Interview with Mary Hawkesworth

Mary Hawkesworth is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Women’s and Gender Studies. Since joining the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers in 1998, she has served as the Director of the Center for American Women and Politics and Chair of the Women’s and Gender Studies Department. Hawkesworth also served as the editor of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society from 2005 to 2015. She considers the history of women’s education in America and the place of Douglass in this larger story. Hawkesworth reflects on the complicated and rich history of women at Rutgers, considering the early experiences and motivations of women at the New Jersey College for Women, the shifting perceptions of coeducation, and the project of a women’s education. Special attention is paid to the complex legacies of the women who led what is now Douglass Residential College in the twentieth century, including Mabel Smith Douglass, Margaret Trumball Corwin, Margery Somers Foster, and Mary S. Hartman.Accompanied by transcrip