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[Identification of item], Ellen Huckabee Papers, Duke University Archives, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.
The Ellen Huckabee Papers were received by the University Archives as a transfer in 1988, 1989.
Processed by Mike Millner, September 2006
Encoded by Mike Millner, October 2006
Accessions A88-0041, A89-0008 were merged into one collection, described in this finding aid.
Descriptive sources and standards used to create this inventory:
This finding aid is NCEAD compliant.
After graduating from high school in Albemarle, N.C., Ellen Huckabee attended Duke University, where she received her A.B. (magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) in 1928 and her A.M. in 1931. While an undergraduate, she was president of the Woman's Student Government Association and a member of Kappa Delta Phi, an honorary educational fraternity. Her first position after receiving her A.B. was Assistant to the Dean of the Woman's College of Duke University. After receiving her A.M., she took a position on the staff of the Dean of Students at the New Jersey College for Women (now Douglass College). She remained there from 1931 to 1937, then returning to Duke in the capacity of Assistant Dean of Women and Counselor of Pegram House. After a year of travel in Central America beginning in 1941, followed by a short stint as Y.M.C.A director in Columbia, S.C., she was commissioned in the Naval Reserves, serving for 3 years before being discharged in 1945 with the rank of Lieutenant Commander. That same year she attended summer school at Cambridge and then returned to Duke University Woman's College in the position of Academic Advisor for freshmen and sophomores. In 1945 she became Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Instruction at the Woman's College, rising to Associate Dean in 1950 and to Dean in 1952. She held the latter position until her retirement in 1967, at which time she was also serving as the Acting Dean of the Woman's College. In that same year, she married Luther L. Gobbel. After her retirement, she traveled extensively with her husband, and in 1969 she moved with him to Alabama, where he served a short term as interim president of Athens College. They later retired to Durham. Ellen Huckabee died January 1995.
The papers include correspondence, much of it in conjunction with her interests in students' study abroad; newspaper clippings on a variety of topics, including her promotion to Acting Dean at Duke Woman's College; text from presentations, including her papers on the modern student and on Horace Williams; literature on women's education; photos and official papers from her World War II service as a WAVE and as a member of the Naval Reserve; a sizeable collection of congratulatory cards and letters following her promotion to Acting Dean at the Woman's College at Duke; travel brochures; printed material from the 1961 national AAUW convention; and personal testimony and printed material related to the Durham East-West Freeway controversy.
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