Barnard women are familiar sights in courtrooms, on red carpets, and on bestseller lists. But there is another place where the College makes an impact: farms.
That impact began during World War I, when Barnard students and alumnae, called âfarmerettes,â enrolled in a program aimed at replacing male farm labor lost to the war. Suggested by Dean Virginia Gildersleeve, who served on the New York Mayorâs Committee of Women on National Defense, the program sent 142 young women upstate in the summer of 1917 to dig, plow, and harvest. Like many good ideas germinated at Barnard, this one grew. Within two years, 20,000 women in twenty-five states participated.
In the decades since, graduates have gone off to farms around the world. The alumnae profiled in these pages have a wide range of agricultural roles, but their education unites them: four women who stepped out of the boxâand onto a farm.
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Crystal Cook Marshall â94
Crystal Cook Marshallâs years at Barnard were years of upheaval, with students protesting the first Gulf War. âIt was an era of political awareness that shaped me,â says the West Virginia native, who now splits her time between the farm she runs with her husband in Union Grove, North Carolina, and operating a producerâs cooperative and educational nonprofit in West Virginia.
Marshall continues to see the world through the human-rights paradigm she studied as a history major. That includes her current project, using agriculture to cultivate sustainable economic alternatives to central Appalachia. Her producersâ cooperative, called SEEDH (Southeast Economic and Educational Development Hub), helps farmers with product development. âWe do the branding, outreach, logistics, and handshaking, so you can be producing your thing,â she explains. Her group is also investigating the possibility of making maple-syrup production profitable in a region long dependent on coal.
Sometimes, because of her genderâand the fact that two of her co-principles in the cooperative are farmers of colorâstate and local agencies treat her like an outsider. âWe face the challenges of not being, shall we say, good old boys,â she notes. But their work has been well-received by residents. âIn the deep West Virginia coalfields,â she reports, âwe have had a very positive responseâ to projects such as one that will help new farmers build greenhouses to extend their growing seasons. What she learned at Barnard she applies in the field: âPeople respect those who show up and keep showing up to earn commitment and trust.â
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Abigail Carroll â91
At age thirteen, Abigail Carroll knew exactly where she wanted to live: Paris. So she majored in both French and Spanish literature, got a masterâs degree in international finance, and in 1998 took to the French capital to work for a telecom start-up, eventually trading stocks, consulting on business plans, and, even, dating a French count.
But in 2009, she realized she was ânot contributing in any meaningful level to anyoneâs life, including my own.â So she headed home, ditching the count and trading Parisâs canals for the gulf off her native Maine. When a consulting client there, an oyster farmer, left his venture, Carroll saw an opportunity that eventually became a boutique oyster farm: Nonesuch. âWith the farm,â she says, âI had a purpose that felt greater than worrying about my own problemsâlike keeping those oysters alive.â
For four years, she barely broke even. Then, in 2014, when it seemed the farm would finally turn a profit, an intensely cold winter nearly wiped out all her oysters.
The near-disaster forced a deeper commitment to her vision of sustainable eating, Maineâs coast, and the ocean. That vision is now manifest in more than oysters, with the farm offering tours, raw-bar catering, and a seaweed-derived skincare line.
Despite having a different life than the one she imagined in college, there is something decidedly âBarnardâ about her path, Carroll says. âBarnardâs about allowing you to be an iconoclast,â giving alumnae the confidence to trade in couture for a wet suit, and Parisâs bright lights for the icy waters of Maine.
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Sally Wendt Fitz â82
One gift changed Sally Wendt Fitzâs life. Two decades ago, the clinical psychologist bought her husband, Bob, a 1952 vintage tractor, a nod to his childhood summers spent on a farm in Ohio. But in their White Plains, New York, home, the tractorâused primarily for driving children around the drivewayâdidnât just remind Bob of being on a farm; it propelled him back to one.
In 2002, the couple and their young daughter moved to Amherst, Massachusetts. Initially, Bob volunteered on a local farm to learn and become a part of the farming community. Then, the couple heard about an orchard for sale nearby.
Today, their family owns the sixty-three-acre Small Ones Farm in western Massachusetts, growing more than fifty varieties of apples, all organically, along with other produce. The farm offers apple picking, a summer concert series, and an internship program, and hosts school trips and retreats. Its mission is two-fold: âto grow our fruit sustainably and organically to protect the environment,â Fitz says, and âto inspire the community, particularly children, to learn about agriculture and have the kinds of experiences that inspired Bob to farm.â
Fitzâs main focus on the farm is programming. âBetween the two of us, we cover both strands of our mission.â
While she didnât leave Barnard âpicturing [myself] on a tractor,â Fitz says, she is happy she can now serve as a role model. âYounger women can have this vision for themselves.â
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Molly Culver â03
Molly Culver traveled to Chile to find her lifeâs work in Brooklyn.
An English major with an interest in multiculturalism, she and a friend moved to Santiago to âlearn Spanish and see some of the world.â While working at an English-language newspaper, she learned to shop at outdoor markets as she reported on rising obesity rates that coincided with the opening of American restaurant chains. These experiences led her to a new relationship with food.
After moving home to Connecticut, she volunteered at Yaleâs Sustainable Food Project; âpulling crops out of the ground, putting the farm to bed for the winterâ helped ease her culture shock. That work propelled her back to New York for a job at the nonprofit Just Food, addressing food-system inequities
Next, she completed a farm apprenticeship program and, in 2011, came to Crown Heights as co-manager at The Youth Farm at the High School for Public Service. It holds classes for students, employs teens, and trains adults. Culver writes the flower crop plan, handles grant writing, and co-leads trainings with Farm School NYC, which teaches urban agriculture.
She also runs a community-supported flower program. âIt is another opportunity to discuss, âWhere did this come from? What conditions did the person undergo when they were producing them?â â
Her work addresses these social issues while offering a kind of balm. âFarming and working in soil with people,â she says, âis such a healing thing.â â˘
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Ayana Byrd â95 is a Brooklyn-based writer and co-author of Hair Story.