As an undergrad I was an engineering student at an average school and I was an average student. I always kid that on my diploma it reads "Graduated (just)". My grades left an awful lot to be desired. I took a few years off after graduation and played for a while in industry before going to graduate school. I call my undergraduate degree my mother's degree because of the attached "prestige" although I think it was largely in her head but she was proud of me so who am I to question it. I have to say that it has helped me make a decent living over the years as well. But graduate school, and its attendant degree, became what I called "my degree." I didn't do my graduate work in engineering, which would have been hugely helpful to my pocketbook, but in U.S. history which had become an avocation and true love.
At the time I was working at M.I.T. and one of my co-workers suggested I should go to Harvard for my graduate work when he heard what I wanted to study. I told him he had to be kidding that I wasn't smart enough to get in. But when he told me how he had done it I decided to give it a try and sure enough, I got in. Now I should tell you that it is my opinion that the truly hard portion of Harvard lies in its undergraduate programs and its professional degrees, business, law and medical schools. Still, at the outset I was totally intimidated by where I had landed. I wanted so much to succeed and so feared failure. By the end of my first semester I had gotten all As and found I was up to the challenge. My focus became 19th century American reform movements but I was required to take a couple of other courses that were a little removed from this area. I found that I could actually combine the two by taking a women's studies course in a course called The History of Women and Women's Work. It was listed as a women's study course so I filled that requirement but since it was based on the women's movement as it was started by Elizabeth Stanton in 1840 I actually stayed with my reform movement agenda.
The course was given by a woman name Dr. Lynn Holzman. Lynn was a Canadian from Calgary who had earned her degrees at Wellesley, Smith and Columbia and had landed a position in the Harvard History Department. The department at the time was chaired by a man who had won a Pulitzer Prize a few years before. Lynn was a pretty woman in her mid-30s, long curly brown hair and hid her body well beneath a cross between hippy style dress and the then popular Annie Hall look. So when the course started there were about twenty five women, two other men and me. By the time the course ended there were twenty four women and me. Half of those women wanted to cut my balls off and feed them to me as they were of the militant variety of feminist but the other half of the class, having detected those undertones, drew close in support. One of the requirements was that each student had to give a lecture on some subject after mid-term but still well before the end of the term. I went first and had chosen Margaret Sanger and her role in birth control and eugenics as much subject. Now the eugenics portion got added after Lynn had told me very strongly how much she disliked Sanger, pointing to her own Jewish background and saying Sanger's eugenics was key in Hitler's Germany. I should qualify my calling her Lynn by saying that from the very first I wanted to have some sort of relationship with her and that of course did develop.
"Not only will I prove you wrong about her [Sanger] but I'll get you to like her," I challenged Lynn.
"I'll tell you what," she retorted, "If you can just get me to change my mind about her I'll give you an A for the course."
That was a challenge I couldn't refuse although I had taken all the challenges of grad school head on and done very well discovering my here-to-fore unknown knack for being an excellent researcher. But I was really pleased that she took an interest as such in what I was doing particularly since I had had a school boy crush on her from the first day of class. When she lectured I watched her lips move totally entranced with their form and movement. I also watched her eyes, dark and gorgeous. I have long been a sucker for the brains and beauty combination in a woman. But the other thing was I had never before had a crush on any teach I'd ever had. I suspect that's largely due to the fact that by the time I started noticing the opposite sex most of my teachers were either men or much older women who just didn't catch my eye. When I first saw her I guessed Lynn to be in her late 30s. I was 24 at the time and had never been so taken with an "older" woman. But there was something exotic and alluring about Lynn that I couldn't resist.
"So how goes the research?" Lynn asked me one day after class on the steps of Grossman Hall as we were both departing.
"I was just going over to Widener to get a couple of articles so I can start finishing up."
"You're the only student who hasn't asked for help and I have to tell you, Peter, that's usually not a good sign."
I was taken aback by her notice and felt a defensive mood coming over me but then I also thought I was really pretty pleased with what I had done thus far. Then I said to her, "Well, there is one thing I could use some help on."
"What's that?" She asked looking a little pleased with herself.
"Well, I'm not sure I entirely understand her relationship with Emma Goldman."
"Great but I can't talk to you now about it." Lynn put down her valise and searched through it for her day planner and finding it flipped it open. "Can you meet tomorrow at 4:30?"
"Sure," I replied.
"Okay but they're doing some plumbing work in my office so we'll have to meet somewhere else." Lynn thought for a moment and then said, "How about we meet in the Grossman Library, there are some offices up there and I'm certain we can use one."
"Great, I'll see you then." I said as Lynn put her day planner away and hurried off towards Widener Library. The truth was I didn't really need to understand more about Sanger's relationship with Goldman but I figured I could make points with Lynn so she'd look more favorably at my report.
The next day flew by and I had to rush to the library to make my appointment on time. As it was, however, I arrived a few minutes early. As Lynn hadn't specified where to meet her I sat down at one of the tables near the door that leads into the library. A few minutes later Lynn hurried into the library.
"Sorry I'm late," she said half out of breath. Everyone who went up to the fourth floor library of Grossman Hall did so by the stairs so Lynn's being out of breath was understandable.
"But you're not late," I said looking at my watch, "it's just now 4:30."
"That's sweet of you to say but I know I said we'd meet at 4:15 and now it's, well, I'm late." No matter how well you get along with a professor at Harvard it's never a good idea to argue with them when they "know" they're right. "Okay, so I've got us an office just down the hall."
Lynn went into some detail about Margaret Sanger's role in birth control in the lower east side of New York and then Emma Goldman's involvement with the labor movement and the women of the lower east side.
"So did they have an affair?" I interrupted Lynn.
She seemed a little caught off guard by my question but quickly recovered and answered, "No, although there was no shortage of such rumors. Goldman, though not a promiscuous woman, did have her share of affairs. She surrounded herself with celebrities of the day such as Jack Reed, Eugene O'Neil to name a few and she was a little caught up in that. Sanger wasn't famous yet so I doubt Goldman saw her that way although it isn't unreasonable to suspect such as Goldman did equally like women." So Lynn continued on giving me some insights but really nothing that I needed for my lecture. But what this did present me with was a situation where I could stare into her eyes and enjoy being in her presence. More than once I found myself drifting far from what she was saying.
"So does that help you?" Lynn asked.
