Mary Augusta Jordan

Mary Augusta Jordan (July 5, 1855 – April 14, 1941) was an American college professor of English literature and rhetoric. She was a member of the faculty at Smith College from 1884 to 1921. Early life and education Jordan was born in Ironton, Ohio, the daughter of Edward Jordan and Augusta Woodbury Ricker Jordan. Her father was a lawyer who worked for the United States Department of the Treasury in Washington, D.C. during the Lincoln and Johnson administrations, and she was said to have held Lincoln's hand when she was a little girl. The Jordans moved in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where she attended Miss Ranney's school. She and both of her sisters attended Vassar College; she graduated from Vassar in 1876, and earned a master's degree in 1878. Jordan was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Her younger sister Emily married Henry Clay Folger; the Folgers founded the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. Federal judge Edward Jordan Dimock was her nephew. Career After college, Jordan became a librarian at Vassar, and taught in the English department. She joined the faculty at Smith College in 1884, teaching rhetoric. In 1906 she gained full professor status, and became head of the English department. She was best known for teaching Shakespeare and giving ceremonial addresses. She retired in 1921, but continued her association when the college commissioned her to write a history of English teaching at Smith.