UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #80
PARSONS, HELEN T.

PARSONS, Helen T. (1886-1977)
Graduate Student; Professor of Home Economics
At UW: 1913-1917; 1919-1956 

Interviewed:	1972		
Interviewer: 	Stephen Lowe
Index by:	Stephen A Pierce
Length: 	3 hours, 17, minutes
Series:	Campus Voices
	Women in Science and Engineering
Transcript: 	83 pages

Abstract: In her three March 1972 interviews with Steven Lowe, Helen Parsons describes her career as a scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and elsewhere from the early 1900s to the 1970s. She discusses her burgeoning interest in science and home economics and how she wanted to bridge the gap between the two disciplines with her research in the biochemistry of nutrition. She offers observations about a number of significant figures in the early history of the School of Agriculture, details her major contributions to nutrition science, and traces the development of a separate School of Home Economics (now School of Human Ecology). This interview was conducted for inclusion in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Archives Oral History Project.

Keywords: Kansas State Agricultural College (KSAC—later Kansas State Univ); Univer- sity of Wisconsin-Madison; home economics; Abby Marlatt; Elmer V. McCollum; Nina Simmonds; biochemistry; Marguerite Davis; Edwin Bret Hart; William Henry “Popsy” Welch; Johns Hopkins University; Edwards Park; rickets research; Stephen M. Babcock; Harry L. Russell; Barnett Sure; Department of Agriculture (USDA); Frances Zuill; Lafayette B. Mendel; Arthur H. Smith; Charles Slichter; E. B. Fred; Graduate School; anti-vitamins; FDA; Conrad Elvehjem; Agnes Faye Morgan.

First Interview Session (March 7, 1972): Digital File

Time	Keywords
00:00:00	Start of Interview. Question: Talk about your family background. Answer: Parsons talked about her great-Grandpa Gleason, who had been a missionary to the Mohegans and figured large in their family chronicles and to whom she attributed the family tendency toward scholarly pursuit. She related an anecdote about searching for information about this Gleason heritage.

00:04:27	[no question] Parsons discussed her father’s family, who were pioneers in Indiana and scholarly “after a fashion,” being acquainted with educated people and owning books and magazines. She reminisced about traveling with her father, her schooling in Arkansas City until her aunt (the headmistress) moved to Alabama, at which time she boarded with this aunt and attended university there.

00:09:22	[no question] She related why she chose not to graduate from a military school in AL, but rather to return home to become a school teacher. She described her salary, keeping up acquaintances with the family, daily responsibilities, and preparing lunches for the children. Follow up: You were how old? Answer: Maybe 18 or 19. 

00:13:22	Question: Where did you go from here? Answer: She recounted how she earned enough money from growing tomatoes to pay for her and her sister to attend summer session of Teacher's College at Pittsburg, Kansas in home economics, a field in which there was great demand. Complaining that the Pittsfield program wasn’t scholarly enough for them, she chose to go to KSAC to continue her training.

00:17:47	[no question] At KSAC, she remembered, she became fascinated by sciences such as ornithology, chemistry, and physiology. Question: Did other women share your interest in science? Answer: She didn’t think so. She recalled not encountering any science in HS, being initially attracted to Latin, but being grateful she’d been diverted by science from that career.

00:21:41	[no question] She remembered interviewing for a job (which she didn’t get), and getting a job in a well-financed Oklahoma school teaching cooking and sewing to Native American children. She reminisced fondly about the experience, the students, and visiting other schools to improve teaching method.

00:24:21	[no question] When her Aunt Dick’s husband invited her to live with them for a summer (in Madison), she took courses with UW home economics professor Abby Marlatt. During home management course, she connected with Marlatt, who, like her, wanted to relate science to home economics, but initially turned down an offer from Marlatt to come to UW (her family criticized this decision and she relented).

00:28:37	[no question] She discussed coming to UW and teaching cooking classes at UW High School. She described Marlatt’s office in Lathrop Hall, hearing H’Doubler’s classes going on downstairs, and trying to make do with the resources they had.

00:31:05	[no question] After the connection with University High School was discontinued, Parsons began teaching university classes. At the same time, expressing her desire to bridge the gap between science and home economics, she worked on her master’s degree in biochemistry with Professor McCollum. She related McCollum’s “arresting personality,” his lecture style, how she learned to take notes from his lectures without ever looking down at her notebook, and his patience with her as a researcher.

00:37:41	[no question] She talked about Marguerite Davis, one of Dr. McCollum’s colleagues who was moved to Marlatt’s department when Parsons and McCollum left for Baltimore. She remembered Davis’ animal work, her theoretical flights, her inability to keep records, and how her work declined without the help of Dr. McCollum (such that she was transferred to Marlatt’s dept). 

00:41:24	Follow up: How did Davis react to this move? Answer: Because it was a decent salary and Davis wanted to stay in Madison, she said, there were no hard feelings. She related Hart’s refusal to allow women in his lab, and McCollum’s idealized view of Davis as an unpaid worker in his lab. Follow up: Where did her strengths lie? Answer: Davis carried on the experiments, kept the animals, and observed closely, but never recorded what she did—Nina Simmonds took over this responsibility.

00:45:15	Question: What factored in McCollum’s move to Johns Hopkins? Answer: She recalled “Popsy” Welch’s creation of a new department of public health, and how Welch convinced McCollum that it would change the world. But Parsons’ salary was “quite ghastly” to the point that the school, out of shame, didn’t charge her for a surgery they’d done for her father.

00:49:07	Question: Talk about interpersonal relationships between these major figures. Answer: Elvehjem described them as "prima donnas,” and was careful to interview each one before deciding whether to take on the department chairmanship.

00:52:17	Question: What did you do at Hopkins? Answer: She responded that she was supposedly a researcher, but she ended up preparing rations at first. Then when McCollum’s public health research got going, she became the public liaison for these programs. She detailed her organization of displays about nutrition for the Medical School, and told an anecdote about necessity of the display being kosher.

00:57:31	[no question] She began discussing the “explosion” of research that happened when McCollum and Edwards Park began working together on rickets at Hopkins. This research was founded on meticulous records that had been kept by Simmonds.

01:00:05	End of First Interview Session

Second Interview Session (March 10, 1972): Digital File

Time	Keywords
00:00:00	Start of Interview. [no question] Parsons picked up talking about rickets research being done at Johns Hopkins University, recounting how McCollum collaborated with other researchers who had investigated the protective aspects of fish oils, but hadn’t looked into animal research. Since Simmonds had kept meticulous records, the team was able to identify the importance of calcium and phosphorus levels and their relationship to butterfat and cod liver oil. 

00:04:40	[no question] Continuing to discuss McCollum’s rickets research, she detailed the progress of the experimentation, emphasizing how it would have been impossible without Simmonds’ record-keeping. They didn’t have conclusive information on butterfat’s effectiveness, though cod-liver oil was always effective; Dr. Shipley had also developed accurate testing for rickets tendency. Having tested whether the key agent was Vitamin A, McCollum was able to identify Vitamin D, though the chemical analysis awaited the ground-breaking later work of Harry Steenbock.

00:11:43	Question: Was a duplicate set of McCollum’s notes left for E. B. Hart? Answer: She didn’t remember, observing that Steenbock also resented McCollum’s taking his notes with him, but she thought the move was justified.

00:13:40	Question: What was Stephen Babcock like? Answer: She described him as a great enthusiast, noting that McCollum was “his dear boy” because he would listen sympathetically to Babcock’s soaring theories about the cosmos and earthquakes. She felt privileged to have known Babcock.

00:17:42	Follow up: How did he get interested in these cosmic questions? Answer: She respon- ded that for a long time technique didn’t keep up with theory, citing a Canadian physicist who got all his results with string and wax. Thus, Babcock couldn’t go any farther with his technique, but couldn’t stop from speculating about the universe. 

00:21:48	Question: Why was Russell opposed to McCollum’s use of rats when Babcock was so supportive? Answer: She said it had to do with popular repulsion toward rats, such that McCollum couldn’t even explain his experiments to some people. She compared Russell to Babcock, noting that the first was as narrow and practical as the latter was broad and theoretical, which didn’t serve his deanship.

00:25:45	Question: Talk about Victor Nelson and Barnett Sure. Answer: She said Nelson wasn’t a real scholar and “faded out” after some time, but Sure was a clown. She quipped about how the Russian-born scientist got his English name, saw America as an opportunity, and was determined to succeed no matter what. Sure eventually got a job at the University of Arkansas, where he worked for his career.

00:31:30	[begin new reel] [no question] Parsons talked about her life in Baltimore, which she described as a wonderful experience, being so close to historical landmarks like Fort McHenry and the Baltimore steps. She discussed traditions at the university hospital, a Cardinal who visited during World War I, the sale of leeches for drawing blood, buying eels in Baltimore markets, and traditions held by Orthodox Jews in the city.

00:38:34	Question: How did Hopkins compare to UW? Answer: She recalled it being very conservative, citing the example of a female dietician (Mrs. O’Dea) who wasn’t allowed to collaborate with McCollum in the wards because as a woman she wasn’t allowed outside her one narrow corridor. Follow up: Why was it like that? Answer: She supposed prohibitions connected with the endowment (like the prohibition on elevators in the hospital) had something to do with it.

00:42:58	[no question] She also talked about going to lectures by world-famous people, called “dieners” since many of the faculty had trained under German scholars.

00:44:52	Question: Why did you come back to UW? Answer: She said she wasn’t getting anywhere, since Simmonds (who was very detailed, but didn’t have ideas) was the go-to person in the lab. So she switched places with Mary Buell—Buell went to Hopkins and she returned to her former position. She related Simmonds’ resentment at her publishing research about Vitamin C in rats as an example of the kind of under-assistantship she’d had at Hopkins and the jealousy Simmonds had to her.

00:48:45	Question: So returning to UW gave you opportunities for research? Answer: Yes. For the most part, divisions between where women and men could go were minimal, with the exception of Hart’s lab. But she described Hart as a very generous colleague, and therefore never resenting not getting on his payroll. She talked about getting grants from the USDA to do some dietary research.

00:52:32	Question: You came back as an assistant professor? Answer: She recalled not caring about that kind of thing. When Frances Zuill came, though, her salary and status improved. She thought of Zuill as a feisty egotist who could fight other departments to a standstill, but also that Zuill worked for the interest of everyone. Follow up: What had happened to Marlatt? Answer: She lamented that while Marlatt was away, the university pulled a trick on her and had Extension housed in the Home Ec building. While Zuill’s strongarm tactics didn’t work with the dean of the Ag School, Parsons was able to talk to Elvehjem (the “saint of home economics”) about the issue.

00:57:22	Question: You returned to Yale around 1927? Answer: Yes; she recalled preparing for the PhD by taking physics courses at UW. After a short summer course at the University of Chicago, she decided it was not to her standards and was advised by a number of people that Yale was the place to go, to study with Dr. L. B. Mendel.

01:03:05	End of Second Interview Session

Third Interview Session (March 16, 1972): Digital File

Time	Keywords
00:00:00	Start of Interview. [no question] She continued to talk about going to Yale under Mendel, where she chose her own dissertation topic (instead of doing what he told them). She realized later that this flouted convention and may have soured her relationship with Mendel permanently, but Steenbock advised her to continue with her chosen project. She also sketched Steenbock’s relationship with Mendel.

00:04:09	[no question] She chronicled the change in her relationship with Mendel after receiving an AAUW fellowship at the end of her first year. Mendel expected she would leave (like Steenbock), but when she stayed, he warmed to her. When her major advisor went on leave her second year, Mendel took over and challenged some of her methodology. Follow up: Why didn’t anyone else point this out before? Answer: Smith wasn’t as good a researcher as Mendel.

00:09:33	[no question] Parsons reminisced about trouble she had writing her dissertation. She noted that she had published things before, and her journal club presentations had been fine, so perhaps she was simply intimidated by her desire to please Mendel. Mendel then suggested she hire someone to do dictation, after which it went better.

00:13:23	[no question] She reminisced about being added to the collection of PhD dissertations on Mendel’s shelf, along with P. Mabel Nelson. She also commented about the oral defense, the formalities of commencement, and Yale’s reputation as a divinity school.

00:17:58	Question: Talk about the home economics dept when you returned. Answer: At the time, home ec was still a dept in the Ag School, and she described the changes from its early home in Ag Hall to its own building. She continued to describe Marlatt’s welcoming her back to home ec, though she continued to be a “severe person.”

00:20:51	[no question] She explained why Dean Slichter was opposed to home ec having PhD candidates, since the Grad School despised and belittled the dept. She told an anecdote about attending a reception for Steenbock at which Slichter was effusive toward Parsons—because he was drunk. Follow up: Why the opposition? Answer: She attributed it to a jealous rivalry between L&S and the Ag School, which had much better standing with the farmer-dominated legislature (but L&S looked upon as a mere trade school unworthy of a great university). Nevertheless, she said it wasn’t until Zuill’s deanship that home ec pushed its own agenda—this included the desire to have PhD candidates of their own, instead of joint PhDs.

00:27:41	[no question] Connected to the joint PhDs home ec had to arrange, she discussed “sauerkraut theses” with E. B. Fred. Fred had been asked to prove something about sauerkraut fermentation, but lacking facilities, he had Marlatt’s group do the research. She reminisced about Fred’s love of red, devotion to research, expectations of his students, responsibilities during WWI, and thoroughness (in his sauerkraut “bible”).

00:32:55	Question: Were there tensions between Marlatt and Zuill? Answer: Yes. She recalled a misunderstanding between Zuill (who was “for the latest in everything”) and Marlatt, who’d saved a collection of antique tools, etc., for the museum.

00:35:15	[no question] She talked with Lowe about a collection of letters of reminiscences she’d collected from personnel at the home ec department upon her retirement (1960). McCollum had prompted her to accumulate this history of the dept, but knowing that they would be offensive to Zuill, she’d decided to keep the letters to herself.

00:39:37	Question: Was Zuill’s ill-feeling directed toward her being ignored? Answer: No, there wasn’t anything she could point to about Zuill’s feelings toward them—it was just a feeling. She talked about what made writing the history impossible for her, and offered Lowe a history of the early years of Omega Nu, and several other documents.

00:44:36	[no question] Parsons talked about Edith Klarin, a Swede who returned to become the formost hospital administrator in her country. She discussed Klarin’s superstition.

00:47:54	[no question] She continued to talk about documents she was donating to the UW Archives.

00:49:22	Question: How did you get interested in anti-vitamins? Answer: She thought it started with Elvehjem, who collaborated with her on a number of conferences, though she later developed the idea when she’d fed lab rats egg white for her doctoral dissertation under Mendel. She detailed how a passing acquaintance of Elvehjem’s had put her onto the idea that one couldn’t make an assay of fresh yeast.

00:55:17	[no question] Parsons chronicled her research on whether it was determinable if yeast had certain vitamin content. She discovered that live yeast would consume vitamin B in great quantities. This was an embarrassment to yeast companies, who had advertised the benefits of eating raw yeast.

00:57:32	[no question] She explained the lengths to which yeast companies went to try to suppress her findings—first by re-interpreting her findings at a national conference. She also discovered that a colleague had found something similar in research done for the yeast company, but the company suppressed her research entirely. Parsons reported this situation to the FDA, who threatened the company with a lawsuit.

01:01:14	Question: Did this kind of research suppression happen frequently? Answer: Oh, yes. She was later even commissioned by a yeast company to try to prove that if a person became accustomed to eating raw yeast, it could be beneficial. Her research disproved this theory though.

01:03:11	[no question] She continued to talk about her egg-white research, which was insulted because agricultural schools and prominent companies couldn’t afford to discover that egg whites weren’t entirely beneficial. She discussed repetitions of her experiments by a number of agencies and schools that confirmed her findings.

01:07:30	Question: Do you think the FDA is still too weak? Answer: Yes; she discussed how the slowness of the threat of litigation weakened the FDA.

01:08:27	Question: Did the first food and drug laws in 1906 generate scientific interest in home economics? Answer: She didn’t think so, since there weren’t too many places that did research like UW. She referred to one other place, in California, under the direction of Agnes Faye Morgan, that did home ec research. Although Morgan intimidated a good number of people, she noted that she and Morgan were “buddies.” She also referred to openings in home economics from which Mendel dissuaded her because of the prestige of UW’s department. 

01:13:50	End of Third Interview Session
						
End of Oral History #80