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Mariam Chamberlain (1918-2013) Women's Studies Champion
Mariam Chamberlain, one of the first women program officers to work in what was a male bastion at the Ford Foundation and a key figure in establishing women’s studies in American colleges and universities, and in advancing women generally in society, died on April 8 in Manhattan. She was 94.
In a four-column obituary, The New York Times said of Mariam: “Though she rarely gave speeches and considered herself more of a researcher than an activist—she had a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard—Dr. Chamberlain came to be known in the women’s movement as ‘the fairy godmother of women’s studies.’”
Terry Saario, who worked closely with Mariam in developing women’s programs, remarked: “Mariam was smart, incredibly smart. She had a charming sense of humor, was always the consummate professional, and was unflappable. While Mariam had a quiet and self-effacing style, she was very politically adept in working with the large egos of the Foundation and the ever-nuanced emerging women’s studies arena in higher education. The testament to her effectiveness, to a major degree, is how established women’s studies programs are in higher education institutions today.”
She came to the Foundation, the year was 1956, with the appropriate credentials, said Ms. Saario. “In fact, she was probably better credentialed than most of her male counterparts.”
Shep Forman, president of LAFF and a 20-year Foundation veteran, said he recalled vividly the first time he spoke with Mariam about her work and the clarity with which she expressed it. “She deserves maximum credit for making women’s studies a regular part of college curricula and a respected area of research.”
Wrote Gail Spangenberg, president of the Council for the Advancement of Adult Literacy: “I’ve known and admired Mariam Chamberlain for about 50 years, going back to our Ford Foundation years. She was an accomplished economist and social scientist, dedicated to empowering others and to encouraging quality action and research on many fronts. Just as important, she was a committed feminist, something we had in common at Ford and after.
She recalled an incident early in the Foundation’s embrace of women’s programming. Recalling that she took an active role in advancing women in the Foundation’s internal policies and external grant-making, she wrote: “One day I decided to send a memo to McGeorge Bundy about women’s issues and the need for Ford to provide leadership. He called me into a one-to-one meeting. Mariam and I then had many chats about the agenda of the special committee he set up as a result of that meeting, asking it to examine the issues and make recommendations.
We had the good fortune of working for three remarkable men dedicated to equality of opportunity—Marshall Robinson, Champ Ward, and Mac Bundy. As Ford moved vigorously into women’s issues, Mariam took charge of the new program. It became a model of national leadership.”
Heidi Hartmann, president of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, said Dr. Chamberlain’s contributions to the women’s movement and her influence on laying the groundwork for women’s studies departments and public policy research were incalculable. “It’s hard to imagine how bad things were when she came on the scene. Women’s suffrage was not taught in most American history classes. Female writers were footnotes to the literary canon taught in most colleges. She made a huge impact with small and strategic grants,” said Ms. Hartmann.
Proud of her Armenian heritage, Dr. Chamberlain was born Mariam Kenosian, one of three children of Avak Kenosian, an immigrant from Armenia. Her father, a shoe factory worker, did not believe in women’s education. She completed high school, went to Radcliffe on a full scholarship, and then to Harvard to study toward a doctorate in economics. Her study was interrupted during World War II in order to work as an analyst for the Office of Strategic Services. She received her Ph.D. in 1956.
She held teaching positions at Connecticut College; the School of General Studies, Columbia; and Hunter College. After Ford, she became president of the National Council for Research on Women, which helps consolidate and coordinate research centers that she had helped seed at Stanford University, the University of Michigan, the University of Arizona, and Memphis State.
The National Council for Research on Women, which Dr. Chamberlain founded in 1981 and where she remained active until the end of her life, asked feminist scholars and activists who had known Dr. Chamberlain to submit in writing their thoughts and memories about Dr. Chamberlain. Some 30 such tributes were received and can be seen on the NCRW website. Florence Howe, founder of the Feminist Press, which received one of the first of the Foundation’s women’s studies grants, and a colleague of many years, was with her at meal time at Mount Sinai Hospital the night before the surgery she would not survive. “We had thousands of meals together, dear Mariam, one aspect of a long and durable feminist relationship,” she said.
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