Mollie C. Davis

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Mollie C. Davis
Black and white head an shoulders image of a short-haired woman wearing a v-necked dark blouse and small pearl earrings.
Davis in 1967
Born
Mollie Farmer Camp

(1932-03-02)2 March 1932
Newnan, Georgia
Died4 January 2021(2021-01-04) (aged 88)
Charlotte, North Carolina
Other namesMollie Davis, Mollie Camp Davis
Occupation(s)academic, civil and women's rights activist
Years active1965–2000

Mollie C. Davis (2 March 1932 – 4 January 2021) was an American activist and academic. She was active in both the

Coordinating Committee on Women in the Historical Profession, both of the precursor organizations of the Coordinating Council for Women in History
. Davis was on the executive council of the Southern History Association from 1992 through 1994.

Early life and education

Mollie Farmer Camp was born on 2 March 1932, in

Albert Sidney Camp.[1][2] Her mother was an invalid and Camp had polio as a child.[3] Her father served as the Georgia state Representative for the United States House from 1939 to 1954.[4] Her mother was related to former governor of Georgia Ellis Arnall.[3] The family lived in the former boarding house run by Camp's grandmother, who assisted the family because of Camp's mother's incapacity.[5] Because Georgia law forbade Camp's widowed grandmother to write her own checks, she ardently pressed Camp to always vote and be politically active.[4] Camp's childhood was spent between Georgia and Washington, DC, where she spent many hours in the Library of Congress. Because of her disabilities from polio, she decided to go into teaching, because it was a field that did not require physical strength.[3]

After finishing high school, Camp first studied at Stratford College and went on to earn a

Master of Arts in Teaching until 1965.[1][3] Part of the requirement to earn her degree was to complete a internship, teaching in the newly integrated schools in Atlanta in 1965.[7]

Career

In 1965, Davis began teaching at

ACLU or NAACP and though she signed them, she secretly joined the class action lawsuit to have these types of oaths nullified in the state. She also helped found the first ACLU chapter at West Georgia College in 1966 and was involved in monitoring compliance with the registration provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.[8] While doing this work, her car was blown up, and she believed that it had been bombed by the Ku Klux Klan.[9] Davis wanted to continue her education at Emory, but her grades were not high enough. By the time they decided to admit her, friends of her father on the board of the University of Georgia (UGA) had invited her to become the first woman given a regent's grant to complete PhD studies.[10]

Davis was admitted to UGA in 1967 and studied there until 1969, before returning to West Georgia College to complete her prerequisite teaching for the 1969–1970 term.

Coordinating Committee on Women in the Historical Profession.[11] The group was founded in December 1969, and among its concerns were discriminatory hiring practices.[12][13]

Davis immediately joined the group and returned to Georgia with plans to form a women's organization within the Southern Historical Association.

Gracewood Mental Hospital in Augusta in 1970. Davis discovered that because of remnants of coverture laws in the South, she could not accept a position at state-funded schools located outside of Georgia because her legal residence was his, in Augusta.[9] She filed for divorce and began using a network the American Historical Association had set up to help women historians find jobs in academia.[16]

In 1972, Davis was hired as an assistant professor at

Conference Group on Women's History and from 1983 to 1985 was co-chair of the Coordinating Committee on Women in the Historical Profession.[17] Throughout the 1980s, Davis served on numerous committees of the Southern Historical Association, including membership,[18] nominating,[19] and program committees.[20] Much of her work on the various committees was devoted to including women as presenters or officers of the association, or having a space dedicated for them to meet various conferences.[21][22] From 1992 to 1994, she was elected to serve on the executive council of the Southern Historical Association[15][23] and was on the executive committee from 1993 to 1994.[24] During her tenure as chair of the women's committee in 1999, Davis pressed for the association to adopt an ethics policy to specifically address the issue of sexual harassment.[25] Davis retired in 2000.[2]

Death and legacy

Davis died Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina on 4 January 2021.[2] She is remembered for activism in the civil rights and women's movement, as well as her founding role in the Southern Association for Women Historians. Her work with the other founders Rosemary F. Carroll, Arnita A. Jones, and Barbara Brandon Schnorrenberg, is credited with laying the groundwork of the organization, which would become regionally influential.[22][26]

Selected works

Davis researched social reform movements from a gender perspective, evaluating how women's roles had changed over time. She was particularly interested in how women's relationships in family and with their children were depicted in popular culture.[1]

  • Davis, Mollie Camp (1971). "George Whitefield's Attempt to Establish a College in Georgia".
    ISSN 0016-8297.[27]
  • Davis, Mollie C. (Winter 1971). "American Religious and Religiose Reaction To Mexico's Church-State Conflict, 1926–1927: Background to the Morrow Mission".
    OCLC 5792703746.[28]
  • Davis, Mollie Camp (1972). Quest for a New America: Ferment in Collegiate Culture, 1921–1929 (PhD). Athens, Georgia:
    OCLC 17652974.[29]
  • Davis, Mollie C. (Winter 1978). "Grass Roots Women's Studies: Piedmont, North Carolina".
    OCLC 5547235348
    .
  • Davis, Mollie C. (1982). "The Countess of Huntingdon: A Leader in Missions for Social and Religious Reform". In Keller, Rosemary Skinner; Queen, Louise L.; Thomas, Hilah F. (eds.). Women in New Worlds: Historical Perspectives on the Wesleyan Tradition. Vol. II. Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon. pp. 162–175.
    ISBN 978-0-687-45969-8
    .

References

Citations

  1. ^ a b c d e f The Robesonian 1976, p. 28.
  2. ^ a b c The Charlotte Observer 2021.
  3. ^ a b c d e Dean & Smart 2004, p. 62.
  4. ^ a b Dean & Smart 2004, p. 61.
  5. ^ Dean & Smart 2004, pp. 61–62.
  6. ^ a b The Atlanta Constitution 1954, p. 18.
  7. ^ a b Dean & Smart 2004, pp. 63–64.
  8. ^ Dean & Smart 2004, pp. 62–63.
  9. ^ a b Dean & Smart 2004, p. 65.
  10. ^ Dean & Smart 2004, p. 63.
  11. ^ a b Dean & Smart 2004, p. 64.
  12. ^ Boris & Chaudhuri 1999, p. xiii.
  13. ^ Schulz & Turner 2004, pp. 5–7.
  14. ^ Boris & Chaudhuri 1999, p. 136.
  15. ^ a b c Dean & Smart 2004, p. 60.
  16. ^ a b Dean & Smart 2004, p. 71.
  17. ^ Smith et al. 1994, p. 87.
  18. ^ Wall 1985, p. 266.
  19. ^ Journal of Southern History 1988, p. 159.
  20. ^ Journal of Southern History 1980, pp. 328–329.
  21. ^ Dean & Smart 2004, pp. 72–74.
  22. ^ a b Sharpless 2005, p. 962.
  23. ^ Journal of Southern History 1992, p. 184.
  24. ^ Journal of Southern History 1993, p. 186.
  25. ^ Holmes 1999, p. 369.
  26. ^ Goan 2004, p. 587.
  27. ^ Coleman 1991, p. 421.
  28. ^ Journal of American History 1971, p. 860.
  29. ^ Jensen 1987, p. 176.

Bibliography

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