The Norfolk Women’s Oral History Project was conducted between 1971 and 1974 as a project of the newly formed ODU Women’s Studies program.  Organizers included Tania Modleski, a well-known professor of feminist theory at the University of Southern California and Nadia Coiner. Numerous faculty members, mainly instructors, team-taught a course in Women’s Studies.  The Course provided material for the development of additional courses in women’s literature, history, and other topics. The project was headed by Jean E. Friedman, instructor in the History Department at ODU.  The project was initiated to explore women’s sexual attitudes in the 1930s.  The period was chosen because the subject was especially taboo during the Great Depression.  Students who took the Women’s Studies course, and also women associated with the feminist movement on campus, volunteered to interview women on the subject.  Volunteers were asked to read background material and use the questions on the questionnaires provided.  Students went with Friedman to learn interviewing techniques; other volunteers such as Irene Roughton were adults. Two groups of women were interviewed to compare their attitudes regarding marriage and career, birth control, and dating habits. The two groups of women were elite women identified in newspapers of the 1930s for their charity efforts on behalf of a Norfolk hospital and working-class women associated with a local factory.  The questions asked of both groups somewhat parallel the Kinsey and Hamilton questionnaires of the 1930s.

Note written by Mel Frizzell