Hallie Farmer papers, MSS.0503

Abstract: Newspaper clippings and other published material by and about Dr. Farmer, including bibliographies, offprints of articles, book reviews, and other materials.Scope and Content Note: The collections is made up up mostly newspaper clippings. The other items in the collection include club and college commencement programs, articles from professional journals either written by or about Dr. Farmer, school transcripts, medical papers, bibliographies of Dr. Farmer's writings, reprints of her articles and book reviews, and copies of a few of her speeches (approximately 5). Many of the news clippings are concerned with Dr. Farmer's activities as an active member and elected official of the American Association of University Women and the Business and Professional Women. Other clippings, as well, as speeches and writings, reveal Dr. Farmer's strong interest in the areas of prison reform, abolition of poll taxes, legislative matters, and participation in civic affairs by the women of her adopted state.Biographical/Historical Note: Hallie Farmer, daughter of Edgar W. and Elizabeth Farmer, was born in Anderson, Indiana, on 13 August 1891. After a 14-year stint as an instructor in elementary and high schools in Indiana, she received her Master of Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1922. From 1922 to 1925 she was an Assistant Professor of History at Ball State, and Teachers College, in Muncie, Indiana. She received her Ph.D. in 1927 from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Dr. Farmer spent her entire career at Alabama State College for Women (later called the State University of Montevallo, and now the University of Montevallo) from 1927 until 1956. As a scholar, her subject was Alabama government and politics. In 1942 she became a research associate with the Bureau of Public Administration of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Her writings always had an element of reform, and they appeared in such research periodicals as South Atlantic Quarterly, the Mississippi Valley Historical Review, and the Alabama Review (which she helped found). Her major book, published in 1949, The Legislative Process in Alabama, is still considered one of the foremost studies of state legislatures. She retired in 1956.She championed feminine causes during the "dead" period for the American women's movement, the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, between the suffrage amendment and the Equal Rights eras. "She dedicated her energies to the political awakening of Southern white women through her classes, speeches, research, and her own political campaigns and crusades. ... [Her] life goal as teacher, scholar and activist was to increase representation and participation, especially of women, in Alabama public life. A scholar of Alabama politics, she led several successful campaigns of her own and many of her students, inspired by her words and example, went on to careers in public administration, social work and teaching. Hallie Farmer's greatest success was that her voice was heard."Dr. Farmer died from a heart attack on 20 June 1960.Source: "Found Women: Pioneers in Southern Political Science. Hallie Farmer," Dorothy McBride Stetson. PS: Political Science and Politics. Summer 1988, pp. 667-669. [Online at http://www.spsa.net/wcps/left_column/pdfs/micellanous/BiographyofHallieFarmer.pdf. Accessed 14 March 2013