UK Women's League - Our Rightful Place

UK Women's League, 1923 Kentuckian

One hundred year ago, coinciding with the end of the World War I and the achievement of suffrage by American women, the lives of women students at the University of Kentucky began to take a subtle turn.  Influenced by the creation of Leagues of Women Voters chapters across the nation, students founded a Women's League at UK in the spring of 1920, with part of its purpose to bring "dormitory" women together with "the town girls."  Additionally the League hoped to "bring to the university certain notable experts on vocations for women."  Student culture was changing rapidly and the Women’s League advocated for additional personal freedoms for women students, a campaign that would last well into the 1960s on the UK campus.

Since 1880 UK women have sought equality at the University of Kentucky.  Information about the struggle and the women who led the push for equality can be found in the recently published, Our Rightful Place: A History of Women at the University of Kentucky, 1880-1945.

https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813179377/our-rightful-place/    

Use the code FAU25 for 25% off. 

UK WOMEN AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR

MARION BROOKE SPRAGUE

Marion Brooke Sprague, B.S, Lexington, Pre-Medical Society; Philosophian; W.W.C.A.

"Marion has ambition.  All her life she wanted to enter the medical profession as a doctor or nurse.  Now we learn that her ambition will soon be realized, as she will enter Johns Hopkins in the fall.  We wish her success.  Marion was not originally a member of the Class of '20, but during the war she left to enter the Red Cross.  After the Armistice was signed she returned to school and we were glad to welcome her into our ranks." [From the 1920 Kentuckian]

Marion Sprague was one of many UK faculty, staff, and students who left the university to contribute in various ways to the war effort.  While she did not achieve her dream of becoming a physician, she did pursue a career as a public health nurse.  After returning to Lexington from Baltimore, Sprague worked for her father, Dr. George P. Sprague, who owned and operated High Oak Sanatorium on the site of the current St. Joseph Hospital.

Sprague later served as a rural health nurse in Connecticut, Kentucky, New York, and New Jersey.  In 1946 she became Executive Director of the Kentucky State Association of Registered Nurses.