Entertainment

With an event stretching from 10 am to 10 pm, what did attendees do between sessions?  Du Bois noted in The Crisis that “the conferees spent the day at the College and ate in the dining room.”¹ The conference program also lists Elizabeth Gutman ‘32 and Elizabeth Randall Kindleberger ‘33 as responsible for entertainment.

The Hilltop
Women Attend Bryn Mawr Conference
Courtesy of Howard University

Particularly interesting to Howard students was the opportunity for Howard delegates to tour the college. The Hilltop reports, “However, one of the most interesting features of the conference was the opportunity offered the delegates to visit and inspect the various buildings of the college. The women gathered many facts that would be of interest to the women at Howard.”² 

At the time, only two African American students attended Bryn Mawr: Enid Cook ‘31, who would be the first African American student to graduate from Bryn Mawr, and Lillian Alfrebell Russell '34. These two African American students faced many racist obstacles from the College administration and their fellow students. They were denied on-campus housing, discouraged from socializing with white students for "their own best interests," and faced hostility from white students.³

In their tour of campus, the Howard delegates would have been able to see Bryn Mawr's dorms--where the college's residency policy had explicitly excluded African American students to discourage them from applying.