To Live Alone and Like It: Women and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens Between the Wars.
Posted: August 5, 2019 Filed under: Archival Research, Biography, Greek Folklore, History of Archaeology, Mediterranean Studies, Modern Greek History, Philhellenism, Women's Studies | Tags: Alison Frantz, Priscilla Capps, Rhys Carpenter 10 Comments“But it is not education only that is needed. It is that women should have liberty of experience… to idle and loiter, the mental space to let your mind wonder,” wrote Virginia Woolf in A Room of One’s Own in 1929. The work was based on lectures she delivered in October 1928 at Newnham College and Girton College in Cambridge (both for women). She further advised her female audience “to drink wine and have a room of their own.” I will not dwell on the issue of wine because women of all classes had access to alcohol, at least privately, but for a woman to have a room of her own was highly unusual before WW II, especially for women who had not inherited wealth. Woolf would be eternally grateful to her aunt for leaving her a lifelong annual stipend of 500 pounds.
That a woman could live alone by her own choice was almost unheard of. Young women who moved to the big cities in search of work were usually sharing apartments with others of the same sex, for a few years at most, until they got married. However, WW I upset traditional demographics by creating a population imbalance in the western world: more women than men. To put it bluntly, for these extra women it meant that the prospect of marriage was less attainable (Scutts 2017). If Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was fighting her own battles in ultra conservative England, Marjorie Hillis (1889-1971), an American writer and contemporary of Woolf, was sufficiently daring to publish in 1936 a book that encouraged single women to take control of their lives and Live Alone and Like it. “A Lady and Her Liquor,” “Pleasures of a Single Bed,” and “Solitary Refinement?” were some of the chapter titles. Her book became an immediate best-seller and remained popular for many years.
“The Best Laid Plans… Often Go Awry”: A Tale of Two Museums
Posted: February 1, 2016 Filed under: Archaeology, Archival Research, History of Archaeology, Modern Greek History | Tags: Ada Small Moore, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Corinth Museum, Edward Capps, Konstantinos Kourouniotis, Lesvos Museum, Mytilene, Rhys Carpenter, Richard Stillwell, W. Stuart Thomspon 7 CommentsIn the spring of 1934, the construction of two new archaeological museums was completed in Greece, both under the auspices of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA or the School hereafter) and by the same architect, W. Stuart Thompson. Thompson had designed the Gennadius Library a few years earlier. The dedication of the Corinth Museum was grand and attended by most significant officers of the Greek Government. There was no dedication for the Lesvos Museum. Of the two museums, the one in Corinth is still standing and functioning, while the other on the island of Mytilene (Lesvos) collapsed shortly after its erection. Read the rest of this entry »
Tales of Olynthus: Spoken and Unspoken
Posted: October 1, 2015 Filed under: Archaeology, Archival Research, Classics, History of Archaeology, Women's Studies | Tags: Alan Kaiser, Charles H. Morgan, David M. Robinson, Eunice Stebbins, George Mylonas, Gladys Davidson Weinberg, Mary Ross Ellingson, Olynthus or Olynthos, plagiarism, Raymond Dessy, Rhys Carpenter, Richard Stillwell, Sexism, Walter Graham, Wilhelmina Van Ingen 7 Comments
In memory of Barbara McManus (1942-2015)
In early March of 1928, David Moore Robinson (1880-1958), professor of archaeology at Johns Hopkins University, began large-scale excavations in Chalkidiki. His goal was to discover and investigate ancient Olynthus, the city that King Philip of Macedon had completely destroyed in 348 B.C. Since Olynthus had been abandoned after its destruction, Robinson was hoping to find temples, stoas, and other public buildings of the Late Classical period, without “any boring Roman stuff,” as one of the excavation participants observed. Until Robinson excavated Olynthus, the research focus of classical archaeology in Greece had been centered on the discovery of monumental public architecture and inscriptions. (For a biographical sketch of Robinson’s rich life, see https://dictionaryofarthistorians.org/robinsond.htm) Read the rest of this entry »
Unbalanced Academics, Scribblers, and an “Odd Christmas”
Posted: September 1, 2014 Filed under: Archaeology, Archival Research, Classics, Education, History of Archaeology | Tags: Alan Boegehold, Alan J. B. Wace, Carl W. Blegen, Dorothy Burr Thompson, Emily Vermeule, Gina Hiatt, Oscar Broneer, Rhys Carpenter, Robert D. Blegen, The Literary Club of Cincinnati, Theodor Adorno, Thomas W. Jacobsen 7 CommentsJack L. Davis, Professor of Greek Archaeology at the University of Cincinnati and former director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (2007-2012), here contributes to The Archivist’s Notebook an essay about the non-archaeological pastimes of some of the School’s most distinguished past members, including Carl Blegen, Emily Vermeule, Rhys Carpenter, Oscar Broneer, and Dorothy Burr Thompson.
Not so long ago I stumbled across an internet site called “The Academic Ladder,” a career counseling service. Its newsletter headlined a story of interest: “Get A Life! A Chart For Living A Balanced Life (Even If You’re An Academic),” by Gina Hiatt, clinical psychologist.
“Why do academics lead unbalanced lives?”
You can never do enough. The academic life is a writer’s life, only worse. This is because the academic constantly feels that he or she has not done enough. … There is always someone better than you. Academics constantly compare themselves to each other. … And face it: no matter how good you are at some aspect of a profession or field, there is someone else who does another part of the profession better.
In the long run, this is no way to live a life. You will end up with health problems and not enjoy your career, if you don’t balance your life better. There is more to life than academia!
German philosopher Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969)
While recognizing that academics may not feel they “deserve” leisure time as a “reward,” Gina suggests ways to live more balanced lives by finding things to do, other than work, that are relaxing, fun, and important. Most of us at least are somewhat familiar with the concept (I am constantly being told by loved ones that I should relax more and have more fun), but the notion that leisure time should be filled with important activities is another matter entirely, and brings to mind Theodor Adorno’s 1963 essay “Free Time.” There he succinctly wrote:
Time and again in interviews and questionnaires one is asked what one has for a hobby. … I am startled by the question whenever I meet with it. I have no hobby. Not that I’m a workaholic who wouldn’t know how to do anything else but get down to business and do what has to be done. But rather I take the activities with which I occupy myself beyond the bounds of my official profession, without exception, so seriously that I would be shocked by the idea that they had anything to do with hobbies -that is, activities I’m mindlessly infatuated with only in order to kill time- if my experiences had not toughened me against manifestations of barbarism that have become self-evident and acceptable. Making music, listening to music, reading with concentration constitute an integral element of my existence; the word hobby would make a mockery of them. Read the rest of this entry »
From the Archivist's Notebook 