Aurelia and the Great Equality Debate: Winthrop High School, 1924

Debating team, Winthrop High School yearbook 1924, p. 58

 

Among the first four girls to break Winthrop High's debate team's gender barrier was senior Aurelia Schober [front row, third from left]. A packed auditorium heard the boys debate the girls about whether female teachers should be paid as much as males. The school yearbook, The Echo, narrates:

By reason of the fact that we of the class of '24 have been as radical in all our enterprises as one could reasonably expect from students who want something different, it is not at all remarkable to note that the debating team has also been changed somewhat and is now co-ed.

 

The girls made their debut, and debut it was, for they completely took the boys off their feet with their eloquence and ability that had previously been a joke among the opposite and superior (?) sex, on Friday evening, February 29 [1924], in a debate with the boys on the subject: Resolved that women teachers should receive a salary equal to that of men teachers for equal device.

 

Much propaganda had been broadcasted during the first term but no results were apparent until the girls began coming to the boys' trial debates and holding sessions of their own. Then from a group of aspirants that rivaled one of our athletic turnouts, [team coach] Miss Drew selected four of the best and issued a challenge to Coach Sowle, which was to prove a nemesis to his well organized crew ere long.

 

In the meantime several outside debates were talked of and even scheduled for the boys as in the past, but because of various affairs that conflicted and made these impossible, they were one by one cancelled until the high school debate, that of the boys and girls, was the main feature in this field.

 

The affirmative was upheld by the girls, comprising: —

Aurelia Schober, Rebuttal Speaker

Esther Chisholm

Marjorie McCarthy

Elizabeth Kent, Alternate 

 

And the negative by the following boys: —

Morris Jacobson, Rebuttal Speaker

Charles McCarthy

Walter O'Toole

Newall Perry, Alternate 

 

Speaking in an overcrowded auditorium, the girls won a unanimous vote from the judges, and also the right to be represented by two speakers at any other debate in which the High School might participate during the rest of the year. Miss Chisholm was chosen best speaker of the evening.