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

[Wahoo Redux]

Someone posted this employment letter from 1965 on Reddit.

[kaysixteen]

I get that things were different in 1965, but are you sure that this is authentic?

[Katrina Gulliver]

The son of the addressee (also a history prof) posted it on Twitter. It's legit.

[Parasaurolophus]

Damn.

[Wahoo Redux]

I get that things were different in 1965, but are you sure that this is authentic?

Good question.  No, I am not sure. 

[Ruralguy]

I call "fake."

[Katrina Gulliver]

I call "fake."

as noted above

The son of the addressee (also a history prof) posted it on Twitter. It's legit.

here is the link

[mamselle]

Some misogynistic Latinist showing off...

M.

[Ruralguy]

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 believe people expressed these sorts of views semi-publicly in 1965, but in writing for official correspondence, even in 1965? Unless the person was mentally ill (who wrote it), or it was a joke, I don't see how it could be real even for that time.

[hazelshade]

If you've spent any amount of time looking at intra-institutional documents from this era (I have), you will know that the language is 100% plausible. I can't comment on whether this particular document is real or doctored, but I've seen similar (or worse?).

[smallcleanrat]

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 believe people expressed these sorts of views semi-publicly in 1965, but in writing for official correspondence, even in 1965? Unless the person was mentally ill (who wrote it), or it was a joke, I don't see how it could be real even for that time.

Yeah, I get the skepticism that someone would devote nearly half of an applicant's job offer letter to expressing how happy they are that the applicant has an attractive wife (and in such terms: "feminine pulchritude" "brethren" etc...).

But even if doing this would have been considered odd even in 1965 (though I'm not sure to what extent that is true), there are people in every era who are oblivious to what would be "going too far."

I rarely feel confident dismissing a story based on the notion that "no one would do something that ridiculous." 

[marshwiggle]

If it is real, it highlights the way that things like trying to socially connect with others in the workplace is very tied to a specific time and place, and what may be "normal" here and now may be completely unacceptable at another place and/or time.

(The safest course of action is to keep all professional relationships entirely professional. Better to be accused of being distant than of being inappropriate or insensitive.)
 

[RatGuy]

Dr. Horton received his Masters from Harvard in 1935. Additionally, his obituary (Jan 1991) reads:

He was a member of the Grosvenor Society of the Buffalo and Erie County Library, the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society, the American Historical Association, Scriptores, the Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York and the Gainesville Athenaeum Club. He also was a member of the Episcopal Parish of the Transfiguration. Horton received the Albert J. Beveridge Memorial Prize of the American Historical Association for "James Kent: A Study in Conservatism," and the Owen P. Augspurger Award of the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society for services to local history, which included the volume "Old Erie: The Growth of an American Community." He was the widower of Evelyn B. Horton.

Sadly, I've get to find any commentary regarding his views on other men's wives.

[mamselle]

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.

[apl68]

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 believe people expressed these sorts of views semi-publicly in 1965, but in writing for official correspondence, even in 1965? Unless the person was mentally ill (who wrote it), or it was a joke, I don't see how it could be real even for that time.

Yeah, I get the skepticism that someone would devote nearly half of an applicant's job offer letter to expressing how happy they are that the applicant has an attractive wife (and in such terms: "feminine pulchritude" "brethren" etc...).

But even if doing this would have been considered odd even in 1965 (though I'm not sure to what extent that is true), there are people in every era who are oblivious to what would be "going too far."

I rarely feel confident dismissing a story based on the notion that "no one would do something that ridiculous."

Given some of the things we've seen in academia (and elsewhere) along these general lines quite recently, it is indeed hard to dismiss it as too stupid to be true.