Michquelena Potlunas Ferguson

Oral Histories of Women Instrumentalists in College Marching Bands During the Post-Title IX Era

Title IX of the Educational Amendments Act was passed in 1972. This legislation prohibited discrimination on the basis of gender in publicly funded educational institutions, including all colleges and universities in the United States. In the public arena, Title IX has become synonymous with the fight for equality for women in sport; however, its positive effects for equality for women were farther reaching. Women in higher education gained never before seen rights in academic and social circles on college campuses. The rights granted by Title IX to women that permitted participation alongside men in college marching bands in the 1970s is an area that has virtually been absent from the research. The purpose of this study was to investigate and report on the experiences of the first women instrumentalists to participate in collegiate marching bands in the post-Title IX era. A subject-oriented oral history methodology was drawn upon with a historical basis in the second wave feminist moment. Five women narrators who participated as some of the first women instrumentalists to be integrated into previously all-male college marching bands from Big Ten universities were interviewed and provided archival material from their time as some of the first women to participate as instrumentalists in their college marching bands between 1972-1975. Common themes that emerged from the analysis of the narrators’ stories included instances of discrimination, self-determined behaviors of masculine assimilation into a coeducational activity, physicality as an externally perceived barrier to success, uniform fitting, and differing levels of awareness of the social equity movement’s effect on their participation.

Advisers/Committee

Michquelena Potlunas Ferguson
Michquelena Potlunas Ferguson