One huge difference between 1943 and 1993 is that students then had no difficulty finding jobs after graduation. There was Rosy the Riveter, working in the factories building the huge war machine, and plenty of more sophisticated war-related jobs, too. Life was changing for women. The war years helped the move toward equality between the sexes.
In the post-war period, many of us went back to our homes, some willingly and some reluctantly. We became the mothers of the Baby Boomers. Some of us were comfortable having our husbands be the providers as we produced children and involved ourselves full-time in raising them.
But college had prepared us to want more. Unfortunately, it hadn't prepared us how to manage. Fellowships were not then available to women. There has yet to be a course (to my knowledge) in how to raise a child and work outside the home at the same time, and do your best at both. It is still a problem today, but at least an acknowledged one. We were pre-Women's Lib and had to forge our own way.
And, sure enough, most of us have. How much the world has changed since freshman year! We not only had no TV, we had no VCR, no computer, no fax. Commercial plane travel had hardly begun. I was the first in my family to fly, in 1940.
We have, on the whole, adapted to the changes very well. I agree with the graduate who wrote, "I attribute this in great measure to the Radcliffe experience, which I believe prepared us to be thinking, independent women."
Amen.