Jessie Thatcher Bost Papers

Collection

Identifier: 1990-022

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

Collection contains Jessie Thatcher Bost's Oklahoma A&M College school work and manuscripts of articles, herbarium, OAMC publications and photographs of Thatcher family, friends, and the OAMC campus.

Dates

1888 - 2007

Creator

Bost, Jessie Thatcher, 1875-1963. (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open for research use. Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the Oklahoma Open Records Act (http://www.odl.state.ok.us/lawinfo/docs/2006-LibraryLaws-PartE.pdf), and other relevant regulations. Confidential material may include, but is not limited to, educational, medical, and personnel records. Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which Oklahoma State University Libraries assumes no responsibility.

Conditions Governing Use

The researcher assumes full responsibility for conforming with the laws of copyright. Whenever possible, Oklahoma State University Archives will provide information about copyright owners and related information. Securing permission to publish or use material is the responsibility of the researcher. Note that unless specifically transferred to Oklahoma State University Libraries, any applicable copyrights may be held by another individual or entity. Copyright for material published by Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College/Oklahoma State University is held by the Board of Regents for the Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical Colleges. All rights reserved.

Further information about copyright policy can be obtained by contacting Oklahoma State University Archives by email at libscua@okstate.edu or by phone at 405-744-6311.

Biographical Sketch

If "you and I could have chosen when to exist, I think there could have been no more inspiring time than now," Jessie said in her commencement address, "Dawning of the Twentieth Century", to her two fellow graduates and the other present.

She believed education held the key to independence and opportunity and spent most of her life as a teacher in Oklahoma public schools — putting her teaching career on hold long enough to raise her two sons and two daughters.

Jessie accomplished many "first" during her life. Besides being OSU's first female graduate, she also served as the first president of both the Alumni Association and the Half-Century Club. In 1925, OSU named its first women's dormitory in her honor. (Jessie whould have graduated a year earlier in OAMC's first class except typhoid fever caused her to miss a year of school.) In 1963, she died at the age of 88.

The Good Old Days When OAMC opened its doors in 1891, Jessie and her sister Jennie were among the 40 or so students who enrolled in the college preparatory classes.

Because the ration of men and women was practically equal at first, the female contribution to the school have been significant throughout its history, says retired professor of economics Pauline Kopecky in her Centennial Histories Series Book, Equal Opportunity.

In the early days no attemps were made to distinguish the curriculum for the sexes. All women took agricultural and chemistry classes with the men," and all learned to tend crops and care for livestock on the college farm.

Jessie's essays usually dealt with the general subjects of education and a woman's place in the world. "She doesn't have a place behind the stove in her manuscripts," says her son Armon Bost, a 1933 business graduate who later served as an OSU regent from 1969-1977. "I know later in life she used to really be adamant about the fact that she couldn't vote — no women's suffrage — and to my father's despair she would often lament that women weren't allowed to vote. Finally they were.

"And it was interesting because he was a Democrat and she became a Republican."

Following graduation, Jessie taught in Stillwater public schools for $40 a month for nearly a decade, marrying former OAMC classmate Henry Bost in 1902. In 1907 the couple homesteaded in western Oklahoma, then moved to Alva in 1908. Jessie put her teaching career on hold until her four children were grown.

When Jessie retired after nearly 20 years in the Cleveland schools, OSU President Dr. Henry G. Bennett honored her as "Oklahoma's first woman of education. " He said, "I like to think of her as a symbol of all that womenhood, womanly institutions and womanly courage have brought to our civilizaiton." [From OSU Magazine, Spring 1997.]

Extent

4.5 Linear feet ( (2 legal size document boxes, 3 newspaper boxes, 1 oversize folder, 2 wrapped plaques))

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Arrangement

Arranged into four series.

Location

For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the Library's online catalog or contact the Oklahoma State University Archives Reference staff.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift of Armon Bost, 1990

Digital Collection

With the exception of the herbarium specimens and the awards, all of the items from the Jessie Thatcher Bost Papers have been digitized and can be viewed here.