Emily Jordan Folger

Emily Jordan Folger (May 15, 1858 – February 21, 1936), was the wife of Henry Clay Folger and the co-founder of the Folger Shakespeare Library. During her husband's lifetime, she assisted him in building the world's largest collection of Shakespeare materials. After his death in 1930, she funded the completion of the Folger Shakespeare Library to house the collection, remaining involved with its administration until her death in 1936. In 1932, she became the third woman to receive an honorary degree from Amherst College, following Mary Emma Woolley, president of Mount Holyoke College, in 1901; and Martha Dickinson Bianchi, editor of Emily Dickinson's poems, in 1931. Early life and career Emily Clara Jordan was born in Ironton, Ohio to Edward W. Jordan and his wife, Augusta Woodbury Ricker. She was the third of their three daughters, preceded by Mary Augusta and Elizabeth. Edward Jordan served as Solicitor of the Treasury Department under Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, and her family lived in Washington, D.C., for that part of her childhood. Emily received her early education at Miss Ranney's School in Elizabeth, New Jersey, which prepared women for teaching or higher education. There, Emily was instructed in English language and literature, modern languages, mathematics, philosophy, and the natural sciences. In 1875, she followed both of her sisters to Vassar College, where she was elected president of the 36-member class of 1879. At Vassar, Emily was accomplished in English composition and astronomy. She was educated in the latter subject by astronomer and Vassar professor Maria Mitchell, who was also a distant relative of her future husband, Henry Clay Folger, via their common ancestor, Peter Foulger. After graduating from Vassar in 1879, she worked in Brooklyn for six years as an instructor in the college-prep section of a private girls' school, Miss Hotchkiss's Nassau Institute.