Abby Lindsey Marlatt, Ph.D. (December 5, 1916 – March 3, 2010) was a social justice activist and a teacher scholar committed to civic engagement.
Born on December 5, 1916, and raised in Manhattan, Kansas,[1] Abby Marlatt grew up in a family that had long roots in higher education.
[3] Marlatt attended Kansas State College, graduating in 1938 with a bachelor's degree in home economics, specializing in dietetics and institution management.
The school had been founded by the American Protestant Mission to help develop education in the region, and during the summer the students would serve as interns to visit local villages to teach girls and women basic literacy, mother-child healthcare and handicrafts.
[2] Soon after earning her tenure and becoming an associate professor at Kansas State, Dr. Marlatt was hired in 1956 at the University of Kentucky's College of Agriculture to be the inaugural Director of the School of Home Economics.
By 1959 she had begun to openly participate with college students and local Black civil rights organizations in peaceful protests and sit-ins in downtown Lexington to desegregate public accommodations there.
[2] The CORE members would send out negotiating teams of one man and one woman to talk to store managers about their policies that denied equal access to all.
This angered the dean of the College of Agriculture, who convinced President Dickey to remove her as director of the School of Home Economics effective September 1, 1963.
Because Marlatt was a tenured professor at UK, she was ultimately unable to be fired from her position as a faculty member, though in an oral interview she mentions being removed from teaching duties for a year.
Documents and memos regarding the inquiry into Marlatt by Dr. Frank Dickey and the board of trustees are preserved online at the UK's academic governance site and will prove useful to researchers and those unfamiliar with the case.