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Helen McGaffey Searles

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Helen McGaffey Searles
Searles in 1910
BornFebruary 10, 1856
Barre, Canada
DiedApril 15, 1936
Alma materLake Forest College
University of Chicago
Occupation(s)Classicist and suffragette

Helen McGaffey Searles (1856 – 1936) was a Canadian-born, American professor, classicist, and women's suffragist. She received her doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1898, and taught Latin at Mount Holyoke College from 1899 until her retirement in 1922.

Life and education

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Helen McGaffey Searles was born on February 10, 1856, to Henry Rogers and Delia A. McGaffey in Barre, Canada.[1][2] She received a Master of Arts from Lake Forest College in Illinois in 1894, then received a doctorate in comparative philology from the University of Chicago in 1898.[3]

Academic career and activism

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After graduating in 1898, Searles taught for less than one year at the Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham University in Pittsburgh) before accepting a position teaching Latin at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts in 1899.[4] She also taught at the Ferry Hall School in Lake Forest, Illinois between 1899 and 1904.[1]

During her career as a professor, Searles was active in the women's suffrage movement. She represented Mount Holyoke College at the meeting on March 23, 1907 of the Boston Equal Suffrage Association, which focused on women's secondary education and featured female representatives from other Boston-area colleges and universities, including other Seven Sisters colleges.[5]

Searles retired from Mount Holyoke in 1922 but remained associated with the college and held the title of Professor Emeritus until her death on April 15, 1936, at the age of 80, in South Hadley, Massachusetts.[2][6][7]

Legacy

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The Helen Searles Mount Holyoke College Personnel File is held in the Archives and Special Collections at Mt. Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts.[2]

Selected works

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  • Searles, Helen M (1898) A lexicographical study of the Greek inscriptions. Studies on Classical Philology: University of Chicago Press

References

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  1. ^ a b Leonard, John William (1914). Woman's Who's Who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada, 1914-1915. American Commonwealth Company. p. 727.
  2. ^ a b c Haddad, Sam. "Biographical Sketch of Helen McGaffey Searles | Alexander Street Documents". documents.alexanderstreet.com. Retrieved 2024-09-16.
  3. ^ "Frequently asked questions about UChicago history". www.lib.uchicago.edu. The University of Chicago Library - The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center. Retrieved 19 May 2022.
  4. ^ One Hundred Year Biographical Directory of Mount Holyoke College 1837-1937. Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College. 1937.
  5. ^ Harper, Ida Husted (1922). The History of Woman Suffrage: Volume VI, 1900-1920. National American Woman Suffrage Association. p. 272.
  6. ^ "Cornell Alumni News - June 18, 1936" (PDF). Retrieved 19 May 2022.
  7. ^ Gleason, Clarence; Stearns, John (1937). "Current Events: Helen McGaffey Searles". The Classical Journal. 33 (2): 126. JSTOR 3290710. Retrieved 20 May 2022.