Oral history interview with Clara Ridder, 1990 [text/print transcript]

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UNCG CENTENNIAL ORAL HISTORY PROJECT COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Clara Ridder
INTERVIEWER: Linda Danford
DATE: November 19, 1990
LD: Miss Ridder, can you tell me when you came to UNCG [The University of North Carolina at Greensboro] and in what capacity?
CR: I came in 1959. I came as a full professor. And at that time there were maybe about two thousand students. That was quite a long time ago. Let's see, about thirty years. I don't know that—I think that the university has changed a good deal because at that time it was a women's college. And I predicted that it would only be three or four years before it would be coed, and it was. But it has—the number of men, of course, has increased a great deal now with all the emphasis apparently on sports, I understand.
LD: Yes—that moving into [National Collegiate Athletic Association] Division I.
CR: Which takes a lot of money. [laughs] At the time that I came in—
LD: What department did you come in to now?
CR: I came into housing, and I don't know exactly what they called it, home management something, but I was in interior design.
LD: Within the home economics department?
CR: It was in the home economics department. And there were very few people; [Elizabeth] Sass Hathaway, Mrs. [Madeline B.] Street [staff member] and myself, practically the whole department. And let me tell you, it has changed a lot in thirty years.
LD: That's what I want to ask you about. How has it changed? What was it like when you came?
CR: There was a good deal of emphasis on nice girls. [laugh] "She came from a nice family," which used to shock me, and I was interested in teaching something, and we soon changed it. We wrote a lot of program, and the department changed entirely. We got to be a fairly decent interior design department. But it was not all easy coasting.
LD: What made it difficult?
CR: Well, I think lack of understanding and lack of funds, and we had a dean who was 2
interested in her own self. She was interested in promoting herself and nothing else, as far as I was concerned. I couldn't see that she ever liked anything, except how would it make her look. She used to say, "How would that make me look?" So—
LD: Was this Dean [Naomi] Albanese?
CR: Dean Albanese. She got a lot of notoriety, but she never did anything for the department. As far as I was concerned, it was just a struggle all the time. But—
LD: How old was the program of interior design when you came?
CR: I'm not sure. I think not very long, not very—it was a very bad program, I must admit. I remember that I had some seniors and I asked them to design something, and, you know, just turn it in in a couple weeks. And I went down to Mrs. Street and said, "Mrs. Street, I wouldn't take this from a freshman, and this is what our seniors are doing." And she said, "Clara, you shouldn't say things like that." And I said, "Is it better for other people to say it or for us to say it to ourselves?" She said, "Well, then you can write up some programs." I said, "Okay, I'll write up some courses, and we're going to change this." And we did. And I got the reputation of being one of the toughest professors, and I was. But the program changed. You can't do it by being sweet and being nice to girls who come from good families. [laughs] Do you ever hear that anymore?
LD: I can see that. I think that's changed to some extent, although there's still a flavor of that on campus. Some part, partly, I think, it's the South. It's the veneer of gentility that tends to govern. Where did you come here from?
CR: My home is in Nebraska. I grew up on a ranch in Nebraska. I went to school at [University of] Nebraska [Lincoln, Nebraska] and Cornell [University, Ithaca, New York] and University of Arizona [Tucson, Arizona], and I was not used to the South. and I was very surprised at a lot of the—at that time there were a lot of the old Woman's College [of the University of North Carolina]—that they had a good school, but there was an awful lot of, "She comes from a nice family," that I used to think, "My goodness, she has to produce." You know?
LD: What difference does it make?
CR: Yes. What difference does it make? But there is—this program has changed a great deal, and I don't even know what it's like now because I've been gone for ten years.
LD: Well, they still have a good interior design, I believe, department.
CR: They're working on it, yes. They've got a lot more people than we had when I was trying—we didn't even have any desks for drawing, and I remember I asked if we could have enough for one room, and they said that was way too much to ask for. And I said, "Could we ask for two? And then do it for ten years, and maybe at the end of ten years we'll have twenty?" So then they gave me twelve. You know, you had to be really pushed, 3
and it was—and then they considered that they had done me a great favor. It was my favor, not for the school, not for the department, so you can see what it, what a tough thing it was to try to get it through. But the students were fantastic. I really had some fantastic students.
LD: Do you remember any in particular that you could—
CR: Well, yes. I remember a lot of them. I don't want to mention names because somebody might look this up sometime, [chuckling] and those that remember me will remember me. They all remember me, even if I don't remember them because I was tough. They used to say the first day of school that they'd come in there, and I would say, "We're going to do a lot this semester, so we haven't got any time to waste." Boy. [chuckles] But that's the way it was.
LD: What sorts of things did they do when they graduated from the program?
CR: Well, they went into design staffs. Some of them went into furniture stores, and some of them became bank tellers. They were—you know, what does an English major do? They don't go out and teach English.
LD: Not all of them.
CR: No. They did lots of various things. A lot of them are in the design field, around.
LD: Now does design include interior decorating, or is it different from interior decorating? Does it go beyond that?
CR: Well, it’s a little—it goes beyond it. You know, decorating, I think people think of putting up pretty things like little bows and—
LD: I gathered that was not what you meant, so I was going to ask you—
CR: No. We were more interested in space relationships and having things function, whether it was a hospital room or an office or a restaurant or—you're designing space for a function. And so you have to know what's going on there, and how much space you're going to take, and if things are going to change, and it's not just decorating a little house. That's much different in the space relationships. Of course, there are some things, like form and proportion and color that are important, and some people have a little more talent than others. The same thing can be said of space relationships. Some people can work with spaces and make them function, and some people just can't seem to change anything. So—
LD: Did you have to kind of weed some students out?
CR: Well, they weed themselves out.
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LD: They just turned out and what their grades were and that just caused some of them to drop? Did you work at all—did UNCG cooperate at all with any architectural programs outside of, you know, for instance—?
CR: They did later, but not while I was there. Some of the girls did work for architects when they graduated, went into architectural offices, but I don't know that I think architecture is that easy to work with either. You know, they're a little like a nurse working with a doctor. I mean, he wants to be the boss, and it's a little tough for the girls, if they want to have anything to say themselves or be creative, unless you get with a good-sized firm, and then they'll have a design department that's—which is more independent.
LD: Do architects get trained in interior design, usually, or is this a gap
CR: They think they are, [LD laughs] but see, we don't think they are. That's—
LD: So this is the niche that you're seeking to fill.
CR: Well, I tell you, we see a lot of things that architects do that we just think, "My heavens," you know. But I'm sure that they see a lot of things that we do, and they say, "Goodness." You know, it works both ways.
LD: When you came, was your—did you have to deal—whenever you wanted something, did you have to deal through the dean of the school? You didn't—did you have any contact with other administrators?
CR: No. Not much. Well, sometimes I did, but it had to go through the dean. Everything.
LD: Why did she—why did she hire people for an interior design program that she wasn't going to support?
CR: I don't think she ever realized that she was not supporting us. That was not—she didn't understand it, and it was out of her field entirely, and so it was just kind of like something over there that wants—they want some money, and they want some things—I wouldn't say that was it exactly.
LD: Let me ask you this way. Whose decision was it to branch out from the classic home ec[onomics]-type classes, you know, cooking, sewing and so forth, to get into areas like interior design?
CR: That was done a long time before that.
LD: That was done before Dean Albanese came?
CR: Yes. You know they've—I don't know where the cooking and the sewing and the—I don't know where that kind of stuff comes from. When I graduated—well, we take, we took an awful lot of science, and our program was tough. I thought it was very difficult. And 5
there're a lot of people like people who are in the classics have a feeling that we don't do anything over there except to cook and sew.
LD: I don't think that's true. I think the department has quite a—well now it has a national reputation in textile, all kinds of textile experimentation going on there. I think that's faded away. But I do think there was a time when home ec did seem to me, and certainly in high school, that's what you connected with. You graduated also from college with a home ec degree.
CR: Yes.
LD: From?
CR: University of Nebraska.
LD: Right. And you said it was mainly science.
CR: We had an awful lot of science, yes. At that time, I had a—I got a master’s degree in chemistry and nutrition, and then I decided to change, and I had to switch over. When I switched over, I had to start all over again. I always belonged in design, and I really knew it. When I was at the University of Nebraska, I went to the school of architecture, and I asked them if I couldn't take architecture, and they said they didn't take women. And I said, "I don't know why, if I feel that I belong in this field, that you can't—" He said, "We have men who graduated who go out and sell soap. Why would we have a woman?" You know, today they wouldn't dare turn you down and say it was because you were a woman. They wouldn't dare even say it if they thought it. But I said, "I'd be willing to make draperies. Let me into this program." They would not let me in.
So, you see, I always knew I sort of belonged in design. And they did have some design courses, but there were very few. I took some because some of my teachers told me to go down and just take some things in art, and I did on the side. I took a lot of extra courses. But then after I graduated, the dean called me in and said, "You should go and get a master’s degree, and there are these fellowships. You can go to [University of] Iowa [Iowa City, Iowa] or you can go to Arizona." And I decided Arizona sounded more glamorous, [laughs] so I went to Arizona—nutrition and chemistry. And I was good in science. I think you have to be versatile if you're going to be a designer. You have to be able to switch and change and try it another way, and try it another way, you know. It's not—it’s not a ribbons and bows sort of a field. But I don't think most people realize that. The designers do.
I remember one time, Mrs. Street asked me if I would talk to the freshmen. They had various people talk to the freshmen about what they would like to major in. And I said, "Well, I will, if you don't have any faculty members in there." [laughs] You can see I'm a rebel. So she said, "Okay." And they stayed out in the hall, and I said to them, "Don't come in this field because you think it'd be fun. A lot of people think, 'Oh, I'd love to be in design.' Let me tell you this is a tough field. It doesn't pay well. And you send for things and they come and they're broken or they're marred, and you have to have a lot of patience. And people would order something and then they decide they don't want it and 6
you're stuck with it, and there's all kinds of things that happen. You only go into this field if you just can't help yourself. It's like President [John F.] Kennedy [35th president of the United States] said, you know, "Ask not," and they just shouted. And Mrs. Street said, "What in the world did you say to them?" And I said, "Oh, I don't know." [laughs] I said, “Everybody will tell you to come to my field. Please think about it before you go into design. This is not a good field. Because you think it's going to be a pretty place to go, and you can put up little curtains and ribbons and bows. It's not true. It's not that kind of a field at all.” But, you see, they come in anyway by the droves no matter what you say.
LD: I interviewed Mary Miller [assistant professor of interior design].
CR: Oh, did you?
LD: And she told me that she had a lot of difficulty finding—she also felt like she wanted to be in design. She had a lot of trouble finding places that taught the courses that really prepared her for what she wanted. She said she'd get a place and they'd say it was design, but then it wouldn't be. Did you find it was difficult to get training?
CR: Yes. I took, when I was at Cornell—
LD: Cornell is one of the places that she mentioned.
CR: Well, I know she was at Cornell and I was at Cornell at almost the same time, but I finished there, and she didn't. But I—at Cornell they have the idea that if you spend a certain amount of time there and you breathe that air, that you will suddenly become, "Where did you get your degree?" Well, I think Yale’s [University, New Haven, Connecticut] a little like that too. You know what I mean. This is a holy place. All you need to do is just live here a while and you will suddenly become learned. Well, I had this committee and they decided what I should take, and I decided what I should take, which was different. And so I'd argue a little, and then suddenly I said, "You know, I'd like to take architecture." I kept telling them what I wanted to do. So they said, "Well, if you can take architecture—" They knew I couldn't get in down there. So I went down to architecture and said, "How about letting me in the design classes. I'm willing to take freshman design. I just want to take design." "We don't take people outside." And I said, "There's not really any reason why, you know, you couldn't let me." And he said, "Well come back in the fall." And I came back in the fall, and he said, "Oh, no. The classes are full." And I said, "I wouldn't have come back if you hadn't told me to come back in the fall." You know. He said, "Go talk to an instructor." He got—the dean got a little upset with me. So I went to the instructor, and I said, "The dean said I should come and talk to you." I was doing everything I could. And he was having trouble with the blind, it was kind of falling, and he said, "There are no seats in there." And I said, "I'll bring my work in. I don't need a seat." "There are no desks." He said, "You going to do that all semester?" And I said, "Somebody will drop out." He said, "Okay." So I went in and it was only a couple of weeks and there was a desk.
After I got in, the dean said, "I understand you should be in design. You should come down here and major in design." And I said, "Listen, if I was the best designer in 7
the world, let me ask you something. Who's going to hire a woman architect?" I went through this in Nebraska, you know. Then, after a semester, they wanted me, so then I took architecture. That made a lot of difference. It made a lot of difference. So see, I know from the standpoint of what they're teaching, the difference between what we're doing and what they're doing too. It's—I think it's very important that you get some of those space relationships that they have, but I remember doing a restaurant, and I laughed because the kitchen, they didn't pay any attention to at all. You just put a little block over it, and it said, "Kitchen." That pretty building, you know, it would never have worked, would never possibly have worked, but they didn't look at that. But there's a lot of other things that you do get in architectural design that you won't get anyplace else. I don't think you do, anyway. But that's how I got in. Once you get in, the next year wasn't hard, see. [laughs]
LD: Well, it sounds like it was a struggle. What year was this that you were at Cornell?
CR: I graduated in '50. I must—I started about '47 or something like that.
LD: Let me ask you about UNCG again, Woman's College when you first came here. What was your relationship with the rest of the faculty? Did you feel very isolated in the home ec department? Did you have a lot of contact with faculty members across campus?
CR: I felt a little isolated. I don't know why.
LD: Was it because of the professional aspect of interior design?
CR: I don't know. I felt—maybe I felt that I didn't belong to the South. I don't know. I know that soon after I came that I'd have to do something on my own, and I started playing bridge. I played bridge well, professionally, you might say, almost. I played—
LD: Duplicate?
CR: I play duplicate; I play real bridge. And people who don't play duplicate don't understand the difference, you know, but I didn't have—nobody— it didn't seem to me as though anybody wanted to know me or care, you know. And it's a little hard to know what to do. I used to—but a lot of other people, not only in home ec—people outside have said the same thing about when they first came in. They—nobody was friendly. You know, the South is supposed to be friendly. Did you find it was very friendly when you came?
LD: Well, my neighborhood was very friendly. A lot of people came over and introduced themselves.
CR: In your neighborhood, but not at the school.
LD: Well, I wasn't the one teaching when I came. It was my husband. We came here—my husband came to the department, and he's in the physics department and they are quite sociable. But I think it depends on the department. Some departments are just not that 8
way. But—and I didn't choose—I got a lot of mail from the University Women's—
CR: And you didn't go?
LD: I didn't go. I wasn't interested in that, so I didn't meet anybody. Did you meet people through the bridge connection?
CR: Yes. That's where almost all my friends are still today.
LD: Do you still play?
CR: Yes. I still play.
LD: When the tape's over, I'll have to tell you about my one duplicate bridge experience. But I'm not being interviewed; you're being interviewed, so—
CR: Well, I think that's enough, and I think you understand pretty much what my—
LD: When did you retire?
CR: About ten years ago.
LD: 1979? 1980?
CR: I'm not real sure what year it was. '60-'79, I guess. Must have been '79.
LD: Do you have any feeling for how the—do you want to make any general statement about how you feel the university changed in the twenty years that you taught there?
CR: I really have not been paying that much attention in the last ten years, so I don't know what it’s—except that I hear things. And what I hear is mostly gossip. So I really don't know. I think it's a good school.
LD: You thought your students were good students when you came here?
CR: Yes. I thought the students were fantastic. I had some really very good students, and they tried hard. And students made it worthwhile. The students always make it worthwhile, are the things that always make it worthwhile.
LD: Do you think that coeducation affected the quality of the students?
CR: I don't know. It didn't affect our class as much. We had a few men, but not very many. I suppose there are more now. I feel, from the standpoint of men, however, a lot of them are homos[sic]. That makes it a little difficult for the girls, I think. You just have to know that that’s the [unclear], and you just face it.
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LD: It's just one of those fields. Do you remember Mereb Mossman [sociology and anthropology faculty, Dean of Instruction, Dean of the College, Dean of Faculty, Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs]?
CR: Yes.
LD: Did you have any contact with her, or did she just sort of—?
CR: She was very strong. I'm sure she had something to do with everything. But I didn't have any personal contact with her, much.
LD: Well, thank you for the interview, Dr. Ridder.
[End of Interview]