Reddit: SUNY Buffalo: "standard of feminine pulchritude" in 1965

[marshwiggle]

Maybe he's the Elephant who Hatched a Who?

Some of those connections listed--including a couple I'm in--would be highly consistent, in that time, with the comments seen and attributed to him.

One feels sorry for Evelyn.

M.

Some women take great pride in their "feminine pulchritude". ( e.g "Real Housewives" reality shows...)

If Evelyn happened to be one of that type, maybe she would have been in favour of the recognition.

[secundem_artem]

$8200 in 1965 is approximately $73,000 in today's value.  Looks like nothing has changed.

[kaysixteen]

Awright the obit does sound like a guy whose, ahem, background might well have predisposed him to think like this.   I did take two classes at the UB history dept, fairly soon after this fellow's demise, whilst at the classics dept there, and it was my impression from speaking with one of the profs with whom I developed a mentor/mentee relationship, albeit all too briefly, that this department did have a lot of old-style conservatives in it, as was probably not uncommon in academic history circles at the time (mid-20th c and going forward-- UB used to be a fairly staid private school before, ahem, Nelson Rockefeller essentially stole it for the SUNY system).   But just because this fellow's son put the thing on line is insufficient evidence to close the case with a 'authentic' mythbuster rating.

[ergative]

Maybe he's the Elephant who Hatched a Who?

Some of those connections listed--including a couple I'm in--would be highly consistent, in that time, with the comments seen and attributed to him.

One feels sorry for Evelyn.

M.

Some women take great pride in their "feminine pulchritude". ( e.g "Real Housewives" reality shows...)

If Evelyn happened to be one of that type, maybe she would have been in favour of the recognition.

Some people take great pride in their sexual abilities. Doesn't mean their spouses' employers should be commenting on it.

[Caracal]

I don't think its reliable enough, at least not from where I am sitting to take this seriously.  The letterhead definitely looks doctored, although I suppose there could have been some weird fold in the paper that caused that effect.

I think it is a fold. You can see that its actually not just the letterhead but the date that is off center and you can actually see the fold there. That doesn't fit with someone creating a fake typewritten letter and pasting some letterhead on top. Of course, that doesn't necessarily make it real. The people are all certainly real, but I suppose its possible this was some sort of joke at the time where professors were making fun of their creepy department chair.

All that said, seems plausible enough to me...