UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #634
McCOY, ELIZABETH and PETERSON, MARTHA

McCOY, Elizabeth (1903-1978)
Professor of Bacteriology
At UW: 1930-73
and
PETERSON, Martha (1916- )
Dean of Women
At UW: 1956-1967

Interviewed: c. 1959	
Interviewer: Harriet Bunn
Length: 0.5 hour

Recollections of E.B. Fred; Fred’s support for women faculty and students.

Interview Session: Tape 1

Tape 1/Side 1

00:00	Harriet Bunn describes the circumstances of the interview, and comments generally on E.B. Fred's career at the university.

00:40	Elizabeth McCoy says she has known Fred since she was an undergraduate.  As a senior, she was offered a position in Washington at what she considered a high salary.  Fred encouraged her to pursue graduate work, and offered her a monthly salary to do so.  She explains why she accepted Fred's offer.

01:50	The first problem Fred gave EM related to work he had done on bacterial fermentation during the First World War.  Because it was a problem he had wanted to study, he took special interest in EM's work.  Her Master’s thesis consisted of studying the bacteria.

04:15	Fred had arranged to pay EM $60 a month; her salary in Washington would have been $3800 a year.

04:40	EM was not the only woman graduate student in the department, but most of the others dropped out after completing the Masters degree.  She discusses another female graduate student.

05:31	HB/MP suggests that EM's success accounted in large part for Fred's faith in women scientists.  EM explains that Fred treated his female graduate students the same as his male graduate students.

06:58	MP was on the staff for two years while Fred was president.  She says she was always amazed by Fred's interest in and concern for undergraduate students.  MP and EM discuss Fred's attitude toward undergraduate women.

08:43	MP explains she came to the university because of Fred.  During her interview with him she was convinced she would enjoy working for him as dean of women students.  One day Fred called MP and told her about a student who was pregnant.  She felt Fred was testing her attitude toward the student, and would involve her in the situation only if she demonstrated sympathy rather than horror.  She later learned that many young women went directly to Fred if they faced a serious personal problem such as a pregnancy.

10:59	On one occasion when a student had appendicitis, Fred called her family and made all the arrangements for her.  MP recalls that Fred took such an interest in his staff that he noticed when she arrived one day wearing a new coat.

11:15	EM explains that Fred called her Bessie because when he was growing up, his family had a very good cow with that name.  Fred used the name as a compliment.

12:28	MP recalls that she asked Rosa Fred if she knew who the greatest influences on Fred were.  Two hard-headed, religious women were the major influences in his life.  The first was his grandmother Broun, who told Fred fascinating stories about the Civil War.  The second was his mother, who also led a difficult life.

15:32	EM says that Fred told her stories about his time at boarding school, where discipline and cleanliness were strictly enforced.  EM attributes Fred's cleanliness in the laboratory to these early experiences.

16:49	When Fred's daughters were babies, he took pleasure in sterilizing bottles and making and pasteurizing formula for them.  The formula he made was a modified cow's milk with lactic acid added to it.  Fred had been conducting research on lactic acid.  One of Fred's daughters became a bacteriologist; the other became a medical doctor.

19:10	MP says she and Louise Troxell discussed Fred at great length, and both agreed on Fred's support for women students and faculty.  Fred always used to ask why there were not more women on the staff.

20:27	Blanche Trilling once approached Fred and asked him to provide dressing rooms for students playing field hockey.  Trilling was horrified when Fred suggested installing showers in the horse stable, which was next to the playing field.  She told Fred the girls would end up smelling like horses, and he replied that there was no better smell than the smell of a horse.

21:00	HB reads a letter from Ann Fred about her father.

22:00	End of side.  End of tape.

END