In "Reel Life Women: The Role of the American Female in Film During the Depression." Papas gives detailed scene-by-scene analysis of the four works, such as the following commentary on "It Happened One Night":

[Claudette] Colbert wakes up to find [Clark] Gable gone. She begins to panic, again showing the audience that she is not really as tough as she wants to be. Gable, however, who has just gone out to get some food and a toothbrush, soon returns and dominates her life once more. He has had her dress pressed and sends her to the showers while he fixes breakfast. Whereas the night before he was playing father to Ellen, he now becomes her mother as well. In a famous sequence, he teaches her how to properly dunk and eat a donut. It seems as if he is always "teaching" her something, constantly asserting his control and superiority over her. When her father's detectives show up looking for her, Ellen and Peter carry out an hilarious charade, pretending to be a bickering married couple. Their portrayal of a poor, lowercalss husband and wife is a commentary in itself about traditional marriage roles. He yells, she cries and he threatens her with physical violence. It is funny, perhaps, because we are told it is only a characature, a parody....

The conversation turns to love and marriage. Ellen tells him that he could probably make some girl "wonderfully happy" and by the look on her face we are certain that she is talking about herself. Peter, however, must always appear to remain in control of the situation so he tells her that he has not met the right girl yet.

Economics students Thomas Barkin and Leonard Mendonca turned their attention not to the Battle of the Sexes, but to that of the baseball diamond. Barkin explained "The Effects of Free Agency on Major League Baseball," while Mendonca looked at "Racial Discrimination in Major League Baseball."

"The league is actually more competitive because of free agency" Barkin explains, adding that he dispelled early fears that free agents would raise player turnover and heighten inequities among teams.

The system, he says, adjusts itself:

In theory, the extinction of the reserve clause should not change the distribution of skill too much and therefore should not decrease the competitiveness of the leagues. The key point to remember is that contracts of players are transferable among teams in exchange for money and/or other players. If a player has a higher marginal revenue product for Team A than for Team B (because he is a hometown hero, or fills a gap at third base, etc.), one would expect Team A to bid more than Team B in the free agent marker. Similarly before the free agency system was pot into effect. Team A could have paid the money directly to Team B for the player. Since its marginal revenue product for the player is greater, it would be willing to pay Team B a sum equivalent to the marginal revenue product of the player for

Team B

"Baseball is really nice to study because there are good numbers," says Mendonca, who concluded that there is indeed racial discrimination in major league baseball.

The admitted baseball buff also concluded that Blacks are over-represented at both ends of the salary spectrum but start out making less than comparable white players. Discrimination affects mediocre Block pros the most, Mendonca argues:

It is not possible to reject the theory that Blacks are encouraged to play other sports, nor can it be conclusively said that white high school baseball coaches are not prejudiced against Black players in general and are discouraging them from playing baseball. It may be that white coaches are prejudiced against Blacks, and only when a Black player is clearly superior is he allowed to play. It is also possible that if Blacks are generally better athletes than whites, high school coaches may encourage Blacks to play football and basketball because they generally return more money to the school because of greater fan interest than baseball Since there is no evidence of racial barriers between the minors and majors it could be that this barrier exists even before professional baseball.

Helene Sahadi York of the Government Department also discussed discrimination--that which women face in politics. She concluded that despite tremendous obstacles a "latent feminist constituency" exists among American voters.

York administered a questionable to women at Radcliffe, Lesley College, Simmons College and Boston University, among other schools, and discovered consistent "feminist sympathies." However, she points out that:

Despite generally strong agreement with feminist items and economic equity items, this sample of young women often shows hostility to the feminist movement and to feminists...94 percent of the respondents agree with the substantive clause of the ERA, "that equal rights under the law should NOT be denied on account of sex." Yet, by comparison, only 66 percent support the ERA versus 24 percent who are opposed. Ten percent are undecided, by far the largest group of undecided in 36 questions.... Respondents generally agree that women should have equal opportunities and be equal in all spheres, but 14 percent think that "women will end up with things they don't want--too much equality" and one-third (34%) agree that "there is such a thing as too mock equality.".

The last question asked respondents whether they describe themselves as feminists Predictable more than a majority ($54) did not, whereas an unexpectedly high percentage (43%) did....

That feminism is seen as separatist or concerned exclusively with women troubles many of the respondents. One Radcliffe respondent, 21 associates feminism with "supporting the rights of women over the rights of men" A second contends that it means "divisiveness and isolationism which encourages women to focus on the quality of their lives and not on the general quality of all lives."

Julie Tang of the History and Science Department focused on an individual rather than a broad field, producing a biography of the late Lawrence Professor of Chemistry Emeritus, George Kistiakowsky. Subtitling her work, "From Bomb Creator to Peace Crusader," Tang examined the background of the Manhattan atomic bomb project, in which Kistiakowsky played a major role. In the first biography of the prominent scientist, she used documents from the Harvard Archives; the Council for a Liveable World, which Kistiakowsky founded, and primary documents from his personal files. Tang met Kistiakowsky two years ago and received his permission to begin a biography.

After he died last December Tang says, "I felt that it was something that I could de as a tribute to him:" She wrote:

In the years from 1968 through 1982, Klstiakowsky took his message to the American people by becoming an outspoken critic of the government and its handling of nuclear weapons policy. Ironically, this was the man who had put the first nuclear weapon together with his own hands who had done so under a "native" trust in the wisdom and judgement of the government leaders, and believing that these weapons would make the world a safer place. Half a lifetime later, he became entirely devoted to trying to "undo the nuclear weapons." under the conviction that the world is drifting toward nuclear war, and hoping to bring about a change in attitudes which might prevent such a realization of his 1945 prophecy.... His new plan of action involved a monumental task trying to share with his fellow Americans a "rationality and vision" about arms control which he had developed over the decades since joining America's fledgling military science efforts at the start of World War II. Thus the years from 1965 on, Kistiakowsky covered the nation making speeches, writing articles, attending conferences, and holding seminars bringing to bear both his scientific background and the knowledge that came from many years of "insider's experiences" in Washington