Southern Journeys:
slc visits the tennessee valley
Beryl Forbes Eddy '58 (left) and Mary Elizabeth Sellers '58 wait ouside the bus during the 1955 trip.
(SLC Archives)
Beginning in 1941, with economics Professor Emma Llewellyn, students participated in field trips to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The trips, taken in conjunction with economics and other social science courses, offered the students a glimpse into the rural South and race relations that they could not find in books and educational films. Receiving national press coverage, the trips began as “extended group field trip[s] which the college catalogue had promised [but] became…major excursion[s] in race relations.” (Saturday Review, March 1, 1952)
Field Work, of which these trips are a part, has always, and still continues, to play an important role in a Sarah Lawrence education. Since the founding of the College in 1926, social responsibility and field work have been crucial elements in the curriculum. Constance Warren (President of the College, 1929-1945) in her 1939 book, A New Design for Women’s Education, reiterates the importance of field work:
“It is the business of the college to see that…students obtain an understanding of other viewpoints, other customs, other economic backgrounds, other values than the ones with which they are familiar.” (page 183)
This is exactly what the faculty hoped for the students to learn when they traveled down to Tennessee.