FSCW Rules and Regulations (Group 6)
Laura Quayle Benson's Customs and regulations booklet provides insight into to the living situation of a woman living in a residence hall while attending Florida State College for Women. The residence hall students were kept on a regimented schedule for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and sleep. The times of the beginning for each of these periods were posted in this booklet. It details dining room rules, stating "Dining room doors will be closed ten minutes after breakfast bell rings; and fifteen minutes after luncheon and dinner bell. No table ware, i.e., dishes, silverware, or food, taken from dining room. Attendance at breakfast is required except on Monday, two absences are equivalent to one absence from class." Guests were charged $1.00 per day for their stay along with 25c for a meal ticket. Students rooms were not very customizable. They were to remain somewhat barren with nothing "driven in or posted on the walls or woodwork." No posters were allowed to be hung and no furniture exchanged, or rooms swapped without permission from the Bryan Hall office. If a student were to fall ill it was reported to the college nurse, and then that student must stay in the infirmary. A student could only make a call from the student's telephone located on the second floor, while the telephone in the main office was reserved for business. To avoid and prepare for fires students were required to attend fire drills and follow the posted rules. They were not allowed to use "candles, oil lamps, electric irons or any electric appliances..." in their rooms. Laundry was taken out on Tuesday morning and delivered back on Saturday afternoon. It could only be deposited through "back doors or dormitories." All students of the Florida State College for Women resident on the campus are members of the Student Government Association until they prove themselves incapable of self-government." Their duties were to uphold social regulations, preserve order, promote honesty, study the social needs of the college, and act as chaperones in riding to and from town. The house was to remain quiet during study hours from 7:15 PM to 9:45 PM. The other times it was to be quiet was from 10:05 PM to 6:30 AM, except on Saturday's when the lights went out at 10:30 PM. Any time a student wished to go from one hall to another during a studying period they must get a permission slip from the House President. They could sleep outside of their rooms only with the permission of the House President. Students could visit the town once per week, unless they received special permission to visit more times. They could not go into town on Saturday's, and they could not be see fraternizing with men. They could also attend a "Picture Show" once a month on a Monday for matinee. If they wanted to attend the "Picture Show" on a Saturday evening, a party of ten or less would need to be accompanied by a chaperone. This party could stop for ice cream after the show but that was it. The parties had to be back to the dorms by 10:15 PM. Seniors were the only group of students who had some exceptions to the previous regulations. Seniors had an open study period, could leave campus in the day, could attend matinee's unchaperoned, could have a "gentleman caller" once per week, had six cuts from breakfast, and could be chaperones for underclassmen attending matinees.
I believe a booklet like this one lets current generations understand the lives of college aged women in the 1920's based off of the rules and living arrangements they had to follow. It gives a sense of their wants, fashion style, and social norms. In order to understand changes in body image, Margaret Lowe, who studied college women's fashions at Smith and other campuses during this time, argues that female students "… shaped their … attitudes about looks and self‐presentation, with dating and marriage very much in mind". She also noted, "Students linked fashion to women's progress, managing changing ideas of femininity and feminism as well as their role in a national consumer culture. At the same time, these women used fashion as one means of negotiating not only their attraction to but also their discomfort with the image of the sexually assertive woman. Attempting to shape their peers' appearances and the interpretation of them served as one method through which Smith students navigated the experience of being modern college women." This modernization in change for women’s clothes had some setbacks as these "products became fundamental to their construction and expression of public and personal identities." Lowe explains how "fashion served as a logical focus for connection over changing gender roles and sexual mores." In this time period, attending college was already progressive for women, "in 1920, just seven percent of American women aged 18-21 did so." Meaning those women are the only women representing fellow women their age in America in a higher educational and professional setting. That being said the actual fashion styles and wants of the time period were probably much more diverse than was showcased, but this is the only pool available for example. According to Lowe, "the clothing styles worn on campus ranged from practical skirts and sweaters for classes to formal dresses for prom and other social activities, garments that were either purchased or sewn by students or their mothers." Lowe states that at Smith College, "During the 1920s, romantic friendships among female students were discouraged as lesbianism came under suspicion at women's colleges (Horowitz 282–83). Although the term “boyish” was sometimes used to describe popular female styles of this period, it is debatable whether the majority of American women's appearances were actually considered masculine or lesbian." I imagine that these relationships were also discouraged at Florida State Women’s College, although it was never specifically stated. The women were not allowed to leave their rooms after a designated time period, had to get a permission to sleep in a location besides their dorm room, and had a designated time each week for a "male caller". In the 1920s, the women of Florida State Women's College and Smith College faced new opportunities and challenges through their clothes and appearance to demonstrate their sexuality. Their conception of sexuality, as represented by clothing and appearance made social achievement possible. It also increased questions about class and sexual orientation for others. Many found themselves somewhere in the middle.
Works Cited:
Van Cleave, Kendra. “Fashioning the College Woman: Dress, Gender, and Sexuality at Smith College in the 1920s.” Journal of American Culture, vol. 32, no. 1, Mar. 2009, pp. 4–15. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/j.1542-734X.2009.00689.x.