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Brothers College staggered toward closure as Hitler's troops swaggered across Europe and Japanese ships controlled the Pacific Ocean. World War II offered no hideout for students; the long arm of the draft boards reached everywhere. By the summer of 1942, with the drainage of men painfully evident on campus, the editor of the Alumnus, with more bravado than brains, boasted that, "nobody's talking about women /[in the college/]; not until the last man dies."
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It was considerably less than a shock heard around the world, but many die-hard alumni reacted sharply, although they held their fire for "the duration." Women! Gone would be the macho days when an average male student wore sloppy clothes, shaved once a week, and played blackjack in the college basement without benefit of deodorant or mouthwash. Anyone with even a slim knowledge of Drew History should not have been surprised that women students would be attending classes. On April 1, 1915, the progressive Drew Theological Seminary faculty was deadly serious when it voted for the first time to admit women "on the same condition as accorded to men." Conservative trustees hedged on the radical recommendation, somewhat agreeing in a complexity of words that the original charter did not forbid females. They compromised, but only agreed that the seminary should "offer courses for training for other forms of service [than being a minister] to all students as may desire to take them."
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A uniquely female incident occurred in the spring of 1924 when Miss Gertrude Brown had her hair bobbed in the fashion of the day. Associate Dean Jennie Spaeth reacted as if the cutting vied with the cropped hair troubles of the Biblical Samson. The dean asked President Ezra Tipple to zero in on Miss Brown, who, in the dean's mind, lacked maturity and dignity.. Tipple abstained. The dean sought help elsewhere, particularly after saucy Miss Brown said Drew could not thwart a girl who wanted to be a missionary in India, simply because of her snipped off hair. The dean sought help from Miss Brown's fiance, Warren Sheen. His attitude, Dean Spaeth reported to Tipple, was "most unpleasant." Openly stalling, Tipple asked for the allegedly wayward Miss Brown's record. She had excellent grades, including an A+ n a course called "Original Play". Miss Brown stayed in school, married the staunchly supportive Mr. Sheen, and graduated in 1925. President Tipple surely breathed a sigh of relief; the bad hair days were over.
When Leonard and Arthur Baldwin founded Brothers College in 1929, it was implicit that the brothers intended an all-male student body. But when Arthur Baldwin was asked in January 1929, whether the college forbade women, he expressed a wish for it to be all male, adding "but it is not binding on the trustees." So the Brothers College set sail. A few students met female secretaries or other clerks on campus and happy marriages resulted. Most of the undergraduates met young women in their hometowns or in downtown Madison, wooed them at church socials, the Madison movie house, and a variety of mixers on campus. It worked well, with the added advantage of their being able to retreat to Rogers House, where residents came as close to "good old boy" status as a young educated male could get on Drew campus.
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