INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This is the first of three interviews conducted as part of a project in a women's oral history class. The interview was conducted in Millikan's room at the PEO (Philanthropic and Educational Organization for Women) Retirement Home in Alhambra, California. This interview was to gain an overall biography and is a broad sweep of her life. Millikan is described by the interviewer as "a very proud, alert and articulate woman" who was able to recall many aspects of her life in great detail.
7/7/1976
Description:
SUBJECT BIO - Gertrude Millikan was a leading figure in consumer education in California. She taught one of the first classes on consumer affairs, which became the basis of the certification program for consumer educators. The third of four children, Millikan was born in Independence, Oregon and then raised in the lumber town of Eureka, California by college-educated parents. When she was fifteen, the family moved to Los Angeles in order for her father to take a job as a feature writer at the <Los Angeles Times.> After Millikan graduated from USC in 1916, she went to work first at the YWCA and then organized Hostess Houses (USO) during the war until her marriage in 1918. From the early days of her marriage, she was actively involved in a variety of organizational activities, including consumer affairs, YWCA, PEO, Republication organizations and civic committees. Typical of the volunteer reform activist, Millikan's life centered around the home and family and her priorities were as wife, mother, and homemaker, pacing herself between her home and outside demands. After Millikan's husband died in 1949, she moved to the mountain community of Idyllwild, where she continued her volunteer work. She remained there until she moved into the PEO Retirement Home, where she was residing at the time of the interview.
TOPICS - family background and history; migration to California; father's job at Los Angeles Times; personality; sibling relationships; social life at school and church; high school dating; transportation modes; and building Glendale home;USC and sorority life; meeting future husband; courtship; religious affiliation; YWCA job; WWI USO Hostess House; marriage; Army life in Oregon; marriage preparation; birth control and sex education; childbearing; social values; gender ideology; volunteer activities; and role in developing consumer education;
