Marjorie Bell Chambers, who died at 83 on August 22, 2006, was a feminist before the term was coined, Bill Chambers her widower, recalled. Tuberculosis couldn’t keep her down as a child in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and a refusal on the part of Cornell Law School to admit her as a married woman couldn’t hold her down either.
Years later, it was that drive and determinism that brought Marjorie to the UNM Department of History. She was 43 years old and had raised a family of four. The department was devoid of women then and she was the only woman working on a doctorate – a few were pursuing master’s degrees.
“She put a lot of miles on the car,” Bill recalled. Lots of miles, indeed, more than 150,000 making the trek from their home in Los Alamos to UNM in Albuquerque.
“It took perseverance and discipline, which my mother had in considerable amounts, to do the work, get to class, do her research, and prepare for her exams – this at a time when the department, like the rest of the academe, was not as receptive and welcoming to women, and particularly to non-traditional students such as my mother,” recalled her daughter, Lee Chambers, professor of history, University of Colorado at Boulder.
By the time his wife was pursuing the Ph.D., Bill, a Los Alamos National Laboratory physicist, was a fan of history.
“History is important locally, nationally and globally. If you don’t know history, you don’t know where you’re going,” Bill said. Their own history included being children during the Great Depression, coming of age during war and getting married “between the bombs,” on August 8, 1945.
During World War II, Marjorie worked for the League of Nations organizing NGO’s to lobby to the San Francisco Conference on the UN Charter and later the U.S. Senate to ratify the treaty. When not working, she served as a Red Cross nurse’s aid and a USO hostess. Bill, meanwhile, served with General Patton’s Third Army, Fifth Infantry Division all across Europe to Prague.
While raising her family, she turned to volunteer associations and politics. “She was particularly involved with the American Association of University Women, which annually undertook the study of specific domestic or international issues, which became her form of continuing education,” her daughter said.
History, yeah, she knew history.
“Mom taught women’s history at UNM's Los Alamos extension in the early years. She was a college president at Colorado Women’s College and Colby Sawyer in Maine. She served both as dean and faculty of the Union Graduate School, which specializes in non-traditional students, until she retired at 80 and became professor emerita – she loved to correct people as to the correct gender of her title.
"The Ph.D. also gave her a professional credential, which, along with her extensive experience in politics and education, led her to public service as a member of the New Mexico Endowment for the Humanities and the New Mexico Commission on Higher Education. I think mom’s life’s work illustrates the value of higher education at any time in one’s life. Her degree certified all her experience and cumulative knowledge, opening new doors for her energy, intelligence and commitment,” Lee said.
She was the first woman to run for lieutenant governor in New Mexico. She served four presidents and 10 New Mexico governors in various appointed roles. She was chairwoman of President Gerald Ford’s National Advisory Council on Women’s Educational Programs and acting chairwoman of President Jimmy Carter’s Committee for Women.
Marjorie was recognized in 2003 with a Governor’s Award for Outstanding Women and was honored the same year by the New Mexico Commission on the Status of Women for her lifetime achievement as an advocate for women's rights and education.
She also made an unsuccessful run for governor in 1986.
The Chambers considered 12 non-profits and 15 educational institutions to support with an endowment. But even after giving then-UNM President Gerald May a hard time about affirmative action, she had a “fuzzy feeling for UNM and is grateful to the history department for her degree when many faculty considered her too old to make a significant contribution to scholarship,” the Chambers wrote.
The Chambers were impressed, too, with former UNM President Richard Peck’s dedication to UNM research, scholarship, financial management and student enrollment. So, it is the UNM Department of History that they chose to endow.
The William H. and Marjorie Bell Chambers Endowed Award for Excellence in History is designed to further greater scholarship and national recognition of UNM’s research, faculty and library.
“The endowment supports excellence in history. It can allow a history faculty member to expand his or her scholarship and endeavors,” Chambers explained.
He also said that by providing additional resources, the history department could hire a faculty member otherwise outside their reach fiscally. “Money helps make a particular university a desirable place,” Bill said.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu