UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #769
APPLE, RIMA

APPLE, Rima (1944- )
Vilas Life Cycle Professor, School of Human Ecology and Women's Studies Program; Graduate student
At UW: 1971-1981, 1992-

Interviewed: 2006	
Interviewer: Sandy Pfahler
Length: 1.25 hours

Family; New York University; Marriage; Systems engineering at IBM; Move to Madison; Computer programming at the Department of Public Instruction; Graduate study at UW; Research and dissertation; SUNY-Stony Brook; Teaching at UW-Milwaukee; Editorial work; Research on scientific motherhood; Hiring by UW School of Family Resources and Consumer Sciences (FRACS); School of Human Ecology; Teaching; Women’s Studies Program; History of home economics; Teaching; Publications; International lecturing; Committee service; Climate for women on campus; Vilas Life Cycle Professorship; Honors and awards; Family and leisure.

Interview Session (May 22, 2006): Tapes 1-2

Tape 1/Side 1

0:00:46 	Rima Apple was born in New York City in 1944.  Her family moved to Teaneck, New Jersey in the early 1950s.  

0:01:20	She has an older sister.  It was expected in her family that the children would always go to college; her father had a PhD and was a chemist and her mother had completed high school.

0:01:48	RA attended New York University.  She commuted to care for her sick mother and to stay in a relationship.  She majored in mathematics at NYU.

0:03:13	She married and began to work for IBM in Philadelphia.  Her husband worked full-time and earned a bachelor’s degree at night.  He then pursued a graduate degree at Columbia Teachers College and she worked for IBM in New York City.

0:04:26	RA was a systems engineer at IBM.

0:05:18	She attended library school at Columbia.

0:05:48	Her husband got a job at UW-Madison and they moved to Madison in 1970.  RA worked for the Department of Public Instruction as a computer programmer.

0:06:30	Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Evolution excited her interest in science.  

0:07:33	She started graduate study in the history of science at UW in 1971.  She was told that she could not be given a fellowship because her husband was an assistant professor and might leave at any time; however, she worked as a project assistant compiling a cumulative bibliography with John Nye.

0:09:15	RA was again denied a fellowship after her husband achieved tenure–the reason being that she would never need to get a job because her husband’s position was secure.  She kept working as a project assistant.

0:09:41	She was interested in the history of American science and medicine.  She studied with Judith Leavitt and Ron Numbers.

0:11:37	RA describes her research on bottle feeding, which got her interested in the relationship between mothers and experts (such as doctors).  She received her PhD in 1981 while raising two children.

0:12:40	She talks about her dissertation on infant feeding from 1850-1950.  She extended this into her first book, Mothers and Medicine.

0:16:52	RA got a two-year postdoc job at SUNY-Stony Brook identifying historical medical photographs.  She describes how she, her husband, and her children worked this out while she worked in New York and they lived in Madison.

0:18:42	She taught a history of medicine course at UW-Milwaukee.

0:18:58	In 1989, UW-Madison became the editorial home for Isis, the international journal for the history of science.  She became the assistant editor and later the associate editor of the journal.

0:20:01	She and her husband entertained offers of academic positions from UCLA and Columbia.  She was doing research while editing but she wanted an academic job.

0:20:59	The dean of the School of Education wanted to keep RA and her husband at UW-Madison.  She had been an affiliate of the Women’s Studies Program, but they could not offer her a full appointment with a tenure home.

0:21:54	The School of Family Resources and Consumer Sciences (FRACS) (now the School of Human Ecology) wanted RA.

0:22:30	RA wanted to write a book about scientific motherhood, which is the nineteenth-century concept that women need science and medicine to raise their children appropriately.  In the twentieth century this concept evolved into the notion that women had to listen to experts.  For such a book, the topic of infant feeding was too narrow, so she turned to studying nutrition.

0:24:00	She describes her book on vitamins, Vitamania.  The research for this led her into the area of consumerism and the history of consumer movements.  For this reason FRACS suggested that she teach a history of consumerism, and she added a course on the history of motherhood.  She was hired on a tenure-track position and began work in 1992; she achieved tenure in 1992.

0:27:07	RA describes the reputation of the School of FRACS when she began working there.

0:28:06	Students in the Women’s Studies Program took her history of motherhood course.  She serves on the executive committee of the program.

0:29:36	In 1996, the School decided to add a department of interdisciplinary studies in human ecology.  RA began to teach the history of home economics for this new program.

0:31:26	End of side.

Tape 1/Side 2

0:31:38	Rima Apple discusses how human ecology grew out of the home economics movement in the twentieth century.  She talks about programs in human ecology at other universities.  

0:33:01	Human ecology is not strictly a female discipline, both in terms of students and faculty.

0:35:00	RA describes her teaching experience.  

0:36:36	She does not have many graduate students.

0:37:47	RA talks about the culture of the School of Human Ecology.  The need for recognition and funding has made it more difficult for the School to do things that have no monetary reward.

0:40:20	Writing is enjoyable for RA.  She talks about the impact of her book, Vitamania.

0:43:40	Perfect Motherhood is her history of scientific motherhood.

0:45:09	RA describes her international lecturing in New Zealand.

0:47:31	She talks about writing grants for research funding.

0:51:23	She talks about her involvement in the American Association for the History of Nursing.

0:51:57	The most significant development in the last twenty-five years in the history of science has been the development of history from the bottom-up, i.e. a focus not just on experts but also on para-professionals and patients.

0:53:35	RA brought the term scientific motherhood into the historiography of science in the twentieth century.

0:54:49	She describes her service on campus committees, including those for libraries and archives.  She served on the Student Academic Affairs Committee.

0:56:37	RA describes her term on the Faculty Senate.

0:57:16	The School of Human Ecology offers scholarships based on endowments.

0:58:01	RA thinks that the climate for women on campus has not changed as much as was hoped.  She has never encountered any problems within the School but thinks that many issues such as workload and salary persist.

1:00:57	The Women’s Mentoring Program offers a campus channel for women to network, but RA thinks that too many female assistant professors do not utilize it.

1:02:28	RA is the Vilas Life Cycle Professor.  This professorship was set up for people whose significant life changes have affected their scholarship.

1:02:51	End of side.  End of tape.

Tape 2/Side 1

1:02:59	Rima Apple continues to describe the Vilas Life Cycle Professorship.

1:07:27	She talks about awards she has received.  Next semester she will be the Women’s Studies Feminist Fellow; she describes the research she will do with this fellowship.

1:05:45	Vitamania won an award from the American Institute for the History of Pharmacy.

1:07:07	RA describes her family.

1:09:28	She talks about her leisure activities and travel.

1:11:57	RA discusses the importance of support networks in her career.

1:13:26	End of side.  End of tape.  End of interview.

END