British Classics Outside England: The Academy and Beyond

6: Grace Harriet Macurdy: The Role of British Classics in the Self- Fashioning of an American Woman Scholar

111 iBarbara F. McManus Grace Harriet Macurdy The Role of British Classics in the SelfFashioning of an American Woman Scholar Chapter 6 Grace Harriet Macurdy (1866–1946)1 came of age at a crucial moment, a time when women in America were just beginning to find opportunities for professional academic careers as classical scholars. The only well-trodden paths before her had been laid out by men, and there was pressure to stay on these paths as quietly and unobtrusively as possible, since American men were worried that female colleagues would hold back their own efforts to keep up with the British and German classicists confidently striding ahead of them. Instead of conforming to this pattern, Macurdy forged a new path, one that enabled her to win recognition as a classical scholar who also spoke authoritatively as a woman and who ultimately focused her research on the lives of ancient women. This essay explores how Macurdy fashioned herself as a new kind of woman scholar by exploiting opportunities offered in the American classical community while drawing inspiration and support from British classicists. In the summer of 1908, Grace Macurdy became the first woman to teach in the academic program of Columbia University. When she wrote to Gilbert Murray about this landmark achievement, she characteristically couched her own accomplishment in terms of praise for his work, telling him that she had used his Rise of the Greek Epic in her class: 112 Barbara F . McManus My students in that class were mostly men and of a very good sort, graduated from college and teaching in New York or thereabout. I was the only “lady-professor”, as the janitor called me and had some fears about a new kind of work. But . . . every thing went well and in both years my students thanked me again and again for their acquaintance with your work. (25 September 1909: GM 157.7–10)2 In his response, Murray linked her with what he saw as a similar situation in his own country: “It is very interesting that you have been lecturing to a class chiefly of men. Miss Harrison has sometimes done that over here, but very few other women scholars. It is all good for the cause” (6 October 1909: VC Autograph File; photocopy at GM 157.207).3 The situation of these two women classicists, each a pioneer in her own country, was not really so similar, however, though Murray was correct in claiming that both were “good for the cause.” A key difference lay in their professional status, for Macurdy had earned a doctoral degree from a major university, had a recognized professional position carrying the academic rank of Associate Professor (albeit in a women’s college), and was teaching credit-bearing courses to mostly male students at Columbia University (albeit in the summer program). Harrison, in contrast, did not have professional academic credentials, was never a member of the university at which she taught, and never lectured to men as part of their regular academic program.4 Part of this dissimilarity was due to the different way that higher education for women had developed in the United States and England, although the process began at approximately the same time in both countries. First, most women’s colleges in America were founded as independent institutions, separate from colleges and universities for men. England had a very different model; there colleges for women began as residences informally attached to the large male universities. The male members of these universities had to vote on offering educational privileges to women, and they did so for the most part very grudgingly. Thus the opening up of full educational opportunities for women occurred much more slowly in Britain than in the United States. Secondly, American women’s colleges were founded with the goal of offering women a liberal arts education equal to that provided by colleges for men; since a significant percentage of their faculty were women, the very existence of these colleges prompted American universities to begin admitting women to their graduate programs and gave women opportunities for academic positions after they had earned doctoral degrees. In contrast, the British system was initially based upon the concept that women’s education was essentially nonprofessional.5 An anecdote from the centenary of the University of London, the earliest English university Grace Harriet Macurdy 113 to admit women to degrees (Eschbach 1993, 122...