IOWA WOMEN’S ARCHIVES
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA LIBRARIES
IOWA CITY, IOWA
EVA DONELSON WILSON (1905 -
)
PAPERS, 1994
1 linear inch
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ACQUISITION: |
The papers were donated by Eva Donelson Wilson (donor no. 497) and
Kenneth Donelson (donor no. 408)
in 1998. |
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ACCESS: |
The papers are open for research. |
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COPYRIGHT: |
Copyright has been transferred to the University of Iowa. |
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PROCESSED BY: |
Margaret Richardson, 1998. |
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REVISED: |
Karen M. Mason, July 30, 1998, version WORD97. |
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Biography
Eva Donelson was born August 8, 1905 on a farm near
Ogden in Peoples Township, Boone County, Iowa.
She graduated from Ogden High School in 1922 and entered Iowa State College
(now Iowa State University) in 1923, graduating in 1927. Donelson worked in
1927-28 at the Merrill Palmer School in Detroit, a school involved in the study
of early childhood. After a brief stint
in the University of Iowa dietetics department Donelson returned to the Merrill
Palmer School in 1930-32. There she did
her dissertation research, studying the vitamin G content of human milk. In 1932 she entered the University of
Chicago, acquiring her Ph.D. in 1934.
She taught nutrition courses at the University of Minnesota until 1946
when she became head of Food and Nutrition at Ohio State University.
Donelson married H.K. Wilson December 22, 1947 and
joined him at State College, Pennsylvania, where Wilson was Dean of Men at Pennsylvania
State University and Eva Donelson Wilson became Head of the Food and Nutrition
Department. H.K. Wilson died in
1958. In 1959 Eva Donelson Wilson
published Principles of Nutrition.
Wilson returned to Ohio State, where she carried on
research funded by the United States Department of Agriculture. In 1965 Wilson joined the USAID program in
Brazil to help initiate a program in Home Economics at the Escola Superior de
Agricultura Luis de Queiroz (ESALQ).
This is the Agriculture College of the University of Sao Paulo, located
in Piracicaba. She retired from this
program in 1972.
Scope and
Content
The Eva Donelson Wilson papers consist of an
autobiography completed in 1994.
The autobiography presents vivid
detail about a rural childhood, the maintaining of a farm and its
household. Wilson carefully delineates
the steps involved in such domesticities as gardening, canning, threshing,
butter-making, soap and vinegar processing.
She also describes holidays, church customs, the music, magazines and
newspapers found in the home. She
discusses common diseases and their treatment, changes in transportation, games
frequently played and the coming of the Chautauqua.
Wilson
was on the faculty of the University of Minnesota, Ohio State University, and
Penn State University. In addition she
taught in Brazil. Wilson describes
college jobs, rules, dormitories and classes; portrays professors’
personalities and teaching styles; and lists each school’s intention,
architecture, and traditions. Four editions of Wilson’s Principles of Nutrition, first published in 1959, are cataloged and
shelved in the printed works section of the Iowa Women’s Archives.
Related
Collections
Ellen Mowrer Miller
Miller
was Eva Donelson Wilson's grandmother.
Box Description
Box 1
Autobiography,
1994