UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #241
BOGHOLT, JULIA

BOGHOLT, Julia (1901-1990)
Wife of Carl M. Bogholt (#7)

Interviewed: 	1983
Series: 	Faculty Wives
Interviewers: 	Anne Boyer and Laura Smail
Length: 	1 hour, 29 minutes

Background and education; Move to Wisconsin; Founding nursery school; Work during Depression; Work for Progressive Party, 1928; Formation of new Democratic Party in Wisconsin; Role as faculty wife; Disapproval of wives' taking courses; Attitude to working wives; Social life; Mixed dining club; Continuing political work; Chicken farm.  

First Interview Session (January 29, 1982): Digital File

Time	Keywords
00:00:00	Start of Interview/Interviewer’s Introduction [begin Tape 1]

00:01:42	Logic courses given by Carl Bogholt in 1940s.   

00:04:40	Why CB never published. Wrote book but received negative reaction to manuscript, never published it.  

00:08:10	JB's early life, Missouri. Father a banker. Family split between northerners, southerners. JB and brother went east to college, Julia at Smith. Engaged at 15 to a family friend.  

00:10:26	JB at Smith College, 1918. Majored in Chemistry. Family strongly disliked this for a girl. 

00:12:17	After graduating, became a graduate student at Massachusetts Ag Amherst.  Family violently opposed to her doing graduate work. JB didn't marry family-arranged fiance. Role as family outlaw, despite having learned traditional feminine skills such as embroidery. First love, science.  

00:16:08	Experiences in Amherst while in graduate school. Studied under renowned Charles Marshall; other eminent teachers she encountered at Massachusetts Ag. Julia's projects: building first pH tester, research on botulism spore life cycle.  

00:18:26	Her completed research work was presented at bacteriology meetings but was superseded by another thesis, at Wisconsin. JB lost momentum. Had completed class work but not written thesis, would have to start over on research.  

00:20:16	JB one of very few graduate students at Massachusetts Ag allowed to attend lectures by visiting physicist Niels Bohr.  

00:21:35	Meets Carl Bogholt, graduate student. CB's attempts to make money.   

00:25:08	JB makes academic hoods for commencement.  

00:26:47	Falls in love with CB, June 1923. CB of lost generation after WWI. JB disappointed about her graduate work progress. Decision to marry Carl, marriage.  

00:29:26	Move to Georgia. JB gets job as Assistant Director of County Health Department. They stay a year. CB tries to write `Great American Novel.' 

00:30:01	Daughter born, a blue baby. Only one of three babies born to Bogholts who survived. Julia gives up job to care for baby. Subsequently goes back to work at Marine Hospital as technician. Runs laboratory.                                

00:31:37	Move to Wisconsin. JB planned to put CB through graduate school by working, but couldn't be hired at UW because CB had graduate assistantship in Philosophy Department.

00:32:45	JB opens "first nursery school" in Madison, fall 1926, when daughter 1 year old.  Ran it for 6 years until daughter went to public school. Nursery school earnings supported family while CB in graduate school at UW.

00:34:05	Nursery school described. JB's feelings about running school (had lost two babies). Felt nursery school would benefit her only child. Received help from many UW faculty members, experimental college boys. Gave up running school went Ann entered public school.

00:38:31	JB takes a year off while CB writes his thesis.

00:39:46	CB becomes asst professor, low salary. JB stops working. Depression era--no paying jobs to be had. JB volunteered at hospital lab doing blood counts and at Truax hospital, doing occupational therapy (weaving, etc.) for Red Cross.

00:43:07	JB felt it important to be home whenever daughter home from school. Organized activities for Ann and friends. Reminiscences about nursery school, houses lived in. Had to sell their house at loss when nursery school closed. Rented apartment, later a house on Jefferson St.

00:45:50	JB gets involved with Progressives, 1928. Helping campaign for Bob LaFollette all over Dane County. Learned grassroots politics; did free work whenever asked. Never joined Progressive party in '30s because they excluded Socialists.

00:48:10	Formation of new Democratic party in Wisconsin, 1942. JB built broad network throughout Dane County towns--put in charge of organizing Dane County Democratic party. Visited county towns when daughter in school. Aim was to elect senators, congressmen on Democratic ticket. Attempts to get Progressives to join Democratic party.

00:52:01	Role as hostess. Upbringing prepared her to always offer refreshments to visitors.  Enjoyed giving snacks to experimental college boys.

00:53:04	Other faculty wives mostly not professional women.

00:53:15	Over time in Madison, JB saw climate change so that some wives ultimately felt pressure to acquire expertise in some area, so as to be able to teach it if husband went abroad. Idea of helping husband, pulling own weight.

00:55:05	JB told that women don't interfere when she came here. Many faculty felt wives shouldn't take UW courses because they didn't pay tuition. JB only took a course one semester as a refresher.

00:56:05	Climate toward working women permanently changed by WWII and need for women to work in schools, libraries. JB worked in Madison General Hospital Bacteriology Lab.  During war, working women started receiving respectability, not loathed as before.

00:58:18	JB told who could and could not be her friend.

00:58:32	University League--belonged, but not active member. During WWII served as Civil Defense Captain for 13th ward.

01:00:24	After war, women of next generation, not hers, felt change toward working.

01:00:41	Social life. B's belonged to a mixed dinner club, early '30s. Group included Reeses, Clarks, Garrisons, Halls, Bunns.

01:02:09	Early '30s worked in bacteriology lab for a year when Ann went to high school. Worked on developing polio vaccine. [

01:02:54	[begin Tape 2/Side 1] JB's priorities.  Determined to run a home for Ann, and home to which husband could bring colleagues and their wives.  Entertained.  JB made a deliberate choice against working a full-time scientist.  Couldn't do research part time and that was her area of interest.  Feels she made right choice.

01:04:06	Poured all her energy left over from research into politics.  Put in as much energy as volunteer as others do in paid jobs.  Named National Committeewoman 1948-51.

01:05:33	Much social life.  While CB in grad school, pot luck suppers with group of somewhat faculty friends.  Loved entertaining often--philosophy dept members, especially visiting scholars.

01:08:12	Democratic Party reminiscences.  Resigned National Committee after '50 elections.  Dropped completely out of politics to make room for younger party workers, but returned to politics in 1980 in Town of Dunn (where farm is).  Now deeply involved in town politics and is happy for it.

01:13:08	Farm activated after CB retired.  JB began raising fertile eggs on large scale to make vaccine.  Had bacteriological background and farming knowledge from Missouri childhood.  Raised eggs for 15 years; hard, full-time work--chicken farming details. Allowed her to claim joint ownership of farm after CB's death.

01:21:55	Objections to playing bridge for money ("too poor"), although many other faculty wives did a lot of this.

01:23:16	Entertaining--large picnics for foreign students even after CB retired, not technically a faculty wife any more.

01:24:43	JB felt the only impact she had as faculty wife was as a hostess for her husband.  CB always ready to entertain departmentally, even when rest of department remiss.  Frequently entertained visiting scholars, introduced them around.  Gave many Ph.D. parties.

01:28:09	JB never tried to aim her political activism towards faculty members.

01:29:26	End of First Interview Session

End of Oral History #241