In March 2024, Cornelia Weiss, an independent military scholar, visited Bloomington and spoke with members of LWV-BMC. Weiss retired from the U.S. Air Force with the rank of colonel, serving in Europe, the Americas, and the Pacific. She was in Bloomington researching the visit of a group of seven influential German women brought to the U.S. in 1949 by the U.S. Army’s German Reorientation Program to “freely see all of American life.” Recognizing that women in Germany at that time greatly outnumbered men and would potentially experience greater influence, the program offered the opportunity to meet outstanding women in the U.S., such as Eleanor Roosevelt and U.S. Representative Chase Going Woodhouse.
The German women also traveled outside of the Washington DC area to talk to other “leaders in women’s activities.” Their longest stop was in Bloomington, where, among other activities, they attended the annual meeting of the League. (The trip was also supported by the LWV Carrie Chapman Catt Memorial Fund.)
According to Weiss, the group stayed in Indiana University dormitories, where they found dorm living to be a “practical education in brotherhood and good citizenship” because one had to “practice virtues of tolerance and understanding.” The women had a packed itinerary while in Bloomington, including:
- A conference on public education hosted by Herman B Wells.
- A briefing on women students and “campus activities of I.U. coeds” from Kate Hevner Mueller, a “national pioneer for women professionals.”
- A news conference where they lauded student-edited newspapers for helping students “learn how to give objective information and how to influence public opinion in a responsible way.”
- A meeting with IU women’s residence hall counselors.
- Seminars on recreation and adult education at the School of Health Physical Education and Recreation.
- A visit to a “rural area,” led by Purdue Extension Service with members of Modern Homemakers, where conveniences in the hostess’s house amazed the women. The Germans’ report noted, “German women are keeping house as their grandmothers did. The manufacture of long-handed scrubbing brushes would take German women off their knees and cause them to look at the work differently.”
- A briefing on the Council of Social Agencies.
- A day at City Hall, attending a City Council meeting and an informal discussion with Mayor Thomas L. Lemon.
- A presentation on the increasing role of films in education.
- A second trip into a rural area, this time Ellettsville, where they met a school principal and a school board member, and had lunch in the school cafeteria, attended a 4-H club meeting, and attended a County Extension leaders’ meeting at the local courthouse.
- A visit to the IU Experimental Radio Station.
- A visit to Bloomington High School, where students had held a drive to send supplies to a school in Bremen, Germany.
- Attendance at the annual meeting of the LWV of Bloomington, including discussion ranging from tracking legislation to the Federal Economic Affairs group’s study of how the U.S. government “spends its money.”
- A visit with the Bloomington police department, where they were impressed by the two-way radio system and the efficient manner in which the patrol cars operate.
After a weekend at Spring Mill State Park, the group’s leaders spoke on the Indiana University Roundtable radio program. At the conclusion of the visit, the Indiana Daily Student declared: “The fact that we have women in Congress and in state and local government is the result of successful fighting for women’s rights. This has been impossible in the totalitarian state that Germany has been. Perhaps now, under the leadership of women such as Mrs. Melle, the women will help build a new and better Germany.” - Ralf Shaw |