Explore "Dorothy Day: Dissenting Voice of the American Century" by John Loughery on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
THE MANAGEMENT OF THE CHICAGO Examiner, one of William Randolph Hearst's many papers, was always on the lookout for ways to increase its readership and impress Chicagoans with its importance to the community. Among them was its recently inaugurated college scholarship competition for students who could not afford the cost of tuition. On the basis of a rigorous exam, twenty Cook County high school students were awarded three hundred dollars each to get them started on their road to higher education, while the scholarship committee decided which college or university the winners would attend. Correctly sensing that this might be her only opportunity to leave home and continue her studies, Dorothy took the exam. She scored an impressive fifteenth in a field of hundreds and was told a place would be held for her in the freshman class that fall at the University of Illinois in Urbana.
Dorothy's parents, or at least her father, felt considerable ambivalence about the news. Neither of Dorothy's older brothers had gone to college (or even finished high school). John Day didn't believe in the value of too much schooling, and the award was, in effect, a public declaration of the state of the family finances. (In need of a buyer, the Inter-Ocean had been declared insolvent that spring, and Day's job was in jeopardy.) For the scholarship winner, though, it was a triumphant moment. Her only hesitation was about leaving her mother, her fourteen-year-old sister, and her two-year-old brother.