Dorothy C. Stratton

Dorothy Constance Stratton, the daughter of Reverend Richard L. Stratton and Anna (Troxler) Stratton, was born on March 24, 1899, in Brookfield, Missouri. Stratton's father was a Baptist minister. Her brother, Richard C. Stratton, served as a captain in the U.S. Army's Medical Reserve Corps during World War II.

Stratton's family traveled across the Midwest during her youth and she attended high schools in Lamar, Missouri, and Blue Rapids, Kansas. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Ottawa University in 1920, a Master of Arts in psychology from the University of Chicago, and a doctorate (Ph.D.) in student personnel administration from Columbia University. She also studied at Northwestern University; the University of Washington; University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); and University of California, Berkeley (UC-Berkeley). While pursuing her advanced degrees, Stratton taught at school in Brookfield, Missouri; Renton, Washington; and San Bernardino, California.

Purdue University, Dean of Women

In 1933, after receiving her Ph.D. from Columbia, Stratton joined the staff at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, and became as its first full-time Dean of Women. She was also an assistant professor of psychology at Purdue and became a full professor in 1940.

During her nine years at Purdue, the university's enrollment of women increased from 500 to more than 1,400. A large part of the increase was attributed to her efforts to develop an experimental curriculum that attracted women who preferred to study subjects other than home economics. Stratton created a liberal science curriculum for women in the university's School of Science, as well as a women's employment placement center. In addition, she helped establish a specialized training program that provided intensive training for fraternity and sorority housemothers across the country. Stratton also managed the construction of three new residence halls for women on Purdue's campus in West Lafayette.

Military service

In 1942 Stratton took a leave of absence from Purdue University and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Women's Reserve of the U.S. Naval Reserve, which was also known as the WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service). She later credited Lillian Moller Gilbreth, professor of engineering at Purdue, for encouraging her to join the military, but she also recalled that she was willing "to do whatever I could to serve my country" and did not need much encouragement. Stratton was among the members of the first class of the U.S. Naval Training Station at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. After completing her initial training, she briefly served as Assistant to the Commanding Officer of the radio school for WAVES at Madison, Wisconsin.

In November 1942, after Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an amendment to Public Law 773 to create a women's reserve for the U.S. Coast Guard, Stratton became the first woman to be accepted into the new program. She was immediately transferred from the U.S. Navy to the U.S. Coast Guard and was sent to the office of the Commandant of the Coast Guard in Washington, D.C. to organize the Coast Guard Women's Reserve. Stratton was appointed the first director of the Coast Guard Women's Reserve, promoted to the rank of lieutenant commander, and became the first woman commissioned an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard. She rose through the ranks and in February 1944 was promoted to the rank of captain.

Stratton developed the Coast Guard Women's Reserve program and gave it the name of SPARS, an acronym created from the Coast Guard motto, Semper Paratus, and its English translation, Always Ready. As director of the SPARS, a position that Stratton held until 1946, her primary role was to originate policies for SPARS that related to procurement, training, utilization, and maintenance of its members' morale. She oversaw significant growth in the program. More than 10,000 enlisted women and 1,000 commissioned officers served as SPARS in the remaining years of the war.

Stratton retired from the military in January 1946. Stratton remained proud of the fact the U.S. Coast Guard used the highest percentage of women of any military branch of service during the war.