UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #238
HARRIS, JULIAN E.

HARRIS, Julian E. (1896-1988), with Elizabeth M. Harris
Professor of French
At UW: 1924-1967

Interviewed: 1983	
Interviewer: Laura Smail
Length: 1.5 hours

Issues in French Department; Salary decisions; Hiring and treatment of women faculty; Armed Services Training Program and resulting changes in language teaching; Relationships in Department; Treatment of instructors; Social life in Madison in 1920s and 1930s; University Club, Gertrude Slaughter's teas; Dances.

Tape 1/Side 1  

00:00:00	Interviewer’s introduction. Discussion of portion of interview that was not successfully taped, on the following subjects; Harris’ expectations of Wisconsin; his dining club and its members; 

00:02:54	JH was here 16 years before being given tenure.  Due to Sellery.  Ortega quoted Sellery as saying JH was a social butterfly.  French department was recommending him for promotion.  Eventually Glenn Frank got him promoted to assistant professor.  [JH was made full professor in 1942, and chairman in 1943.]  

00:07:38	Stories about Gillin [John L.].  A poor teacher.  No one took his courses.  Deeply religious.  His badgering of a woman Ph.D. candidate who was taking a French language exam about her sex life.  JH, as chairman, went to Mark Ingraham who arranged to have Gillin take a leave of absence--he was to retire in a year anyway.  Gillin was unbalanced.  He had a following outside the University.  Would entertain people by reading aloud, in English.

00:16:31	Sam Rogers letters to the Harris's while they were in France about getting Gillin out of his office.  

00:19:04	Discussion of French Department.  LS reference to criticism of department at one point by graduate students for not having enough native speakers.  Always two or three on instructional staff.  Another criticism: department didn't use French in teaching.  Germaine Mercier did, and Andre Leveque in one course.

00:23:03	Development of new method of teaching--emphasis on conversation--developed by JH and Leveque to teach ASTP people during war.  Stories about this.  

00:27:13	End of side.

Tape 1/Side 2  

00:27:15	More about this.  

00:28:42	Q. about department's policy on hiring women.  JH replaced Miss Gay, who retired.  No women after that for decades.  Helene Cassidy, JH says, would not have regarded herself as badly treated but Germaine Mercier would.  She didn't publish, but had very good students and very good courses.  

00:31:47	Sellery brought Gillin--both Canadians.  

00:32:13	More on women.  Jeanne Greenleaf was better than her husband.

00:34:09	Woman arrested in 1944 for smoking in class, but JH doesn't remember.

00:35:13	Faculty rating of each other had Harris rated first.  JH didn't know about that.  JH tells story of Rogers and William T. Bandy going to Ingraham to get raise for Harris.  

00:36:22	Some but not serious dissent in department.  Alex Kroff was a good teacher but didn't publish much.  Discusses promotions.  Heavy  teaching load for instructors.  Made it difficult for them to publish.  Very bad system.  

00:38:54	JH was music adviser to Union music series; otherwise no campus-wide 	committee work. 

00:42:13	Q. re McMurray case.  Harris's didn't feel they knew the facts.  Were not just going to follow friends.  Max and Rhoda Otto  were 'hundred per centers'.  You were either on right side or wrong side.  Story re Myles Dillon.  Brought here on demand  of Irish members of legislature to balance professor of Polish  brought here by Polish legislators.  Bessie and Myles charming.  Her treatment of servants.  Myles a great scholar.

00:46:54	Nadia Boulanger taught at Edgewood for two summers during war.  She said Myles and Julian were two most cultivated people in Madison.  He had few students, of course, so taught Latin and French during war.  He was not impressed with intellectual caliber of the University.  Harris's saw a lot of Nadia Boulanger. 

00:51:31	JH thinks University's problems much less grave than they were.  Faculty could be overruled by dean.  Legislature far more peremptory and interfering. 
 
00:54:23	Social life.  How it changed.  BH was a faculty daughter.  JH always went to University Club for lunch until daughter grew up and left home.  Gertrude Slaughter.  People on Francis Street had regular afternoon open houses for tea.  Janet Van Hise introduced cocktails at 5.  Tea was always at 4.  Gertrude Slaughter kept a rum for tea.  
 
00:57:52	End of tape. 

Tape 2/Side 1  

00:57:53	Gertrude Slaughter willed house to French House. 

00:59:29	Q. re Dorothy Knaplund.  Answered off tape. 

00:59:43	Hiring of Germaine Bree.  She came to UW because she was ready to leave New York.  Friendship with Harris's may have been a factor. 

01:02:50	JH recapitulates feelings about long period here before promotion.  A very frustrating experience.  Didn't want to leave University.  Fine library, interlibrary loan.  

01:05:12	Did JH talk to anyone in department about his feelings?  JH wrote letter to Sellery, who didn't acknowledge it.  Possibility that BH's father's wealth influenced Sellery.  Talked to Sam Rogers about it but he was offhand. 

01:12:14	Did prevalence of scientists in higher administration positions bother JH?  He says thinks scientists were more willing to face facts.  

01:16:07	More on their language textbook.  

01:18:45	More on Francis Street group.  Parties.  

01:29:06	End of interview.

END