A Pillar of Inner Strength: Dr. Elisabeth Jastrow

Dr. Elisabeth Anna Marie Jastrow was an Associate Professor of Art History at Woman's College (WC) of the University of North Carolina (now UNC Greensboro) from 1941 until her retirement in 1961. Though she spent the last twenty years of her career teaching art history, her true passion was classical archeology. Elisabeth Jastrow was born October 7, 1890 in Berlin, Germany into a family of intellectuals and developed an early interest in archeology.

Dr. Elisabeth Jastrow

Dr. Jastrow was so interested in archeology that she had planned to pursue a career as an archeologist, though she was thwarted at nearly every turn. Jastrow wrote, "My desire always has been to participate in excavations or to make museum work my career, but both these fields were practically closed to women in Germany." Jastrow worked tirelessly to set herself apart in the field of archeology. She completed her Ph.D. in 1916 as the chaos of World War I was having an impact on all of Europe. Her studies were interrupted in 1914 when she took a break to work as a nurse's aide in a Red Cross Hospital in Riemenstadt for a year.

Jastrow was a voracious learner; she studied and traveled broadly from 1910 through the remainder of her working life. She studied in Greece, Italy, Germany, Denmark, England, Switzerland, Holland, and once in the United States, she continued to travel and studied in Canada, Cuba, and France. Despite earning a Ph.D., magna cum laude, from the University of Heidelberg, Germany and a specialized certification to make molds of sculptural objects from a sculpture studio in Switzerland, finding meaningful work in archeology was a challenge for her. By the 1930s, she had an impressive resume in research, instruction, and museum cataloging. At times though, she had to make do with working as a German tutor or an elementary teacher, but she did so as she continued her own research.

Perhaps more detrimental to her budding career than being a woman in Germany during the 1930s was the fact that she was of Jewish descent. Her family were culturally assimilated Jews but the German race laws instituted in 1933 would put an end to her academic career in Germany. At that time, Jastrow was finally employed at Akademisches Kunst-Museum, University of Bonn, Germany, as an Assistant and Curator working to prepare and publish a catalogue of a collection of Greek vases, a particular interest of hers. However, the Nazi government withdrew her appointment to the museum and she had to leave Germany to continue her career. Jastrow was awarded the International Fellowship of the American Association of University Women for the year of 1934-1935, which allowed her to continue her archeological research in Italy. In 1937, Jastrow’s father died and she was no longer allowed to return to Germany nor could she take any money out of the country. Her father had remained in Germany with her mother and sister until his death. Jastrow stayed in Italy until the summer of 1938 when she travelled to Switzerland to study mold-making to create reproductions of art objects.

Woman's College art students, circa 1940s

In October 1938, Jastrow first came to the United States on a visitor’s visa where she gave lectures on classical archeology at several prominent universities. A friend of her father’s was a professor at Harvard University and hosted her in Cambridge, Massachusetts for an extended stay. In April 1939, Jastrow was offered a year-long position at Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. At the end of that year, she left the United States for Cuba and soon returned as a non-quota immigrant and began the process of becoming an United States citizen. She spent the next couple of years trying to make a living doing translations and occasionally making sculptured reproductions of art objects for museums or artists. Though she reported a certain degree of success, she acknowledged that it was difficult to find much work in light of the world situation in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

In January of 1941, Elisabeth Jastrow first came to Greensboro to work at Woman’s College as an Instructor in Art History. In June 1941, she was hired as an Assistant Professor of Art History and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1953. She also taught German for her first few years at Woman’s College. Jastrow continued her research and travels during her time in Greensboro and published numerous articles and a couple of books.

Jastrow’s contacts and reputation allowed her to bring several significant exhibitions to the Weatherspoon Art Gallery at Woman’s college, including an exhibition from the Museum of Modern Art and an exhibit of photographs of Egyptian Art belonging to the collection of a colleague in Germany. Though her contributions to the field of archeology were numerous and her impact as an educator well documented, her career was no doubt stifled by her limitations of being both a woman and a German Jew during the first half of the 20th century. Her years in Greensboro were marked by her involvement in various organizations related to history and archeology as well as time with her family as her mother eventually came to live with her.

Dr. Elisabeth Jastrow

Dr. Jastrow retired from Woman’s College in 1961 and remained in the Greensboro area until her death at age 91. Her niece and nephew spoke of their aunt at her funeral and described her as a woman of impressive inner strength and discipline as she had pursued a new life and language upon her exile from her native Germany due to "Hitler's madness in Europe". Her niece, who called her Aunt Ebith, described her tender relationship with an aunt who had introduced her to the beauties of antiquity and sent postcards from all over the world as she travelled and continued her research despite the chaos of WWI and WWII. Indeed, Dr. Elisabeth Jastrow was a pillar of inner strength and a model of perseverance for the young women of Woman's College of the University of North Carolina.

Educate a Woman: Virginia Terrell Lathrop

     The 1920s was an age marked by dramatic social changes, rejecting traditions, huge economic growth, and, for many, an exhuberant lifestyle of drinking and dancing. Though many of the women of the 1923 graduating class of North Carolina College for Women (NCCW, and now UNC Greensboro) adopted the bobbed hairstyle of the day, for the most part, they were starting the decade by focusing on getting an education rather than embracing the habits of the flapper generation. Within months of their graduation, in August of 1923, President Warren Harding died suddenly, and Vice President Calvin Coolidge was catapulted to the oval office. A year later, he would run for president and win. The class of 1923, aged at least 21 years, were of legal voting age at the time, and the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920 meant that they were eligible to vote in their first national election. They would begin life after graduation in a world full of new opportunities for women.

Virginia Terrell, senior yearbook picture, 1923

      Virginia Terrell Lathrop (1902-1974) was the 1923 class president, majored in History and English, and was awarded the superlative for wisdom in her senior yearbook. It was only natural that she continued to be a clever trailblazer in the years following graduation. 

     Lathrop was a product of her education and chose to focus her career in journalism. A trendsetter, she became a reporter and feature writer for Raleigh's News and Observer, Greensboro's Daily News, New York's Evening Post, London's Express, the Paris edition of the New York Herald-Tribune, and Asheville's Citizen. In later years when asked if she used her college major in her career, she wrote, "Yes - in a better understanding of people and events; and in the skills of communication through writing and talking and reading." Indeed, her numerous articles and two books conveyed her keen interest in and understanding of the world around her.

     In a 1935 questionnaire sent to members of the class of 1923 prior to their reunion, Lathrop was asked to summarize her professional and personal life during the twelve years since graduation. Aside from the newspaper work described previously, she wrote, "Roving about as secretary to a playwright in Switzerland; handling mail in a tourist agency in Paris; press agent for a professional stock company in Asheville; free lancing, with a few accepted magazine articles; marriage & housekeeping; and since then free lancing, with occasional publicity work for stock companies, theatres, Chamber of Commerce, and last year for the celebration of first English settlement on Roanoke Island." 

Virginia Terrell, "Wisdom", Superlatives, 1923 yearbook

     In just over a decade since her college graduation, Lathrop had managed to live abroad for a stint, work as a journalist for several highly respected publications in the US and abroad, as well as find time to meet and marry her husband in 1928. Albert Lathrop was educated at the Case School of Applied Science in Cleveland, Ohio and resided in Asheville at the time of their marriage. A few years later, the Lathrops welcomed their only child, a son, Terrell "Terry" Lathrop. Terry Lathrop would continue in his parents' footsteps by attending college and obtaining a B.S. in Civil Engineering from North Carolina State College (now North Carolina State University) and an M.A. in City Planning from Yale University.

     Just prior to WWII, in 1938, Virginia Lathrop returned to her alma mater to serve on staff to begin the University News Bureau. By that time, she was an experienced journalist and had remained committed to the college as well as to freedom of education for all. She also was very active in her community by serving on boards or committees of the Red Cross, YWCA, Friends of the Library, Parent Teacher Association, and the Cub Scouts. During the war, Lathrop served in a civilian capacity as a regional director for the North Carolina War Finance Committee, a role in which she organized war bond sales for western North Carolina counties. War bonds were sold to finance the war and were advertised as a way for average citizens to protect liberty and democracy; no doubt this work was an extension of Lathrop's commitment to protecting freedom of education. In addition, Lathrop's first book, Educate a Woman: Fifty Years of Life at the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina, was published in 1942.

Lathrop's first book published in 1942

     After the war, Lathrop continued to invest her time and effort in the interest of education as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Consolidated University of North Carolina. She became a member of its Executive Committee in 1953. In 1972, the organization became UNC Board of Governors and Lathrop continued to serve until her death in 1974. She also remained faithful to UNC Greensboro and visited the university many times during her tenure as a trustee and for reunions of the class of 1923.

     Lathrop was known as the unofficial university historian. Her second book about the university, Bricks and People: A Walking Guide to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, was published in 1973. She even was invited to present a brief history of the university as the 1966 Commencement speaker, in which she extolled the virtues of the founder of the State Normal and Industrial College (later NCCW and now UNC Greensboro), Dr. Charles D. McIver. 

Virginia Terrell Lathrop

     Like Virginia Terrell Lathrop, McIver was an unflagging supporter of the education of women. Lathrop quoted McIver who expressed his purpose of creating the institution as follows, "...to give such education as will add to the efficiency of woman's work in whatever walk of life her lot may be cast." Lathrop's lot was cast into a walk of life characterized by service to a cause - freedom of education for all people - a movement she served her whole life.