Pinstripes & Pearls: The Women of the Harvard Law Class of '64 Who Forged an Old Girl Network and Paved the Way for Future Generations (Lisa Drew Books)
Hope was one of 15 women (out of 513 students) who graduated from Harvard Law School in 1964. She went on to become the first female partner at a leading corporate law firm. This book, based primarily on her classmates' and professors' recollections, as well as yearbooks and other archival material, offers sketches of the women at different stages of their careers, starting with their first days at Harvard and ending with their musings on retirement. Of applying to law firms, Pat Schroeder recalls, "Almost all of them asked me if I could type. Many said they did not and would not hire a woman." Elizabeth Dole remembers working in the school's library while getting her master's degree in teaching at Radcliffe. After spending a year observing Hope and her classmates and grilling Hope about "how a woman could straddle... the huge chasm between the traditional career world... and the traditional world of home and family," she changed career goals and graduated from Harvard Law in 1965. Hope doesn't probe too deeply into her colleagues' personal lives; nor does she draw conclusions about how these women's aspirations paved the way for future generations. She lets the memories speak for themselves. The most vivid chapter describes a dinner hosted by the school's dean, Erwin Griswold, where the guest list included all of the women in each class (and none of the men), along with selected faculty and their wives. After dinner, the students were called upon, one by one, to answer Griswold's horrifying question, "Why are you at Harvard Law School, taking the place of a man?" Photos.Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.