At the end of each story, he would explain that the most important thing for me to do was to enjoy every single day, find work that I loved, and, most important to never, ever own my own business. My dad used to come home late from his retail business and read to me. She keeps up the house in Trenton that I grew up in, takes courses, and helps out at the local retirement home from time to time. My mom is what I hope to become with 30 more years of practice. “Just hire a band and let it rip.” Mary wishes a Happy 60th to everyone!īarbara Feinsilber Kanegesberg stays active and productive. There is a noticeable difference on campus today at Bryn Mawr, but it’s not that great: she does not think that the administrators recognize that their views carry some of the same tones of racism as those who governed the campus when she was here, and thinks the notion would be rejected if she were to tell them so.“Why be afraid of 60?” asks Mary Farrell. She gives money, time and commitment to the institution because the life she lives now is due to her education at Bryn Mawr-Rich said that “sometimes you win when you lose.” She states that she would help any black Bryn Mawr woman in any way because when she needed the help it was not there for her. Also, to that extent, she does not feel black women at Bryn Mawr support each other enough. She often felt as though her white friends did not offer her as much support as they were able to. She is a black feminist, and does not feel that white woman give black woman enough support even though black women provide them with support. Rich says that black women from Bryn Mawr will have a hard time making it. The experience proved to be a test of endurance. Without her Ph.D., Rich speculates that she never would have gotten the job. There were only two black women, including herself, in this type of position. She became the Executive Assistant to the superintendent of high schools of Queens, selecting teachers for the regional schools. She knew that she wanted a line position so that she could make decisions that had impact, rather than just carrying out mandates in a staff position. Rich wanted a job in a major American cooperation, so she attended a business program at NYU. Rich did want to be a politician, and to run for Congress in her district-however, she also saw the limitations in this path. She aimed to make changes in the educational system, which she knew she could achieve by working inside the system. This philosophy was in tune with her personal ideals. She sees the role of an educator as a broad one: to help people understand our society, with a motive of enacting change. Rich says that having only one child was a deliberate decision for her, and she later became a teacher in order to help the family meet their financial needs. She took 5 years off because of the birth of her son and was active in civil rights along with her husband. Rich has worked with Americans for Democratic Action in Philadelphia, a New York socialist activist group, and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (as a secretary). She had a hard time finding a job after graduation, and eventually became a public welfare investigator. She views herself as an educator, though she felt forced into this career path because positions in education were common for blacks to take. Her mother told her “change doesn’t come overnight, and you must change the foundation,” which is what she attempted to do with the tools she learned at Bryn Mawr. She saw things at the college she did not agree with, and wished to create change. She never missed class, and seized every opportunity for success. In order to understand the society around her, she went to any and every extracurricular event at the college (sometimes at the expense of her academics). She felt accepted by the group because of their common beliefs, and she did not feel marginalized because of her ethnicity. She joined the Students for Democratic Action organization as a freshman, which was liberal organization that wanted to change society. She reveals that she came with her own agenda as a student.
Rich accepts that she was never a success at Bryn Mawr College from the administrative perspective. This page features highlights of Rich’s college experience and how it informed her later life a recording of the interview can be found at the bottom of the page.
Through this conversation and the time they spent archiving her papers, they learned the story of Rich’s life both at college and beyond Bryn Mawr. Lauren and Alexis conducted an oral history interview with Evelyn Jones Rich, the first black undergraduate student to reside on Bryn Mawr's campus for her entire four years, in July, 2013.