Isabel Ross Abbot begins this interview by describing her parents’ lives in Nova Scotia before she was born. In Part 1, she discusses the family’s move to Providence, Rhode Island and her childhood there, including attending elementary school and happy memories of Christmas and sledding down the hills of Providence.
Helen Julia Thayer grew up in North Smithfield, Rhode Island. She remembers Pembroke as a place of "gracious living," including maids to clean the dorm rooms. The main pastime was dancing in the living room of Miller Hall to Jazz records. Rebellious activities included smoking in one's closet, sleeping out on the fire escapes, and sneaking out to the drug store after hours for treats. Prominent visitors to the Brown campus were figures of importance in World War I, and Helen's interest in music lead her to attend performances as often as she could in downtown Provide
In this interview, Ruth May Bugbee, remembers her father encouraging her to attend Pembroke College after high school. She recalls segregation of men and women on campus, the Maypole dance, formal gatherings in Sayles Hall, and Dean Anne Crosby Emery Allinson. She mentions her first job as a psychiatric social worker at Howard State Hospital in Cranston, Rhode Island, and details her twenty-year career at the Rhode Island Birth Control League (later Rhode Island Maternal Health Association, then Planned Parenthood) in Providence, Rhode Island.
In this interview, Beatrice Elizabeth Coleman discusses her career as a teacher in normal schools in North Carolina and Pennsylvania; the Black communities in Providence and at Brown and Pembroke in the early twentieth century; and her sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha. At the time of the interview she was 102 years old.
In this interview, Grace Amelia McAuslan begins by explaining why she decided to attend Pembroke College and what her first impressions were. She notes some of the courses she took as a sociology concentrator and momentarily remembers participating in the Pembroke orchestra. She shares brief memories of Dean Margaret Shove Morriss and Dean Anne Crosby Emery Allinson.
