Smash the Prevailing Image of a Woman
Feminist Activism at Susquehanna University in the 1960s and 1970s
Susquehanna University, founded in 1858, is a small, private liberal arts college in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. In Susquehanna’s early history, female students overwhelmingly conformed to the traditional gender roles expected for women. This continued well into the 1950s, where our story picks up. Starting in the 1960s, however, long-held ideas of women’s roles were turned upside down, especially at universities. As Susquehanna University students protested mandatory chapel attendance and the Vietnam War, so too did they fight against the oppression of women. This exhibit strives to tell the story of exactly how that happened.