Dames, Dishes, and Degrees uncovers the hidden labor that sustained the American university: the unpaid social, emotional, and institutional work performed by faculty wives across the twentieth century.
Inspired in part by the academic world reflected in Edith Wharton’s Hillbridge stories, Amy Mittelman explores the real history behind university culture—revealing how anti-nepotism policies, gendered expectations, and academic institutions excluded women from professional life while depending on their labor to function.
“With thorough research, Amy Mittelman enriches our understanding of how women have worked to open new opportunities.”
“An excellent contribution to women’s history and history of education.”
In 1921, the anonymous, PhD-holding wife of a college professor wrote in an article for the Journal of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, “Can it be in the divine order of things that one PhD should wash dishes a whole lifetime for another PhD just because one is a woman and the other a man?” In Dames, Dishes, and Degrees: Faculty Wives in America, author Amy Mittelman reveals what really went on behind ivy-covered walls as she explores the origins, structure, and history of faculty wives’ clubs. These comprised the well-educated women who turned their energy and unpaid labor from arranging receptions, teas, and picnics to creating social clubs that mentored young academic wives, supported philanthropic efforts, and took part in great political movements. Through historical examples and biographies, Mittelman delves into race and gender, social and cultural history, the intersection of modern feminism with other social and political causes, and the ways in which faculty wives worked to overcome chauvinism, misogyny, and tremendous odds to establish their own, autonomous identities.
by Amy Mittelman, PhD • 260 pages • Look Inside!
Available for Pre-Order. Ships June 2026.
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Coming 6.16.2026
