The Song Behind Today’s Review Title

I knew which song I’d want to pick to find a title for today’s book practically from the time I added it to my review list.

It’s taken a while for musicals to enter the lyrical world of book review titles for this newsletter. Today’s book is the perfect opportunity for that to happen because, as the song says, There is Nothin’ Like a Dame.

The dames in the title of today’s book wore the moniker with pride. They were the educated spouses of college students or faculty in a different time, when they joined organizations of similarly situated women called “Dames” groups. They thought like dames!

The song is, of course, from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s musical South Pacific, which hit Broadway in 1949, and was based on James Michener’s 1947 book Tales of the South Pacific. It was a smash hit on Broadway, winning 10 Tony Awards. Its original cast album was the best-selling album of the 1940s. The musical was made into a film in 1958 and became the biggest box office hit of that year. Many of the songs from the play have become American standards.

You can see the song as it was featured in the 1958 film in this YouTube video.

By the way - I screwed up the link to the video of last week’s song, Coldplay’s Viva la Vida. If you’re still interested in seeing that one, this is the right link to the YouTube video. My apologies for the mix-up.

Author Amy Mittelman earned her doctorate in History in 1985. The following year, as her husband worked as an assistant professor at Hampshire College, she sat at the Hampshire library, unable to secure a job in her field, even at Hampshire College. It was then that it occurred to her, that, as far as the Hampshire College community was concerned, she was “a faculty wife”. It was the feelings that came out of that realization, of surprise and anger, that ultimately resulted in Dames, Dishes and Degrees, her book of research into and stories about faculty wives and their struggles with and within college communities.

The book follows multiple threads through the late 19th and all of twentieth century American academia. There are the “Dames”, organizations that sprang up early on to cater to the wives of students and graduate students on various college campuses. By 1920 a national umbrella organization of Dames groups was formed.

Then there are faculty wives and the groups that sprung up around them, forming connections and providing purpose for these women as part of their college communities.

Then there are the wives of college presidents. For these women there was no formal role nor compensation, but there were expectations that these women would contribute to campus life and the smooth running of their husband’s administrations.

What all these women had (and still have) in common is a lack of a formal role within their college community, yet expectations to contribute to it. The colleges see these women not as people with legitimate career goals or interests of their own, but as available (and unpaid) resources who can contribute to campus goals and interests.

The book is full of stories that let us peek into the lives of multiple college wives and the college wives’ organizations that served them over the last century. Some of the women are followed through their adult lives while other appear only through the records left to us from the organizations they participated in. When the topic turns to president’s wives we get several in-depth biographies.

All of these stories are interesting in and of themselves. They don’t particularly build on each other though, leaving the reader with an uneven experience. I could have done with a bit more framing around the chapters - something to give the reader a roadmap and to build bridges between the multiple threads.

The overall theme is clear - these women, well-educated and accomplished in their own right, are stuck in a place in modern American life where the liberating effects of “second-wave” feminism hasn’t been fully felt. And sadly, the way out of that place doesn’t seem clear.

RATING: Three Stars ⭐⭐⭐

OVERALL COMMENTS: Mittelman builds a history of the role of academic wives - a place in modern life where the liberating effects of feminism haven’t been fully felt.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I received an advance reviewer’s copy of the ebook through Book Sirens, and courtesy of the author. The book is available to the public starting today, June 16th, 2026.

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Next week I’ll be reviewing Deep Water by Michael J. Tougias. It’s a true story about sharks, survival and courage. Here’s the publisher’s summary: