and teach and do things with people and this Geology Department but never had an official appointment.  I was a Research Affiliate and that was a no-no.  I mean that was a name you gave to anybody you just wanted to be associated with the department, they didn't have to do anything.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Why is it George was so resistant do you think?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I think they have problems with women.  We have three in the department.  We have Elizabeth Werber(sp?) who is from South Africa and who was appointed not all that long ago.  I mean it was long-ish because the time moves fast.  But I think she's been here maybe eight years. She's the first.  We have a woman appointed named Ruth Blake who is black and I must say I was instrumental I think in getting her accepted because she is in a field associated to the kind of things I'm interested in and I went and saw her out at a meeting and was impressed with her enthusiasms and her work.  And she is now on her second round, I guess she's an associate, no I think she's still an Assistant Professor but she's on the second appointment.  But she was appointed post-doc and then was made.  And I think that post-doc allowed people to see whether she would fit in and I think that's always been the problem.  I think the male hard look at women has not yet accepted them in many ways.  But we just got another first appointment of a woman geo-chemist who is an Israeli and she is just a riot.  And I believe there is a second one who is from I believe France.  And it is very interesting that we have so many foreign nationals.  Don't you find it interesting?\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: It's fascinating.  \r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I find it fascinating and I intend to pursue this in my own quiet little way of trying to find.  But I do think, I know all the members of this department.  The older members perhaps more lengthy associations.  Robert Burner and Carl Derythian(sp?).  I think those are tough nails.\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=4200.0,4500.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: I think they make like tough.  I mean it is not that they haven't had woman students but I think the association is supportive but not, I don't want you necessarily in my department.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Because often it said oh we can't appoint any women because there are no women in the pipeline.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: They made it difficult for women to get into the pipeline. Because when someone would want to come as a PhD student with them, they had to demonstrate, do nip-ups in order to get in their department I believe.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: What is a nip-up?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: In other words really show how splendid they were, far more than male.  I truly believe that.  Now I have no documentary evidence of that at all.  And some of these women made great strides and are teaching in the profession.  Certainly one of Carl Derythian's students has been that way.  And one of Bob Burner's students who certainly was here when I was involved -- \r\n\nINTERVIEWER: So you really do think that the bar was set higher?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I believe that.  And I think in a lot of cases the kinds of topics that they ended up doing were perhaps handcrafted a little more than they would have been for male. In other words they weren’t as, shall we say, abrasive about what they wanted to do as women originally with their mentor who was obviously their Professor.  But I've never discussed this with Kathleen Rattenberg who was a Bob Burner student.  And I'm trying to remember the, her father is Head of the -- the woman I am trying to think of is who Carl Derythian's student, he father is head of the pathology, not surgical path, but one of the pathology sections at the Medical School.  Anyway, there were certainly women here, one of them who was here very early on when I was here has now become a medical doctor.  Has never practiced her PhD work.  I think it was very tough.  I think it was because there were just a lot of males.  And the male- male syndrome is dominant.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Do you think it was a disadvantage maybe that Brian was also Head of Department?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Well he was Head of Department for what, eight years, seven years?  That was a disappointment for me.  I think disadvantage, yes.  And it was in some ways I had to play the role of the social side of the department which was fun and games but I met all the geologists and there were very few women.  They were all men. I remember inviting people from fields who I ended up inviting somebody from Harvard named Melvin Glimpsure to come to a soirée we had at our house.  He was in the Orthopedics Department at Harvard and I was dealing with him so I said well we're having Ken Tow come. He's going to give the talk on geology and Melvin's giving the talk on orthopedics.  He can have them both together.  Is that terrible?  I was still playing everything to the middle.  I think the difficulties for women in geology still remain.  I see it in the areas of GSA, Geological Society of America where we've had three women Presidents but there are still not a lot of women.  They are coming.  We have more women geology graduate students than we've ever had and they're having to face up to the fact that these women do a great job, get their PhD and then they're looking for jobs.  And this is not easy.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Is there a women's section in the Society?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Yes we have women geologists.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Do you know when it was set up?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Ooh I can give you the information but it must be going maybe about 12, 14 years.  I can give you names from that. \r\n\nINTERVIEWER: I'm just curious began to as it were, band together within the discipline to try to change things.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I think it came as a result of the late '60s, early '70s when movements for women were being talked about.  On the other hand I think the geologists were very reticent to move a lot of women unless it was one at a time.  You know those who did history of geology were very well accepted but those who did petrology were not so well accepted.\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=4500.0,4800.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: One of my husband's students is now Professor at St. Louis, Washington University, St. Louis.  Jill Dill Pesteras.  And I think she ended up being allowed in the department as she was working with Brian on a PhD.  I'll have to ask her that.  I think there were a couple of other women, one of whom died very shortly after she got her degree.  She married a graduate student.  On the other hand it was not a happy marriage.  I think the field in general, like surgery, was not a field that welcomed women.  And geology is now having to change for a very important reason, it's gone environmental.  And that's brought in people form chemistry, forestry, in Yale.  Chemistry, Forestry, Biology.  And the whole area of Geology is changing radically as evidenced by the book that I just finished getting out.  Geology and health has been the area where people can cross from personal things to research that goes from planetary to deep in the earth.  It is a very exciting time to be alive in the field of geology.  And it is going to be called Environmental Sciences.  It is not going to become Geology, because Geo was going to become a funny word because it is no longer just the earth.  So it an area of expanding intellectual achievement and women have always been in the biological sciences more than in the chemical or geological or physical.  And I like physics is still very tough for women.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Of course I know [Yuri] and she is another Head of Department.  I think she was the first to any Professor in Physics.  So I think yes.  I think this whole issue of different scientific disciplines are changing and the fact that women have always been more represented in biological sciences and I think now at least 50 percent of all students are women in biological sciences.  So that is going to make a difference.  \r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: See the picture at the end?  \r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yes.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: See the women coming in?\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yes.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: And you see four, what is there, four or three now?  And they're all beginning.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yes I can see that, yes.  Yeah.  So that will make a difference.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: And I think it does help if you have a woman on the faculty.  I think that makes a big difference because I think the empathy and the fact that you see one as a role model is just terrific.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yeah, yeah.  Let's just stop for a minute and take a rain check.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: No I'm never taking the back seat.  I said earlier that if I feel I have a question to ask, I like to ask the question.  And if somebody's not willing to answer, I will understand.  But the fact that I can't raise my voice and ask the question.  My mother told me very early on that a man puts on his pants one leg at a time and so do women.  There's no difference.  If you have a question to ask, you ask it.  And if somebody thinks its silly they'll tell you.  And if you want to defend yourself, you have to know how to do that.  And not unpleasantly.  But you know, if somebody is going to put you down, don't be put down. \r\n\nINTERVIEWER: So do you think historically there has been a problem with women being seen as pushy and assertive?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Absolutely, I think the two terms are used distinctively generically for women versus men.  In other words we admire a man who is assertive and states his views but I have been in many a committee meeting or even Chair of the Committee when I have made some suggestions and everybody is looking at me as if I've said something off the wall and it's died because I don't want to be too pushy.  And then wouldn't you believe, sort of ten minutes later, the whole thing comes back around by some man raising it and then they're all in favor of it.  I mean I have had that experience too many times for that to be just something.  There's a book by one of the women who are in that group.\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=4800.0,5100.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: She is I think Professor still up at Smith and she talked about the use of language for women.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Deborah Tennin?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: No.  I'll have to look her up.  And it was, there also was a woman at Harvard who is a personal friend of my long time friends from NIH who quit Harvard and went to NYU because she said whenever she brought a comment to her group and she was in psychology where there were at that point, not that many women.  But she was doing a certain side of the psychological discussion i.e. the fact that women had a different voice that was, I think the name of the book.  They wouldn't listen to her.  In other words when she brought something up, she was put down.  And she said this is not for me.  And Larry Summers, you'll pardon the expression, underscored this for the whole world to see.  But what's happened to Larry Summers?  He just resigned from Harvard and we now have a new woman head.  And where did she come from?  The Radcliffe Institute.  Support for women from Radcliffe.  And I'm just going to see how well she gets on with the faculty.  I think they're all having it right in front of their noses that Larry Summers and replacing him with a woman made a big blue for many of the alums who are old Harvardians and couldn't possibly understand why there wasn't a man as good as the lady they put in.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Were you ever accused of being pushy?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Oh my husband accuses me of being pushy all the time.  So I counter that with if I'm going to be here physically, I might as well be heard.  I have never believed that people who have good ideas should be seen and not heard.  So that's the categorical answer.  I think under the issues of being called pushy specifically no, but I think I have been talked down to in an unpleasant way which I have taken umbrage of.  Maybe a little more pushily than people felt happy about.  And maybe I've been not put on some committees that I might have enjoyed because they thought I would have too much of a say.  I think the world is better off if people act the way they feel under situations within reason.  So that it is not unpleasant for the rest of the group but to keep your feelings and thoughts to yourself all the time doesn't help anyone in the long run.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Did you ever have problems with, because obviously you had a long time to be the only female undergraduates here.  Was that ever an issue, your gender?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I don't think so.  I certainly had the students in the Medical School with no problems.  I never had many students in the Geology Department because I did not have a set up here until fairly recently.  I think the male students that I talk to now, with now are very happy for input that I might have.  I often exchange papers or say have you read this?  In a usual collegial fashion.  I would say that the faculty members older are more difficult for me to get responsives of what I'm doing.  And I won't mention any names right now it's not appropriate.  But I think those sort of days are probably gone.  They finally appointed me you know as a Senior Scientist Research.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: When was that?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Just this April.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: And what age are you?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I'm 76. Ridiculous isn't it?\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yeah.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I've been publishing.  I've been a Research Affiliate in the Department of Geology.  And I could never make them understand that as a Research Affiliate I could not apply for a grant through geology, I'd have to do it through the Medical School.  Therefore they were going to be at a loss.  That didn't have any traction here.  It's all right.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Gosh that's amazing.  \r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: It is.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: 76 before you get.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Especially since I was appointed way back when as an Associate Professor in Biochemistry in the Medical School but the Geology Department didn't see that.\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=5100.0,5400.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: Because they didn't see my work on bone as being appropriate for the department.  Now they may.  \r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Well, well done.  Well done.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Anyway I'd like to just say one more thing about competition and women's issues.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yes.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I think that in a lot of cases one of the things that Mt. Holyoke College did since we were all women was there was competition but it was more, shall we say supportive competition?  I don't know how that word can be ameliorated.  But I think there's cooperative ways of reducing research activities and I think that's where research has gone in almost all biological, geological.  I mean it is a team approach.  That is why I think women are better suited for conversations and thinking through the problem because they are very much more adept at understanding.  There is multi-factorial issues and I see this as a role for more and more women in the field.  And it matters what the scientific field is.  And I don't think this is, I know that if you get your grant you're in competition for others who are searching for a grant, but I think most grants now are group grants.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yeah.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: And the more you can associate with others in wherever they are, in your own institution or from overseas or other institutions, the better off.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: So one of stereotypical female characteristics of collaboration has actually maybe at last beginning to work for women?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: And communication.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: And communication.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: That's really where it's coming from.  You need internet, but you can communicate instantly.  But unless you're connected on some level, that internet connection goes nowhere.  So it is the connection that is going to break down what I call the, shall we say the competition at the level where people are discriminated against.  And I really feel that that is what is still going on.  A lot of discrimination.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Which brings us to, I think an interesting point that you got to the early '70s and that course was in an amazing time in American History.  Affirmative action came in and for the universities in '72.  And you were at that, you were here at that point before and after and I just wondered if you could kind of cast your mind back to that period and whether you had a sense of all those things going on and that affirmative action for women at Yale and the University system generally was something that you were aware of?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I think you're asking really something about I should have mentioned before and that is whether you have a comfort level in activities.  And I think the women came to Yale in '69.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: '69, yes.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: And that's the year I was appointed a Fellow of Davenport College.  And I met people like Sam Troncy and Richard Bell and others who were Fellows of Davenport because we met once a week.  And I assiduously went to those meetings.  And I think I was more taken up with the institution at that time than my husband was although he was then Chairman.  I think the issues that I saw in an environment that I could partake of were far wider than I had been having.  And my comfort level was enhanced by all of this.  Women coming, the women that would then I could meet because they were in the English department or some other places, but also the men were accepting.  They realized with Kingman Brewster making an appointment in this is going to be a co-educational environment that they really had to adapt.  In other words Kingman was a standard bearer for changing this institution and the issues that were coming up over and over and over again for women were there were people who weren’t willing to adapt.  And those were the old guard.  And the old guard were in the alums but also in the faculty and as we've discussed with geology, I think in many respects those are still the main issues and it is going to take several generations of new people to re-group on that issue.  But I think the comfort level of having women around was marvelous.\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=5400.0,5700.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: First of all, when they arrived there was a whole bunch of funny things that happened like there weren’t appropriate johns at the places out where the athletic fields were so they had to quick figure out that they couldn't use the urinals.  I think the women bathroom situation in the colleges became a big problem.  They had different floors and they weren’t allowed to meet but of course boys will be boys and I'm sure everything went on without any knowledge of anybody who was seen in the masters office or the deans office or anything.  It was a wonderful opening of Yale University.  And I have to tell you that I think the change in the academics was obvious too.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Really?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Because what they let in with women ran away with all the prizes at the end of commencement.  And many of the faculty had to agree that these women worked harder, were smarter and certainly didn't go out drinking till all hours of the night and not get their homework in so to speak.  Anyway, I'm sure this ameliorated over time.  But it really made a difference.  It really made a physical difference as well as an intellectual difference in this institution from my perspective.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: As a woman on the staff here at that time, did the women students seek you out?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I certainly would try to sit with women at Davenport College when we were there.  But I didn't have a lot of extra time.  The early '70s brought a lot of discussion with the women's studies actions and people like -- she was here she started the Women's Studies Department.  She's at Harvard.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Nancy Cott?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Nancy Cott.  These were women who were fighting the battle personally, daily and I saw very few women in science.  There were not a lot of women undergraduates who came in through the science when they arrived although there were a couple.  Mostly I saw the graduate students who came as a result of things here.  In the Medical School again, there were not a lot of women in the undergraduate in the Medical School women's group.  I mean there are still more men.  Now I think it is about equal in the medical.  So there was always a dearth of bodies.  Do I remember whether women sought me out?  Yes I'm sure I ended up, there were lots of little sessions that people would have that were very helpful.  To me to talk with women and give them encouragement.   I think I signed a lot of academic transcripts for people coming in at Davenport or something like that because they wanted a woman to be the person who was suggesting what courses they might take.  I don't remember any particular good or bad aspect of that except that it was a very pleasant, I think it just made a huge difference.  \r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Did it also mean that what few women that were here on the faculty found themselves under a lot more pressure to be on committees to, and I would imagine particularly on committees that were to do with women's issues like the status of women faculty and all that sort of thing.  Was that your personal experience?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Oh yes.  I was Chair of that committee for one year of two years, I've forgotten.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Which committee is this?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: This is the Status of Women.  And then they had a couple of men that did it and I think their report was one that the faculty felt happier with.  The whole idea of doing something for women broke onto the scene shall we say without any future thought to the matter I mean as of the bathrooms and sort of things like that.  But also what this was going to do for studies that they might move into in the sciences for example which I was most concerned with.  I think the English Department and the History Department had an immediate uptake of a lot of women.  And I hope you're inviting them to give some historical perspective.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yes I'm talking to them, the English Department had more women than any other department.\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=5700.0,6000.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"INTERVIEWER: Although interestingly enough (inaudible) of course.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Yes.  \r\n\nINTERVIEWER: I mean one of the things, with my cynical hat on, I have read and have heard people say a number of times that one of the reasons why the university decided that the way to go was to have women undergraduates was that they worked.  They thought well women don't do science, they like to do the humanities and we can have any number of women, we can get their fees and we won't have to actually increase he plant because they'll only be doing human industry.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Well I think that might have been perhaps the original go around but I think they didn't, they took up Political Science and I think they were very activist on a number of different levels.  I mean I think they even got into the Debate Society's and things like that.  And I think once women do that they realize this is not something you're going to put on the back burner for any part of the university.  But I think some have been more alacritous in making changes in their faculty appointees.  There was another woman who was associated with Chip Long in the Davenport fellowship.  Chip was a fellow Davenport College and he was I think married to one of the English faculty early on who was tenure faculty but she left.  And I think it would be interesting to know from Chip what he saw in relationship to that because he has been in the administration as an activist.   And I know he's not female but I think he has perhaps you know faced up to some problems in the administration.  And then there's Penny -- \r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Penny Lawrence.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Lawrence.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yes.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: And she's also a fellow of [Jay].\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yes and she's also (inaudible) -- \r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Exactly and I wondered whether they felt the impact of the women in that department in the way in which you have just outlined it.  That they were going to take on and do all of their written documentation.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: In the English Department from '72 onwards there was a sudden explosion of appointing women at the junior level, i.e. had not been tenured at a great number, relatively speaking a great number.  And the women that I talked to from that generation on in their 50s and early 60s they said it was worth the opportunity for us because this opportunity was there, that before had they been five years older they would never have had that opportunity so it actually worked incredibly well in that respect.  In got them started with their first job.  But by the same token they also said but of course we all felt that we were just numbers, we were the numbers game that the university really had no long term commitment to us.  They were Associate Professors?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: No, Assistant.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Assistant Professors.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Or even Electorate.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Ah, yes, or Electorates.  And after three or four or five years they knew they were out.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Yes.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: There was no hope of becoming tenured faculty.  And so they were there as an opportunity.  Most of them went on in other places.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Oh, yes.  One of the people I appointed when I first became Master of JE, was a woman who was in the English Department and French.  And I'm blanking on her name but I can easily locate that for you if you wanted.  Jill, her husband was up in Tufts and she is now, he has died and she has moved to another gentleman, I don't know that they're married.  But she writes excellent books and she wrote a book on Mary Baker Eddy recently.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Oh yes.  I think I, I know who you mean.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: OK well she was a Resident Fellow that I appointed because of course that was the other side.  I wanted to makes sure that we had women in college when I was Master.  And that was not so easy to do because a lot of the women were so determined to be career ladies that they didn't want to take on a residency.  But she did because her husband was not about to move into the Yale sight and she could live at Yale during the week and go up there on weekends.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: That would be a good point to start talking about your experiences being a Master of Jonathan Edwards.  I know that there was a letter.\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=6000.0,6300.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"INTERVIEWER: Signed by, on behalf of one of the women's groups which was sent, he sent to Brewster in '77 saying that it really was a substantial female undergraduate population and there was a certain disappointment that no women had become masters or were asked to become masters.  And she was putting it really in quite strong terms that really the University should be doing something about that.  So that was around the time that you then were sought out as a mastership?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Yes.  And I guess Davenport was the first one because I was a fellow there they felt that I probably would have fit in.  And you know the result of that letter I just said, \"No, I'm going off to Harvard, I'm really trying to get my intellectual act in gear.\"  On the other hand, Rosemary Stevens then became Kingman's choice for JE when that became available.  By the way I think Sy Lesman was the person that was appointed in Davenport and then he died.  And his wife Kitty, finished out his term but I don't think, they may have given her sort of a title but never was -- \r\n\nINTERVIEWER: She was there for a year maybe but she in fact died very, very recently in the last week or two.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Oh really?\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yes.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Well OK.  Too bad.  On the other hand I don't think she ever wanted that job so I don' think it was something that they would have done for her.  And she didn't have any academic credentials and I think that was the other issue here.  That when I was appointed I did not have the local academic title and that's why I think Kingman or somebody in his office got Southwick to appoint me as Associate Professor of Biochemistry. Rosemary Stevens was already I believe in, not the Law School but maybe in the Medical School in one of the departments as a faculty member.  I don't know what her title was, actually I'm sure she was a Professor of something.  But she was more in the side of the Medical School that wasn't science research is -- was more research related to psychology issues.  I've forgotten.  Anyway she only lost it a short time.  I have a feeling, and it's only a feeling that she didn't find it comfortable as we have define the comfort level.  And I think that may have two aspects.  I think the present, the Dean that was there was not particularly welcome to her.  But I think also that the Faculty Fellows who were Fellows at the time felt that she was inserted on them without their OK.  And I think the other persons who might have made a decision for her was her husband who was not, he wanted the job I think and when she was offered it, he acquiesced but I think he really was more interested.  He became President of Haverford.  So I think that was an issue that maybe was homegrown and was hard for her.  I think they had two children, both adopted.  So I think it was tough.  It was not an easy time physically or mentally for her at that time.  \r\n\nINTERVIEWER: There can't have been many women around who would have fitted the bill so to speak with proper academic credentials as well as everything else?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Certainly not.  Certainly not, I agree.  In fact that would be an interesting statistic to ask.  Who was on the regular ladder faculty in a position and preferably with tenure that could have been asked?\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: I know I have a list of all the women who were on ladder appointments at that time and there were pitifully few.  I mean I think it was less than 10 percent of the faculty at that time.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Yeah and Marie wouldn't have been one to take on.  Marie Boroff.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: I think Marie may have been approached, I can't remember.  I really did have a conversation about it.  I think would have been certainly one that would have been looked at.  But I think there were, she might not have been interested for all I know but the other thing of course is they also liked married masters.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I was just going to say.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: And Marie was not married.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Yeah and I think she would have realized, I mean maybe they realized before they approached or said you know, would you like, maybe not.  I think they were very concerned about the family's aspect for women masters.  The same as corporate people are still not doing their job for others.\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=6300.0,6600.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: Something crossed my mind when you said that and that was that when I was first asked I didn't really think they were--oh hello Char.  Come in.  I'd like to introduce Florence Minnis, this is Charlotte Hitchcock.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Oh hello Charlotte, hi I'm Florence, hi.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: We're having an interview believe it or not.\r\n__:\tOh.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: On for the women's oral history thing of which Florence is the person.  And I've known Charlotte now for what, 25 years?  And she's a graduate of Radcliffe and she's an architect by training.  And she just recently retired from -- \r\n__:\tThe job I was at anyway.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: But you've been working on renovation of historic houses.\r\n__:\tYeah.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Historic preservation things.  She actually went up and taught math at Miss Porter's on my instigation.\r\n__:\tRight.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: It's part of the women's -- we've been talking about the circle of friends that one keeps going.\r\n__:\tCandy is one of my notorious connections.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Well we've just got to the point where she is about to take a master of Jonathan Edwards.\r\n__:\tOh I'll go out and read my magazine until you're done?\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: If you like.  Can you give us another -- \r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Would you mind?  I mean you're on break right?\r\n__:\tOh yeah.  Oh yeah no I'm totally flexible I can do whatever.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Well if you want to go up the room?\r\n__:\tOh no I'd rather be outdoors, it's a nice day.  \r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Suit yourself.\r\n__:\tI'll sit, I'll look for a place to sit.  Oh there's a bench right there.  It's not too sunny.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Well whatever.\r\n__:\tSo stick your head out the door when you're done.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: OK, Char.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Thank you very much Char.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Bye.  We just keep going don't we.  Just can't shut me up.  \r\n\nINTERVIEWER: That conversation has all been recorded.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Oh.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: I thought I had stopped the recording.  Never mind, it's all right.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: OK well where were we?  We were talking about the fact that becoming a master meant that you ended up having a lot of people that weren’t particularly enthusiastic about that happening at Yale.  But people like Elga were clearly saying that this has got to happen, it's got to change.  And we were members of this group that was meeting at that time.  It started as soon as I got into the mastership.  I pulled together this women's group.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: What was it called?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Well it was called the Women's Dinner Committee or something like that.  We insisted on doing it, there were a number of women whom I appointed or who were members of, who were doing things like being the English tutor and things like that at the college.  And so I gathered them all together and we started this group in Jonathan Edwards but we decided we ought to meet at Mory's because -- was a statement of a club.  That we would meet at Mory's that was all women.  And at that time Mory's did not allow women.  And I became one of the first women because I became a master I had the option to join Mory's and bring people.  Do you want me to tell you the story about Mory's?\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yes absolutely.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Well I liked the idea that this was clubby.  As I said I think I've always enjoyed the support of an institution wherever I've been and that has made the comfort level high.  And Mory's seemed to me to be the next comfort level for people who were around.  And I didn't see any reason why we shouldn't meet at Mory's.  They were willing you know to have people come as long as we were going to be reasonable and we were obviously reasonable.  Very shortly after all that got started and we kept meeting once a month at Mory's and it was very well attended, we only had about 12 members, I was taken to lunch at Mory's by somebody else who was then in the English Department.  Fred -- \r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Fred Rochenson.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Right.  And we were sitting upstairs at lunchtime and the place was pretty crowded with people so the tables were quite close together.  Right next to us was a table with just a single gentleman and Fred I think was trying to be a little outgoing and helpful to me as well as to me because he was talking with me because I was about or I was then President of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences.\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=6600.0,6900.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: Again, first woman.  And he introduced me to this gentleman who was sitting there eating his beaker of soup or whatever.  And the gentleman said, Fred said, \"This is the new Master of Jonathan Edwards College.\"  And this gentleman just sort of turned his head and looked at me and said, \"That's not possible,\" and went back to eating his soup.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: One of the old guard?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: One of the old guard.  I mean I can't even remember, I think I've fraudulently forgotten the name.  But I'll never forget the look on his face.  It was withering.  You know, \"That's not possible.\"  And because I had insisted when they asked me whether I wanted to be Master of Jonathan Edwards College, what did I want to be called.  I said, \"You're not changing the job, just leave the name the same.  I'm certainly not going to become Mistress.\"  And they had offered me Principal, Warden.  I decided none of those were appropriate, leave it the same.  I got a Master of Arts.  Everybody gets a master of something so leave it.  Anyway.  Experiences like that happened on occasion.  I think in general they realized that as I said I was pushy.  And I wasn't going to sit back if someone gave me a hard time I was going to come good on whatever.  And I tried to do it in what might call the fun way of making a funny joke of it.  But this one I was just floored by this one.  So I looked at Fred and we just continued our conversation.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Why do you think the University or whoever it is that actually decides on who is going to be a Master of College, why did they decide on the handful of women who were clearly qualified, why do you think that you were the one that they chose?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Came good?   No I don't think they chose, I think they probably asked a lot and I was the first one who maybe I was known to enough people the persons that I think were very much in my corner was Sam Chauncy.  He also I think had a very sensitive understanding of where Yale was going far better than for example, people in other parts of the administration at the time.  And I think that he understood that Davenport fellowship had taken me on without any problems and that clearly if that group had, the students would follow suit because the faculty was not going to be awful.   I think in Jonathan Edwards there had been Rosemary coming in so they had had their first bout with a woman and obviously she hadn't blotted her copy book for whatever reason but on the other hand she left.  And I think they wanted somebody who was going to stick.  And since my husband was clearly going to stay in the Department of Geology, they knew I wasn't going to leave.  They may have made him commit to the fact.  But here's another story for you.  When I got made Master, we had some very good friends in Cambridge, England in Cambridge University.  And so one of our friends there whose name is Graham Chinna, geologists said, \"My God, you're going to become Master.  We have Masters, they're very important people here.  And what is Brian going to do?\"  And so he said, \"I know, he's the Lord.\"\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: He's the Lord. (laughter)\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: So we were the Lord and Master of Jonathan Edwards College.  And actually he sent this marvelous document about how this was going to happen.  It was very cute.  I think that's the kind of fun things to handle these kinds of situations that I felt strongly was the way to do it.  I mean I never took offense although as I said with this one with this funny fellow in Mory's was a real smack in the face.  I mean other people, I'll tell you another thing.  We would go out with Brian to give talks to alumni clubs across the whole, I mean we went to El Paso and San Francisco and places where the alumni people wanted to have Brian come and give a talk.  And naturally I would go along.  And I remember very distinctly being at one of them in which I was introduced, this is before becoming Master, that I was involved in science.  And you know they were just incredulous that I had children and was in science and carrying on.  And I said you know, but it's nothing different than a man.  They have children and they carry on in science.\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=6900.0,7200.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: I think that made you know a big difference in their understanding of responsibilities that people could handle.  But the other thing is and there were people who came who were, we sat across the table from somebody who had already decided he was she.  And that was an experience that I had never had before.  And I didn't know quite how Kingman handled it.  But it was quite an impression.  She was all dolled up with a long dress and a five o'clock shadow and it was just hysterical.  I kept doing this to Brian all the time.  And I'm saying, \"Do you see what's you know?\"  And her voice was very low and everything about it.  But she was easily one of the first people who had made the change.  She had done the operation and everything and was going to play the game.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Of course there is some wonderful photographs at the end of the 19th century of undergraduates dressed as girls.  So I think most men's colleges there's certainly always been a way to dress.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Well this one had made the full commitment and came out to the alumni meetings.  Which says something about the level of commitment that she felt, or he felt.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Rather brave I should think too.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Absolutely, that's why I kept saying this is something very different.  Anyway that may have been an important insight into the Yale that I was about to inherit.  But I mean I think the thing that was most important to me as Master of Jonathan Edwards College that nothing changed markedly from the very wonderful institution I inherited as that.  And I think it was under a great deal of pressure because Ed Bell had taken over when Rosemary left and he was, he's dead and so is his wife now, a very lovely Biology Professor who was a very good friend of Evelyn.  And I wouldn't be surprised if Ed had also said this person is probably OK.  She will do the job.  So I don't know who always asked is this going to last.  We’ve had one blip and it didn't work.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: So did you, was your management style or your vision for the College when you were Master was really to try to carry on the traditions?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Very much so.  We were very well endowed with music because of [Beakman Canon] and the first Master was Robert French and he was really instrumental in setting up the College system and the building of the colleges and Jonathan Edwards was his college.  So I had a lot of tradition that I was trying to uphold.  The various people who were in the college, a lot were musicians.  We enlarged that for other women.  Carrie Snyder who was one of the people who had an office there was part of the original women in Jonathan Edwards.  She was an Assistant Professor and was not carried on.  But she was part of that original women's group that I started that met at Mory's. I mean what's her name, Maggie Scarf came in to be a tutor for writers.  I made her part of the women's group.  I invited Maggie to become a Fellow.  Her husband was a fellow at one of the other colleges.  So I said well, Herb if you would like to be a Fellow of Jonathan Edwards, you can come too.  That was the idea.  Get the women in and make sure that they understand that these women had careers of their own, could write, could play piano, organ whatever.  And were happily involved.  And they turned up and it worked.  I also made, we used to meet in the main room, the big dining room and we'd march in with our trays to get to the head table.  After a while that got to be really sloppy messy because the Fellows, some of the Fellows would drink to excess before they even got to dinner and it would not be nice for them to be staggering across with their trays and so on.  So we ended up eventually just meeting back in the senior common room and getting a bit of service.  But I was trying to make people feel comfortable I think.  Perhaps I did it more for the fellows than I did for the students.  I think the students were very well taken care of by the Dean Mark Ryan.\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=7200.0,7500.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: But there were lots of other ways in which they had a way out of their things.  But the women there were definitely fighting a battle every step of the way.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: What were the particular difficulties involved in the job?  Did you have difficulties trying to assert yourself as Master to do the things the housekeeping things that had to be done in a College?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: The first term that I was there, everybody went out on strike.  The strike was total.  The dining hall was closed, the maintenance staff disappeared and everything.  And we ended up going to Dunkin Donuts and making coffee in the dining room for students so that they could at least stay together because I felt strongly that the dining hall was the place in which the people met each other.  And the issues that would come up over a meal would be the conversations that they would remember forever as undergraduates at Yale and particularly at JE.  The whole idea of this was madness but the students pitched in and we would have them run down with our car to the Dunkin Donuts and bring back great big boxes of this and set up the coffee and we used to cook dinners in the Masters house and take it over I think about three times a week.  All my big pots got used and things like that.  It was quite a scream.  We even ended up one time I remember vividly getting a bushel of oysters and my husband who is a great oyster fan was willing to open them, he and a whole bunch of students opened oysters and we had oysters in the Masters house for those who were willing to eat oysters.  These were the fun and games of how to do it.  I don't know what's happened to all these students but some of them still turn up every once in a while and come back in and say I remember when -- and you know that's what's great about this place.  That people have great feelings for the institution.  And I think they really come through the colleges.  I mean yes if you do a senior essay with somebody and you get to know a Professor very well you're likely to keep in touch but maybe you'll go on in the field and that's the way to keep in touch.  But for somebody in the class of let's say this was the class of '80 or '78, they didn't have that option.  They weren’t you know maybe committed to something in particular so their college was their way of doing their things.  But there were a lot of problems at that stage.  We had a lot of alcohol.  It wasn't just with the faculty fellows it was with the undergraduates who were having alcohol parties.  That's all they were.  They would just drink to extreme.  And they were holding them in the dining hall of Jonathan Edwards College and I just got more and more uptight about the fact that they would go on until after midnight.  And I would say no it's finished.  You're finished.  And the student body was upset with me and I had to come down very heavily on that which was what they call them the Social Committee of the class of whatever.  And there was one young man who was very personable, I'm sure he's gone on to do wonderful things, you know who I'm sure was not only supplying liquor but you know supplying drugs and everything else that was going on at that time.  Because it was worth his while financially.  I just made myself unpopular with that crew.  I made myself somewhat unpopular with some of the athletes because they would go out drinking with themselves, come back in and then they would roaring drunk all over their entryway and widdle on each other's beds and some of the women weren’t playing the right sort of thing would widdle on them.  I mean it was just that kind of level of stupidity boys will be boys kind of stuff.  And with this first business as I'm saying with the no dining hall and no thing I wasn't full up on that but I know that when I first called for the maintenance people to please come and fix the toilet that was broken that I could hear they came with a wrench and made some comments when was standing by the side that they would just turn this right off and that would be the end of it.  They didn't have to answer to anybody least of all the woman who called.  And I said it was me, I'm the Master of this College.  So I had to complain to the maintenance staff who were coming and they were all the upper echelon people coming who still didn't know that there was a woman in the Master's office of JE.\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=7500.0,7800.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: So there were lots of those kinds of happenings that were not pleasant.  But you know you just laughed them off.  I wasn't about to leave, I wasn't intimidated by this sort of thing.  They were just males, OK.  They were just males.  And they should have been doing their job like I was doing mine.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: How was it for your daughter then that was living in college with you?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: The students attracted to her.  She had a wonderful time.  The only thing is they would come in after hours and talk to her when she should be doing her homework.  So after a while I decided that she wasn't doing so well at Hopkins where she was going during the day and living at home and she'd go down and play squash with the students in the basement of the college and you know go have tea of coffee in their rooms and all this sort of stuff.  So she ended up for her last two years going off to school at Ethel Walker.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: So she had to become a boarder?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: She had to become a boarder.  But I think that was good for her on the sense that she wasn't, they told me at Hopkins that she wasn't a student, I knew that she had two elder college graduates in the family and that she was going to go to college and she better get some place where she could get a good background.  And Ethel Walker was the place that we decided on together.  And she got back in and matriculated at Yale.  And she's class of '86.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: She's still going to school.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: So you know, a lot of things worked out.  It was not pleasant for Brian on several occasions I think because I think that they felt that he was demeaning himself being the Master's spouse.  But he rises above that too in the sense that he can give as good as he gets.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: It must be difficult being a female Master too because from a concept of being the Master's Wife clearly the Master's wife had a very important role in all the socializing and the helping students when they were sick and drunk or sad or being bereaved or falling down and broken their leg. It was the Master's wife who handled a lot of these things which were almost like family emergencies.  So you had been combining those roles?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Yeah well I ended up having a good Dean who was rostered into doing that.  Remember I was trying to keep up the science at the same time I was Mastering, which is crazy.  I mean I hate to tell you what hours of the day just didn't allow.  But the Dean did a very good job.  I think in some respects that kind of familial thing was not Brian's bag, he was not going to do that and I understood it.  And so when I ended up having people call me, family who would call about their student or something like that I would often say, \"I think you might get more out of talking with the Dean who has more insight into this.\"  So I didn't fully go to, I mean I certainly went to the hospital and to the jail and gave money to people who had to get their car out of hock because it was not hauled away by the police because it was mis-parked or something.  You know all of those sort of things took on and it's those sort of things that you just go through as part of the whole living condition that you were in.  And you know people would come in and out of the house all the time.  The students were there a lot.  I mean you would have afternoon tea or you would have somebody visiting and you would invite students in for breakfast and they still do all of that and it is a very open kind of thing.  I have a feeling that some of the young fellows didn't probably feel as comfortable with me and maybe some of the women didn't either.  But I didn't make a big obeisance to anybody, I just kept going.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Did you enjoy the job?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I think I enjoyed more after than while I was in it.  I think it was so hectic I didn't.  You know there was always this to deal with or somebody coming or going.  Attitudes that you sort of had to deviate with and talk to the Dean about something and see how this was working.  The first year I was there, there wasn't a Dean that had been in the job for very long and I appointed somebody who was in the Law School and then he went down and left so we had a new Dean.\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=7800.0,8100.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: And the new Dean and I got along pretty well.  And I think he felt that his job was over-determined by the fact that I did do a lot of this and Brian did not.  Brian was well met but he wasn't about to go fetch them out of anything.  He might talk to them if he thought that they needed a talking to.  You know, fatherly, not particularly too familial. You might ask him sometime when you get to meet him about what he felt during that time.  I mean we often would look at each other at breakfast and say oh my god another day, and what are you doing today?  Crazy.  But he was very good with the Fellows, he liked that.  He was you know Master of Ceremonies at the Fellows meetings and that sort of thing.  I let him carry on.  It was great.  It worked.  That's all I could tell you, it worked.  I think at the end of five years it would have been crazy to continue.  I don't think [Gumati] was particularly happy with me continuing on and I think he felt that I had established what was needed to establish and that I could go back to science because I was still anxious to have that appointment.  And he wouldn't.  He wouldn't make a big deal with the Geology Department.  You know there are people who will put themselves out for you and then there are those who won't and there's no sense in making somebody.  I mean Brian knew Bart very well because thy went on this very early trip to China together.  And he said this is not a man who is going to last for very long.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Really?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Yeah, no.  When they appointed him he did not think that that was the best appointment that was ever made.  But no Bart was somebody I think who was a Dante scholar and liked his voice and his pronouncements and things but he wasn't particularly interested in the future of Yale I don't think.  Especially not when somebody would come in and say, \"What?  You want me to do another round?\"  Not unless I get more action on the part.  And by then Phyllis Clinton had been appointed and she did an OK job next door to me but I don't think she lasted a full term either.  Phyllis Clinton.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: I don't remember her.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Yeah and then she went off.  And you might want to ask her.  She's up in -- \r\n\nINTERVIEWER: She's in Boston.  Or near it.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: No she's out in Lee in Great Barrington you know where the Boston Symphony goes.  She's with him but I don't think she found it particularly easy either.  And her husband was a very nice chap but I don't think he did much.  I think she was trying to cope with the whole thing.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: There is this, I think academically there is this really a great burden of service that academics are expected to give to the institution and it doesn't necessarily return a lot of rewards because what gets you going, what gets you promoted in the academic life is your publications, it's not teaching, it's not service, it's publications and research.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Yeah and that's what really put the [cybash] on me because as soon as I got into the Masters office I just simply didn't have time.  And I was lucky I was able to stay connected with my field while not really working full time.  Anyway, I'm going to have to finish this because I think my friend is -- would you like to go get yourself something and come back?\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: I have another meeting this afternoon.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Oh wow.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Well we've covered pretty well everything.  I mean what we could do -- \r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I'd love to have a conversation on the -- \r\n\nINTERVIEWER: We need to talk about this.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: But I'd do that with you on a private level if you want.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: No I'd like to record it actually so.\r\n(break in audio)\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: OK Cathy we've reconvened for part two and I'd like to say that there's one or two things that I'd like to pick up on that you mentioned on Tuesday when we first met and talked.  And I was really struck by your efforts as Master to try to bring together women under your aegis to address issues of common concern and intellectual interest.  I just wondered, given that you were made Master in 1977 after Affirmative Action had come into place, what was your sense of female culture at Yale?\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=8100.0,8400.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"INTERVIEWER: If indeed there was one amongst the academic staff?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I was in the sciences and I think that is a very different cultural outlook for women and remains that in spite of new appointments in the departments in the University and a really in flux of women was graduate students, I still think that the appearance to my perspective in many of the science departments and I prefer to think of them as the hard sciences, that's what they like to be thought of, are not so welcome to women in general and I remember vividly one of the undergraduates at Jonathan Edwards who went on to physics as a graduate student and was literally I think marginalized in the department.  And I tried to remember her named knowing that we would do this but she's probably somebody who was here and may have finished her PhD in the Physics Department but felt very sort of left out for a lot of things.  And I think I expressed that in Graduate School as the only woman or one of the few amongst the men, you had to make your own way in a very personal kind of way but also as the academic competition was the collaboration which I believe is the outlook for most women just wasn't present in a lot of these departments except in the [hail fellow well met] male view.  And I think most women don't feel comfortable in that environment.  We do our work and we do our things and we just shoulder on.  Let me say that the Yale academic environment that I marched into with the fellowship was one which I felt relatively comfortable in I think because my husband was also a scientist and many of the people in Jonathan Edwards had scientific leanings if not working in the field because they felt very strongly that that was a good choice for a Master of JE.  The only other choice probably would have been someone in music.  And they didn't have someone I think to fill that bill.  Although Phyllis Clinton did become the person who again didn't last the full length in the Branford environment.  I think maybe science presents another side that made myself and the women's issue at Yale less overt and that is that we tend to work on our own and carry through things expecting only the on person to do it.  Whereas a group of women were not available in the sciences I think and the culture had not yet changed at Yale by the time that I was Master.  And I don't think it had changed markedly although the women were making great strides, especially the undergraduates.  I think they were moving faster to \"take over Yale\" both academically and socially.  And I think it is to be commended that they did such a good job without shall we say unpleasantness that would have developed had that been more antagonistic.  I think women in general sort of rolled with the bunches and the men learned to roll with the punches with women and in house.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: So are you saying then that in the sciences for women there was both the difficulties of a scientific culture which was not unique to Yale and there was Yale's clubability issue, the two were working together maybe to make it more difficult for women?  \r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I think that's a wonderful word, clubability, because I think if you're in a club, you're accepted for whatever that club stands for and usually it is a social responsibility even though it might be the academic group.  You have to be personally associated with people and I think that's very hard, especially for older males to do.  I think it is very individual.  I think maybe there are younger males who have equally difficult scene.  \r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=8400.0,8700.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: I feel very strongly that the change that I have perceived over the last let's say 20 years is making it much more collegial for women and therefore the clubability may be benefiting but I don't think it was there between 1977 and '82 when I was Master of the College.  And I think appointing other Masters, an I know that those that came after who were in the sciences or who had scientific backgrounds, also felt perhaps that they had been given some leg up from their way of dealing with the sciences in order to deal with the collegiality that they didn't find in the early Yale environment.  I think the history of women in science parallels what we're dealing with in the masterships changing Yale.  When women masters were appointed and what that meant.  And I think in a lot of cases women tend to stay with the scientific side maybe married either physicians or other people in the science related fields.  And that probably may have been an advantage.  I don't know.  But I think it was the women undergraduates, not certainly graduate students who made the difference in the collegiality of the environment for the rest of the university.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: That is really interesting.  So you're saying that going co-ed really was the main actor in beginning to change the culture of Yale and to bring it more in line with what was going on in the Universities.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: And in what I think the whole of the nation was undergoing and I think I've mentioned the corporate environment.  And I think that corporate environment has another layer of issues that maybe are not helpful to females, especially the business of having marriage and family mixed up with your career.  And I still think that was an issue and I remember discussions along those lines with undergraduates and with the graduate students about the fact that they had to finish their degrees before they considered marriage and what they were going to do afterwards was going to have to find somebody who was of their intellectual capacity and willing to let them carry on with a career.  This is not a trivial decision.   Especially for one who is young and sees the difficulties that perhaps the women in science or in corporate activities have always encountered and how they have been labeled as unpleasant pushy women.  Pushy women is not a term that one would like hear but I'm afraid it comes out in conversations in many different acronyms or other words that have the same sentence for women.  \r\n\nINTERVIEWER: When you were a Master, a very senior appointment in the University and its structure and in its culture, you were also at that time involved in committees in part because of your Master but also because you were a senior scientist.  Did you feel that you were put on certain committees but weren’t necessarily put on other committees?  That there were certain ones that it was OK for the women to do but there were other ones that were kept back for the men in the know?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: You always hit the nail on the head Florence.  Yes I think that that was a way of making sure that for ones that had to do with, shall we say, personal actions the University put women on those committees.  But as far as appointments were concerned and especially since I felt less than welcomed by the science departments at Yale, though personally I managed to get around issues in a personal way, I think they did endeavor to appoint women in many of the academic committees that would have allowed them to foster the forward motion of women in those departments as women.  And I think there was a tendency on the women's part as well to think they didn't want to get an appointment because they were women.  They wanted to be accepted for their intellectual capacities.  We still like that.  \r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=8700.0,9000.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: We still think that's the way it should be done.  We don't want any sops for feminization.  I don't know what the appropriate word is.  But I think the powers that be and those would have been the chairman of the departments were very careful to make sure that women were put on but not, and there in the sciences there weren’t that many.  There was many a department in which there was a single woman and she was overused for the ones that they felt comfortable.  And I don't know that any of them vocalized their dissatisfactions at all.  I hope you will find some women to discuss that issue.  You may be able to do that better in the humanities because the sciences have so few women.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Certainly the core humanities subjects have a great deal more.  They're interested I think also interesting exceptions.  I think modern languages had maybe fairly early on in the '70s but one would expect lots of women in that subject.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I think a lot of them were in the instructor and non-tenured associate areas affiliates or whatever they're called.  And they did a lot of what might be called the work courses where they had to come to classes and assist in setting up a way in which somebody could listen to various problem sets and or vocal set ups. I'm trying to think of, right next to you in Rosenfeld Hall they had a whole set up of listening.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Oh language labs?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Thank you.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Is that the word?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Yes that's the word.  And I know that many of those people who ran the language labs were women.  And I think in a lot of cases that's still the technical side of doing things in laboratories.  I talk with people in the histology laboratory and the Medical School ad it is run by women but they certainly don't get their just desserts.  They may be essential but they don't get their just desserts.  And they certainly don't get remuneration.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: The bottom line is the bottom line. (laughter)  What do you think was your best achievement when you were Master?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I tried to think that through.  I think it was keeping the status quo.  And not acting that I was going to be out on the [hustings] raising banners that, shall we say untenable at Yale because I could see that the community traditions were going to be slightly more difficult to change.  And I see that as the same with the apartheid problems that I have just been associated with in South Africa in that you don't want to upset the apple cart by just changing everything radically.  I think being a radical often makes you on the outer with too many people too early in the game.  So I think I tried very hard to be the hail fellow well met without being the fellow.  Being the person who could handle discussions with people who were, let's say having a problem and felt that they could talk with you but didn't feel comfortable with a woman in that role. And I think by putting more women in the fellowship and saying look, these women are as talented and educated and intellectual that that was perhaps my main devotion to the changing in the faculty level of the University.  Because the fellows then went out and said well we have so and so in the faculty and she's doing a great job talking with students and maybe we should make her an Associate in the department or whatever.  I don't think any of them ran immediately to, what shall we call it, the faculty appointments.  But they did end up being accepted and I think it may have meant that the women who came to interview in a department were given a better hearing because somebody was sitting in a fellowship with them and did not feel uncomfortable.  Now as for the undergraduate group, I've been trying to think in terms of, and I would guess that I only was trying to appoint women who could talk to my undergraduates as fellows and many of them would eat lunch in the fellowship, in the Jonathan Edwards dining hall with students.\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=9000.0,9300.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: And I think that fact that they were there physically and they were carrying on conversations at every level whether it was social or whether it was intellectual, I think was a benefit.  So I think my role was to not rush out as the first woman raising a banner but to shall we say infiltrate the various women into places where they could make an impact without making an unfortunate impact as a radical.  And I feel very strongly that Jonathan Edwards has kept its role as a very appropriate college for students and fellows and I think that it is still burgeoning with women being added and how that works.  We have never had a female Dean which is something that I did try to work out and or another female Master.  So I think that maybe still needs to be corrected in that sense.  But other colleges have.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: So you were a pioneer clearly but you saw that your pioneering had to be done in a politic kind of way.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: That's probably the best word, politic.  Yeah, I'm not one to accept personally discuss things that would make people uncomfortable. \r\n\nINTERVIEWER: I was going to ask you what has your professional life at Yale taught you but I think you've just told me about how to negotiate.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Yes.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: And get what you want in the end. (laughter)\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: (laughter) I hope that’s the case because I think a lot of people are in this position, not necessarily women but men and I think in a lot of cases there are some personality differences that there is no way anyone is going to come back and one hopes that the individuals involved in the administration can see this and make adjustments so that it isn't tough on groups of individuals whether they are blacks or women or Asians or whomever and not keep radicals from expressing their points of view but not radicalizing a situation beyond the way in which it can contribute to the environment.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: In the research that I've done, it's clear to me right from the time in the '50s when I think it was first to come to talk about the possibility that women might sometime be a part of the Yale community in a more significant way than they had been before.  There had obviously always had been women at Yale but they were really very invisible before that.  There have been men at Yale who have championed women and I just wonder in your own life here would there be certain men that you would like to single out who have been particularly helpful in pushing forward women into positions of visibility and that visibility therefore beginning to change the culture?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Well I think I've mentioned -- \r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Sam?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Sam Troncy as being someone I think who was very helpful in making me come to the Mastership and for other women on the faculty perhaps as well.  And bringing in I think people eventually like Linda Loremere has been a very big positive for this University from my perspective.  I think the fact that we have had a number of Provosts who have gone on to Presidents of other Universities has been a flag that Yale must have really valued their contributions and moved them along.  Now how early that was accepted I think is another interesting insight to what it takes to people over time to come to grips with the change in the environment.  And whether it is women or Asians or whatever in the environment it takes time for people to accept a new culture and a new view of the world.  And I do believe women bring a different view as foreign nationals do as well.\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=9300.0,9600.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: And I think that has made the Yale system beneficial and one of the ways in which undergraduates see the world happening and changing.  And I'm sure it's not lost of the faculty that the Provostial women have moved into positions of great accolades around the world.  The Chancellor I think of Cambridge is -- \r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Allison Richards, yes.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Allison Richards.  That is not a trivial undertaking.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yes and Judith Roden went to UPenn.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: University of Pennsylvania.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yes.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: And our Provost went to MIT which is another kudos because that is a very male oriented scientific engineering school.  And again, here's a lady who was in science.  She was an active person and I also know that recently Wellesley has taken on one of our people in the administration.  And so I think that's saying a lot.  Now the fact that they don't stay at Yale is another perhaps interesting insight as to what they see that is better where they're going to be or whether they perceive this as a way of enlarging their scope. I have no perception but Kim Bottomly is somebody I would like to ask that question.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Well certainly I did hear Kim say a little while back at a public forum, I think it was Women's Faculty Forum that Yale has actually done pretty well when you look at all the ivy's at hiring women in the last 20 years since affirmative action, or that's actually 30 years now isn't it?  And it is increasingly doing well in hiring women.  But the big issue and the big challenge is actually not the hiring but retaining.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Well I made that very statement to somebody who was interviewing me and I want to bring this up because I think it is an insight that hasn't been attended to, the development office often send out people to give lectures around the country.  They often don't ask women to do because these are generally the older alums who want to hear from the famous older Professors, almost all of whom are men.  And I think I made the statement to one of them that there was a glass ceiling when I was coming in that that wouldn't change until that group of men changed their attitudes.  And the alums would have to, I'm sorry, die out before that would happen because they had been brought up that way that mom was at home and she was good old mom but she wasn't a career lady.  I love the idea that if there are people going out now to give talks at various places around to Yale alumni groups that they're asking women to do this because there are many on the faculty now who have remarkable capacities to do that.  And one hopes that the younger members, who I'm sure the Alumni Association want to join the Alumni Association would feel more comfortable with some of these younger faculty giving the talks.  The fact that I said there was a glass ceiling to the people who were interviewing me at a time when they were thinking about what was going to happen to the Alumni Association I think hadn't really thought about that.  That if there were not women at Yale, they were going to matriculate, graduate and become alums.  But they were going to have to ask the question, who were they going to identify with when they were alums?  And a lot of women who became faculty I'm sure were very good mentors to women.  And so they would have an association with women also as alum.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Did you do much mentoring yourself?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I felt I did but the number of women in science was small.  And I think the mentoring while I was master was sort of catch can.  Although I told you about our socializing I think that was what most mentoring was about, I certainly tried as I said to get the women into the Fellowship and they I'm sure were also, it might be interesting for you at some time in your future to interview Maggie Scarf for example and others who were brought in as fellows.\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=9600.0,9900.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: I don't know whether they would be willing to talk but I think the issues of what they ended up finding when they started as fellows would be interesting.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Thinking about mentoring, this is a crass generalistic question but I'll ask it anyway; what would you, looking back on your career think was the best advice that you were ever given and what was the worst advice you were given as a woman anticipating a career in science?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I guess my source of advice came from males and most of the best advice was to help me with my own future and the advice would be, \"I will assist you in making it possible for you to publish.\"  I think it was a woman again at the Oxford University Press who said, \"I'm going to help publish your book.\"  That was way back when I was doing asbestos and I'm still doing asbestos with the legal profession.  I think again the mentoring that I was given perhaps was assisted by my husband because he then very shortly thereafter became part of the Oxford Publications Committee in New York and maybe he didn't personally see that that book did all right but it is still in print.  And then I have a second one with them.  But I think there were so few members of the scientific community who were involved with me that the only story I can tell you was that when I went to Harvard as a first year graduate student, I don't know whether I related this story but the first day I was there I was signing up for classes.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: I don't think you did.  No.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: OK well the Professor of Economic Geology and I thought that sounded like an interesting course to start with, I actually married an economic geologist.  Russell Gibson was his name, he's dead, told me when I went into the interview to see if I could sit in his course, that no woman had ever taken his course and no woman was going to ever take his course and so I shouldn't bother to sign up.  So the next year when he was on sabbatical I took it and the person didn't have that opinion so I took the course.  But I think that really is the kind of advice that you gingerly ask as you're moving around in the science field.  Now whether, since this is career we're talking about, I've already said that the person in my own environment in Mt. Holyoke College was not willing to write a recommendation for me for graduate school, that was Chairman of the Department so I went to somebody else.  So I'm a pushy lady when it comes to something I want to do.  And if I think somebody will help me out, I will find that person.  And obviously I got into Harvard and I obviously moved ahead.  The issues of somebody trying to tell you you're not wanted here have been rather large.  But I think you sense that almost before somebody has to tell you that if you're in a group and they don't want to talk with you, they don't feel you have anything to offer.  I have also served on committees in many scientific environments in which women, maybe you're the only one or you're one of two and you almost feel as though they don't hear you if you want to make a distinction of a new idea or some different way of approaching it.  And I think that goes for everyone who comes into a committee who doesn't feel like they're a member of the club.  And I think that competition of getting your ideas out, your way of doing things out and I think the collaborative compassionate way of going ahead is not the usual way for many a committee.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: What keeps you going then?  Because I mean when you describe things like that, you get one obstacle and then you get another one and then you get another one and it accumulates and accumulates.  What keeps you going the whole time? \r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=9900.0,10200.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: My mother said, my mother said, \"If you want to do something in this world, you have to keep at it.  And in order to keep at it, just because someone tells you, they'll be another way.\"  In other words, there's always a way around the issue.  There's more than one way of doing it no matter what we're talking about and just found the way around.  If you're sincere in wanting to do it just keep plotting ahead and don't get turned off by people for whom you do not respect their way of going about things.  And so you either say, \"no I will not stay on this committee, I'll step down or I will keep pushing in the ways in which I think it will change.\"  I don't always end up with something I end up proud of mind you.  But there are some things that are worth fighting about in other words fighting within myself and keep on plotting or there's other ways in which you know you keep banging head against the stone wall.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: It takes an awful lot of emotional resilience though to do that, doesn't it.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Yes.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: And maybe do you think that women, it's required of women maybe rather more than men in the same circumstances?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Oh yes.  I believe that sincerely.  And I think that most successful women have learned how to pick gingerly around a difficult situation and the business today in the economic world must be frightful for some women who would like to make a contribution and find themselves banging their heads against the walls of, not people not listening because they think they don't have reasonable ideas.   It's better when there are more.  In other words, I think the changes that are happening with more women in more places of upper echelon jobs is making it much more easy for people to see the other life.  But I think that is going to be a problem for every minority as we're facing what's happening in the US and abroad.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: And yet of course there is always the counter argument that those women who have made it in the world of academia, the world of business or whatever, what they do is they make it and then pull the drawbridge up after them and that is often not received very kindly.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Well I have heard this and I suppose if I thought hard I could find a few who perhaps I would put that name to them, drawing the bridge up.  But I think in general when women are seeing a situation where another woman is getting a lot of flack that they identify with that situation because they've had to face that.  I think mentoring is part of the women's issue that needs to be accentuated.  And I hope that the increase in faculty women and the thought process that puts women into places of mentoring will keep that going.  I mean every women's group I know has a huge section within it that deals with mentoring and all of us really try I think on every occasion.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: And yet there's some things that never go away.  One of the things that struck me during the background research, you'd look at the minutes of women's groups at Yale in its feminist infancy in the early '70s, around '71, '72 and there'd be half a dozen issues on the table and they usually were childcare, flexible work times -- \r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=10200.0,10500.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"INTERVIEWER: The tenure track business, all those things.  And you fast forward 40 years and women's faculty forum, what's on the top of the agenda today?  Exactly the same issues.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Is this an expression of the fact that many career women have elected either not to get married or not to have a family?\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: I don't know but it's interesting that the same things keep coming up.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I agree that they should be changed.  I think it would have made my life and every person I know, my daughters etc who have jobs and are the wage earners for their family, need that kind of background understanding and the support of childcare and it's not going to be just childcare for these younger women.  It is going to be parent care.  And I think that this has got to come through the congress of the US as well as in every academic and corporate environment.  Because we're losing the contributions of women who just haven't got the energy to keep the fight going because there are demands made on them by family.  And I think family is the thing that is disappearing as a support mechanism for a lot of women and I think the reason is that many women haven't got that built in institutional background that they need.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yeah, there are structural changes that need to happen.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: It would be an interesting historical perspective to look at the women who succeeded and what family problems they've dealt with and how they've coped with them and if there are changes in the areas in which they could make changes.  I must say that I think Yale probably has put in women's caring in places for children but I don't know how well it's undertaken in a way in which new faculty members are made aware of it.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: I think that you are certainly not presented as women's issues per say but family issues so that both men and women can be part of that conversation about what actually makes for decent working conditions.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Yes that's a very important insight here for the future.  Because I think a lot of males are going to have to contribute this and maybe that will be the issue that will change the perception on the part of the institutions.  Because I think the family older generations issues with health are going to make it very difficult for whoever the care giver ends up being.  The responsible care giver to cope with that and it's going to be very personal.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yeah, I agree with you.  You said in one of our earlier conversations and I don't want to be naughty and ask you about it again, but I remember you saying that it was better it a woman's academic subject was somewhat different from her husbands.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Yes I think I mentioned pillow talk and department talk.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yes you did.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I believe that is especially true in my particular position.  I'm interested that Elga Wasserman whom I know over both years at Yale was also a chemist and her husband was in the Chemistry Department.  And I don't think that they offered Elga a position in the Chemistry Department although I'm sure she was qualified to have one.  I think maybe in the history department where one can distinguish between let's say medieval history and Icelandic history or that level of difference and can hire today people in that same department and carry them along without the whole department getting uptight about it.  It's a very sticky wicket because the nepotism I think is still thought of.  And certainly my husband has been very cherry on that level.  And I believe that was a good thing for him to do up to a point.  I think it was very hard for me to live with the fact that I would come home and I would ask a question relative to something that was going on in the department that I sensed rather than knew about.  And he would pass along something but not particularly illustrate it with what I thought was the, shall we say the nub of the issue.  I think appointing women in the department as faculty members is still a faculty issue that is going to continue when there is nepotism involved.  I see it.  And I know that it is still happening in other schools.  And I remember counseling a young woman who was in the biology department who was going to a faculty appointment that they were sharing, she and her husband were sharing.  And I said, \"I don't think that's a good idea.  Because when the time comes for tenure appointment, you're going to have a disadvantage, having taken a joint single site in the department, they're going to have to weight what you can contribute.\"\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=10500.0,10800.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: \"Unless you are so far ahead in the publications and in your level of acceptance by the field than your husband, they're going to make him the person.  They will feel more comfortable with a single person in that role.  Don't do it.\"  She did it.  She ended up taking a secondary position later on.  I think it was very difficult.  And I think it accentuates the difficulty that a woman feels not only in her field because of the acceptance by her field that you're not appointed in an academic role faculty tenured appointment but also among the people who she's dealing with let's say teaching in the place where she presently is.  She doesn't feel valued.  And I don't think that's a very happy place to come from. And I'm sure that it has caused a lot of consternation at home for everyone.  \r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Women in higher education have clearly come a long way from the 1950s and '60s when you were starting out.  But there's still quite a way to go, many people would say.  Do you think that in science which is your field that women are given an equal change here in today's world?  Clearly there was a higher bar when you were starting out.  It wasn't a level playing field.  Do you think it is more equal today in the sciences?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I would hope it was but I don't think that's the case yet.  I think the fact that we've just mentioned the women who have gone to Presidents of Universities and so on, the acceptance level of women is getting higher and if they're in a position to say to a department, you have to ask which women are applying and at least show me that you're making an effort to get women into your department.  There's a rumor that the Geology Department was given an opportunity to have an additional appointment if they made women a faculty member and they could have two Assistant Professors instead of just one.  Now I don't know that that's the way in which it should be done but if that's what has to be done in order to get women to be given the opportunity to move up on the ladder or to start on the academic ladder and then perhaps move elsewhere because they're looking for a job and if they had an experience of three of six years at Yale that the University of Michigan or North Carolina or Stanford or Harvard would then think of them as a qualified academic.  I think that's a good thing.  So I think it has to be coming from the top down and I think in a lot of cases for individual departments, that is a tough roe to hoe unless the present Chairman and the older faculty are not so unhappy with the fact that they have a woman colleague.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yes it also raises the old affirmative action hair of quotas, doesn't it?  That someone is appointed just because she's a woman because we had to have x number of women.  And that's always problematic too, isn't it?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Oh indeed it is.  And I have to tell you that we're having the same problems with blacks, aren't we?  And the field that has the fewest blacks that I know of is geology.  We don't have a single person that is coming forward other than Ruth Blake.  And she is in demand.  I think she probably could get a position at any University she wanted as a tenured faculty member and she's incrementing her way up in the Yale faculty.  Whether they will appoint her as a full fledged tenured faculty member is something that is going to be very interesting.  I don't envy her this particular action.  Quotas are a problem.  But I think it is maybe the way in which it is cut.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: In which it is framed.  Yes, isn't it.  Yeah.  What advice would you give to a young woman today who wants to make a career in science?  What advice would you give her?\r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=10800.0,11100.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: Try and get as much publications out if you want to be in academics.  Make your mentorship with people who feel very strongly that you have a lot to offer to the field.  And I don't care whether it is astronomy, geology, biology, there are so many new and wonderful opportunities out there in the environmental area that I think women are going to do very well in.  Because this environmental field is much more broad based in accepting people from diversified sciences that I think there are going to be more women in that.  And I've noticed that there are a lot of women going to work for environmental concerns and their background is as good as any male.  And I don't feel they're going to be put at a disadvantage if they can make the contributions.  The old problems of having women be in the field I think are now beside because a lot of things are done by computer.  You make models of things, you take data wherever the data is available the data is coming over the Internet.  It may be done by Joe [Dokes?] and his group of undergraduates some of which will be females and some of those females will know how that data was gathered.  I think the environmental field is going to make a big difference.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: So it is like a two way street that women are changing to some extent the rules of scientific engagement because they bring their particular perspective but at the same time science itself is changing because they're much more in the way of these new scientific groups like environmentalism which is bringing many different things together.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Environmentalism is making cooperative science the order of the day.  And it is not just science, it's economic and statistics.  And of course we're back to the old adage that women can't do math.  Nobody told me that but they told my grandchildren that and I was horrified when I heard about it.  But I believe sincerely that people who are interested in things that relate to the environment are going to bring cooperative, collaborative activities together and that's going to make the science acceptable and women acceptable.  It's going to be interesting.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yeah and you've definitely been a pioneer in that respect haven't you?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Well shall we say I've been fighting the battle on something that I enjoy doing and that had brought me into places where I like the challenges.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Did you expect to end up there?\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Not at all.  If somebody had told me when I graduated Mt. Holyoke College and thought I was going on in geology that I was going to be a pioneer anywhere, I would have said, \"what does that mean?\"  Yeah I really don't know.  I just like what I'm doing.  \r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Well thank you very much indeed, that's great.  We've been talking I think well over three hours.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: I know and you were very good to put up with it.  And I must say that I've enjoyed your questions and I want to add one other name.  Do you know Joe Futon and his wife Serena Sorenson?\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yes I actually wrote to her a couple of months ago but I've not had a reply.  So I feel that maybe she's not in such good health.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Well if she isn't I'd love to help you get to her.  Because she was somebody who was in biochemistry before biochemistry became the topic area that gave rise to a lot of very important people who also graduated with PhDs from Yale and then moved on to the head for example of Carnegie Institution in Washington and who have been on the Yale corporation.  And I think Serena would be somebody that at least you should acknowledge as part of the whole time when the '60s and '70s were generating.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: It would be wonderful to be able to talk to her and I certainly did write to her a little while back.  It must be probably two months now.  So if there is anything at all you can do, that would be great.  I'd appreciate that.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: There are a couple of other women around.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Well why don't we just switch this off.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: And I'll just say that it has just been a pleasure to be a part of something which I didn't know existed until I met you.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Well it didn't exist a year ago.  So it's a good move for Yale to be doing it.\r\n\nCATHERINE SKINNER: Yes indeed. \r\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=11100.0,11400.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274/transcript/31940/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CATHERINE SKINNER: Because I think they've occupied as I've said with providing a lot of women in fancy positions around the world and I'm going to be interested to see whether the people who are on the Yale corporation like the Indian lady who is presently on the Yale corporation and I think she's head of Pepsi Cola or something.  Coca cola.  She is somebody with an enormous background and head of a huge corporation.  And I wonder what her thoughts would be on her background because she's obviously, shall we see an older generation person in this.  And I can supply a lot of names that I think might keep yourself busy for the next 10 years.  \r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yes I think at least until retirement anyway. (laughter)  Thank you very much Cathy, that was great.\r\n\r\nEND OF TRANSCRIPT","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48969/file/122274#t=11400.0,11537.592"}]}]}]}