Wikipedia

Dorothy Vellenga

Dorothy Dee Vellenga (February 22, 1937 – October 3, 1984) was an American educator, college professor and sociologist, specializing in African studies. She was in the first cohort of Peace Corps volunteers when she first went to Ghana in 1961.

Dorothy Vellenga
A young white woman with short hair, glancing upward
Dorothy Dee Vellenga, from a 1961 publication of the United States Department of State
BornFebruary 22, 1937
Ohio
DiedOctober 3, 1984
Raleigh, North Carolina
CitizenshipUnited States of America
Alma materMonmouth College, Columbia University
Occupation(s)Educator, college professor, sociologist
Known forAcademic research regarding women in Africa
Notable work"The Widow among the Matrilineal Akan of Southern Ghana" in Betty Potash, ed., Widows in African Societies: Choices and Constraints (Stanford University Press 1986)

Early life and education edit

Vellenga was born in Ohio, the daughter of Simon John Vellenga and Alice Roosevelt Evans Vellenga. Her father was a college chemistry professor and her mother was a teacher.[1] She earned a bachelor's degree in biology from Monmouth College in Illinois in 1959.[2] On a Ford Foundation International Fellowship, she pursued graduate studies in sociology at Columbia University, and made research trips to Ghana for her doctoral dissertation, titled "Changing sex roles and social tensions in Ghana: The law as measure and mediator of family conflicts" (1975).[3] She also earned a certificate in African Studies at Columbia.[1]

Career edit

Vellenga taught biology and chemistry at the Foxcroft School in Virginia from 1959 to 1961.[4] She joined the new Peace Corps program, and went to teach biology in Accra, Ghana, from 1961 to 1963.[5][6] After completing doctoral studies, she taught at Ripon College for a year,[7] then joined the faculty at Muskingum College in 1971.[1][8]

From 1974 to 1976, she returned to Ghana for further research on women in agriculture,[9] especially in the cocoa industry,[10][11] and did archival research in London and Basel, funded by a Social Science Research Council fellowship.[12] "In Ghana, people do not live in isolated sectors of the society—one traditional, one modern (if, indeed, they do anywhere), but in increasingly interconnected spheres," she wrote in 1971.[13]

Vellenga spoke to community and campus groups about her experiences in Ghana.[7][14] She was treasurer for the Ohio Coalition for the Implementation of the Equal Rights Amendment,[9] active in the local chapter of the League of Women Voters,[15] and raised funds for the Southeastern Ohio Symphony Orchestra.[16]

Publications edit

Besides her own research publications, Vellenga wrote reviews for Journal of Asian and African Studies,[17] Social Forces,[18] and The International Journal of Comparative Sociology.[19]

  • "Attempts to Change the Marriage Laws in Ghana and the Ivory Coast" (1971)[20]
  • "Differentiation among Women Farmers in Two Rural Areas in Ghana" (1977)[21]
  • "Who is a Wife? Legal Expressions of Heterosexual Conflicts in Ghana" (1983)[22]
  • "Racial and Ethnic Conflict in a Christian Missionary Community: Jamaican and Swiss-German Missionaries in the Basel Mission in Gold Coast in the Mid-Nineteenth Century" (1983)[23]
  • "Women, Households, and Food Commodity Chains in Southern Ghana: Contradictions between the Search for Profit and the Struggle for Survival" (1985)[24]
  • "The Widow among the Matrilineal Akan of Southern Ghana" (1986)[25]

Personal life and legacy edit

Vellenga was in a serious car accident in 1957.[26] She died from cancer in 1984, at the age of 47, in Raleigh, North Carolina.[1] Muskingum College offers a Dorothy D. Vellenga Award in Sociology, to a junior student studying sociology.[27]

References edit

  1. ^ a b c d Roach, Penelope, and Nelson, Charles H. "Dorothy D. Vellenga (1937-1984)" ASA Footnotes (August 1985): 18.
  2. ^ "College Engages Dr. Vellenga for Scholarship Day Program". Galesburg Register-Mail. 1959-10-27. p. 13. Retrieved 2023-10-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ^ Vellenga, Dorothy D. "Changing sex roles and social tensions in Ghana: The law as measure and mediator of family conflicts." PhD dissertation, ProQuest Information & Learning, 1975.
  4. ^ Peace Corps (U.S.) (1961). Annual Report to Congress. The Corps. p. 30.
  5. ^ "The Peace Corps in Ghana" Department of State Newsletter 8(December 1961): 21.
  6. ^ "Teaching in Ghana is certainly refreshing, the boys pay perfect attention and you can hear a pin drop, reports Peace Corps Volunteer Dorothy Dee Vellenga, 24, of New Concord, Ohio, from her secondary school in Accra". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Retrieved 2023-10-04.
  7. ^ a b "Former Peace Corps Worker Tells of Ghana Visits". The Reporter. 1971-01-27. p. 19. Retrieved 2023-10-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ "Three Promoted at College". The Times Recorder. 1980-05-19. p. 7. Retrieved 2023-10-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ^ a b "Muskingum Instructor Gets Research Grant to Study in Africa". The Times Recorder. 1975-04-19. p. 9. Retrieved 2023-10-04 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ^ Neubert, Dieter (2019-06-25). Inequality, Socio-cultural Differentiation and Social Structures in Africa: Beyond Class. Springer. p. 208. ISBN 978-3-030-17111-7.
  11. ^ Robertson, Emma (2017-03-01). Chocolate, women and empire: A social and cultural history. Manchester University Press. p. 100. ISBN 978-1-5261-1861-5.
  12. ^ Potash, Betty (1986-02-01). Widows in African Societies: Choices and Constraints. Stanford University Press. pp. xiii. ISBN 978-0-8047-6656-2.
  13. ^ Gugler, Josef; Flanagan, William (1978-07-28). Urbanization and Social Change in West Africa. CUP Archive. p. 116. ISBN 978-0-521-21348-6.
  14. ^ "Ripon College Sets SOUL Week Events". The Reporter. 1971-04-01. p. 22. Retrieved 2023-10-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ^ "Voters League Sets Meetings". The Times Recorder. 1973-11-14. p. 11. Retrieved 2023-10-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. ^ Townsend, V. J. (1979-03-23). "Symphony Drive Under Way". The Times Recorder. p. 8. Retrieved 2023-10-04 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. ^ Vellenga, Dorothy D. (1976-01-01). "Christine Oppong, Marriage among a Matrilineal Elite : A Family Study of Ghanaian Senior Civil Servants. Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology 8, London, Cambridge University Press, 1974, pp. xv, 187, $ 13.95". Journal of Asian and African Studies. 11 (1–2): 117–118. doi:10.1163/156852176X00126. ISSN 1568-5217.
  18. ^ Vellenga, D. D. (1977-09-01). "Race and Ethnicity in Africa. Edited by Pierre L. van den Berghe. Nairobi, Kenya: East African Publishing House, 1975. 357 pp". Social Forces. 56 (1): 274–275. doi:10.1093/sf/56.1.274. ISSN 0037-7732.
  19. ^ Vellenga, Dorothy. "Nancy J. Hafkin and Edna G. Bay (eds.), Women in Africa: Studies in Social and Economic Change (Book Review)." International Journal of Comparative Sociology 19 (1978): 297.
  20. ^ Vellenga, Dorothy Dee. "Attempts to change the marriage laws in Ghana and the Ivory Coast." Ghana and the Ivory Coast: Perspectives on Modernization (1971): 125–150.
  21. ^ Vellenga, Dorothy Dee. "Differentiation among women farmers in two rural areas in Ghana." Labour and Society 2, no. 2 (1977): 197–208.
  22. ^ Vellenga, Dorothy Dee. 1983. "Who Is a Wife? Legal Expressions of Heterosexual Conflicts in Ghana." In Female and Male in West Africa, 144–155. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 9781003402749
  23. ^ Vellenga, Dorothy D. "Racial and Ethnic Conflict in a Christian Missionary Community: Jamaican and Swiss-German Missionaries in the Basel Mission in Gold Coast in the Mid-Nineteenth Century" Studies in Third World Societies 26 (December 1983): 201–245.
  24. ^ Vellenga, Dorothy Dee (1985). "Women, Households, and Food Commodity Chains in Southern Ghana: Contradictions between the Search for Profit and the Struggle for Survival". Review (Fernand Braudel Center). 8 (3): 293–318. ISSN 0147-9032. JSTOR 40240992.
  25. ^ Vellenga, Dorothy D. "The Widow among the Matrilineal Akan of Southern Ghana" in Betty Potash, ed., Widows in African Societies: Choices and Constraints (Stanford University Press 1986): 220-240. ISBN 9780804766562
  26. ^ "Coed Dies in Crash". The Salem News. 1957-06-11. p. 9. Retrieved 2023-10-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  27. ^ "Scholarship Recognition Day awards granted during Parents' Weekend". Muskingum University. 2017-09-29. Retrieved 2023-10-04.
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