Clara Frances Stevens (December 5, 1855 – October 18, 1934) was an American college professor, head of the English department at Mount Holyoke College.

Clara Frances Stevens
An older white woman, grey hair in a bouffant updo, wearing glasses and a high lace collar with a dark garment
Clara F. Stevens, from the 1910 yearbook of Mount Holyoke College
BornDecember 5, 1855
Newburyport, Massachusetts
DiedOctober 18, 1934
South Hadley, Massachusetts
OccupationCollege professor

Early life and education

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Stevens was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, the daughter of Cyrus Porter Stevens and Harriet Newell Bartlett Stevens.[1] She graduated from Newburyport High School, and from Mount Holyoke College in 1881.[2] In 1894, she completed a master's degree at the University of Michigan, where she studied under John Dewey and Fred Newton Scott.[3]

Career

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Stevens taught English at the Mount Holyoke from 1881 to 1921; she held the rank of professor from 1904 to 1921, and was professor emeritus after she retired. She created the school's rhetoric department and served as chair of the English department.[4][5]

She was chair of the International Institute League, supporting a women's college in Spain, run by Mount Holyoke alumna Alice Gordon Gulick.[6][7] Stevens was guest of honor at a dinner of the Mount Holyoke Alumnae Association of Southern California in 1909.[8]

Personal life

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Stevens lived with her younger sister Alice Porter Stevens, who was also on the faculty at Mount Holyoke. Another colleague, Flora Bridges, lived with the Stevens sisters until her death in 1912.[9] Clara F. Stevens died at home in 1934, in South Hadley, Massachusetts.[10][11] Her papers are in the archives of Mount Holyoke College.[12]

References

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  1. ^ Marquis, Albert Nelson (1915). Who's who in New England: A Biographical Dictionary of Leading Living Men and Women of the States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. A.N. Marquis. p. 1018.
  2. ^ Mastrangelo, Lisa (January 23, 2012). Writing a Progressive Past: Women Teaching and Writing in the Progressive Era. Parlor Press LLC. p. 73. ISBN 978-1-60235-260-5.
  3. ^ Buck, Gertrude (January 1, 1996). Toward a Feminist Rhetoric: The Writing of Gertrude Buck. University of Pittsburgh Press. pp. xiii, note 3. ISBN 978-0-8229-9061-1.
  4. ^ Mastrangelo, Lisa S. (1999). "Learning from the Past: Rhetoric, Composition, and Debate at Mount Holyoke College". Rhetoric Review. 18 (1): 57–62. doi:10.1080/07350199909359255. ISSN 0735-0198. JSTOR 466089.
  5. ^ Lunsford, Andrea A. (1995). Reclaiming rhetorica : women in the rhetorical tradition. Pittsburgh. p. 213. ISBN 978-0-8229-7165-8. OCLC 878132920.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. ^ Gordon, Elizabeth Putnam (1917). Alice Gordon Gulick: Her Life and Work in Spain. Fleming H. Revell Company. pp. 222–223, 240–244. ISBN 978-0-7950-1976-0.
  7. ^ "The International Institute League". Boston Evening Transcript. March 19, 1904. p. 16. Retrieved June 23, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ Atsatt, Louisa (May 6, 1909). "Mt. Holyoke Alumnae". The Pacific. 59: 8.
  9. ^ "Necrology". Oberlin Alumni Magazine. 8: 379–380. July 1912.
  10. ^ "Miss Clara F. Stevens". The New York Times. October 19, 1934. p. 23 – via ProQuest.
  11. ^ "Miss Clara S. Stevens". The Boston Globe. October 20, 1934. p. 15. Retrieved June 23, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ Mastrangelo, Lisa, and Barbara L'Eplattenier, "Stumbling in the Archives: A Tale of Two Novices" in Gesa E Kirsch, Liz Rohan, eds., Beyond the Archives: Research as a Lived Process (Southern Illinois University Press 2008): 163. ISBN 9780809386956