The Shakespeare Society

Marie Radcliffe ’15, Blanche Howard ’14, and Dorothy Pettibone ’15 perform in the Tempest. May 26th, 1913.

If you can’t win the game, don’t play -- form your own Shakespeare Society!

Women at Beloit wanted to join literary groups, but they had few options. Liz Renner, Class of 1992, states that: "the women, although admitted to the college on equal terms, seemed to be shunned from many of the literary activities on campus."

The mostly-male Archaean Union controlled literary societies. It ran Beloit College’s newspaper, The Round Table, and oversaw college oratory contests. They allowed only one woman to write for the college newspaper. Women struggled for a place in their oratory contests.

The women found a solution in the spring of 1899: the Shakespeare Society.