- Sophia Smith
Sophia Smith (August 27, 1796 in Hatfield, Massachusetts - June 12, 1870) founded Smith College in 1870 with the substantial estate she inherited from her father and siblings. Deaf since age 40, Smith initially considered endowing her fortune to an institute for the deaf, but changed her mind when the Clarke School for the Deaf opened in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1868. Encouraged by the Reverend John Morton Greene, she decided to endow a women's college instead.
- Eric Reeves
Dr. Eric Reeves is professor of English Language and Literature at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. He has spent the past seven years working full-time as a Sudan researcher and analyst, publishing extensively both in the United States and internationally. He has testified several times before the Congress, has lectured widely in academic settings, and has served as a consultant to a number of human rights and humanitarian organizations operating in Sudan.
- Andrew Zimbalist
Andrew Zimbalist is an American economist. He is best known as one of the most prominent sports economists in the world. Zimbalist is currently the Robert A. Woods Professor of Economics at Smith College. He received his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in 1969 and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1972 and 1974 respectively. He has been in the Economics Department at Smith College since 1974.
- Gloria Steinem
Steinem's lifelong career as a writer and journalist began after college. A co-founder of New York magazine in 1968, Steinem was always active in a wide array of political and social causes. She became a major feminist leader in the late 1960s and in 1971 co-founded MS Magazine, where she serves as contributing editor today.
- Jill Ker Conway
Jill Ker Conway (born 9 October 1934) is an Australian-American author, best known for her autobiographies, in particular her first memoirs, "The Road from Coorain". She was also Smith College's first woman president, from 1975-1985, and now serves as a Visiting Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
- Carol T. Christ
Carol Tecla Christ (b. 1944) is a scholar of Victorian literature and English Literature in general. She is past editor of the "Norton Anthology of English Literature", and has served since 2002 as the tenth official president of Smith College. Smith College, located in Northampton, Massachusetts is a small liberal arts college and one of the Seven Sisters. Christ was born in New York City. In 1966, she graduated with high honors from Douglass College, …
- Madeleine L'Engle
"I was born in New York City on the snowy night of November 29, 1918, shortly after the first World War, and think it's the nicest place in the world to be born in. I grew up on East 82nd Street. ... Madeleine L'Engle is a writer who resists easy classification. She has successfully published plays... more
- Leonard Baskin
Leonard Baskin (1922 - 2000) was an American sculptor and artist.
- Ruth J. Simmons
Ruth J. Simmons (born 1945 in Grapeland, Texas), is the 18th president of Brown University and first black president of an Ivy League institution. According to a January 2007 poll by the Brown Daily Herald, Simmons enjoys a more than 80% approval rating among Brown undergraduates. Simmons holds appointments as a professor in the Departments of Comparative Literature and Africana Studies. In 2002, Newsweek selected her as a Ms. Woman of the Year, while in 2001, …
- Sandy Skoglund
Sandy Skoglund (born 11 September 1946) is an American photographer and installation artist. Skoglund creates surrealist images by building elaborate sets or tableaux, furnishing them with carefully selected colored furniture and other objects, a process of which takes her months to complete. Finally, she photographs the set, complete with actors. The works are characterized by an overwhelming amount of one object and either bright, …
- Jane Harman
Jane Lakes Harman (born June 28 1945), is a seven-term Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives, representing the 36th District of California (map). She attended Los Angeles public schools, Smith College, and Harvard Law School. On November 7, 2006, she was reelected to the 110th Congress, defeating Republican challenger Brian Gibson. Harman is both a Blue Dog Democrat and a member of the New Democrat Coalition.
- Yolanda King
Yolanda Denise King was the first-born child and first daughter of Coretta Scott King and civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Her younger siblings are Martin Luther King, III, Dexter Scott King, and Rev. Bernice Albertine King.
- Otelia Cromwell
Otelia Cromwell (April 8, 1874 - April 25, 1972) is the first African-American graduate of Smith College. The college later began the tradition of canceling afternoon and evening classes in her honor every November as a venue to talk about race and diversity. Cromwell went on to become an educator, teaching in a public school in Washington D.C. She eventually earned a master's degree from Columbia University in New York City, then went to Yale University in New Haven, …
- Tammy Baldwin
Tammy Suzanne Green Baldwin (born February 11, 1962), American politician, is a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives since 1999, representing (map). Baldwin was born in Madison, Wisconsin, where she was raised, to Pamela Green. Baldwin graduated from Madison West High School in 1980. She earned a bachelor's degree from Smith College in 1984, and a law degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1989.
- Barbara Cooney
Barbara Cooney was an American children's author and illustrator of more than 200 books and double Caldecott Medalist. She has written books for six decades. Her books have been translated into 10 languages.
- Barry Moser
Barry Moser is a renowned artist, most famous as a printmaker and illustrator of numerous works of literature. Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Moser studied at the Baylor School, Auburn University, and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and did post-graduate work at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
- Joan Mitchell
Joan Mitchell was a ‘Second Generation’ Abstract Expressionist painter. Along with Lee Krasner, Grace Hartigan, and Helen Frankenthaler she was one of the few female painters of her era to gain critical and public acclaim. Her paintings can be seen in major museums and collections across America and Europe. Mitchell was born in 1925 in Chicago, Illinois. In 1942 she enrolled at Smith College, later transferring to The Art Institute of Chicago in 1944.
- Margaret Edson
Margaret Edson (b. July 4, 1961 in Washington, D.C.) is an American playwright. She won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play "Wit", about a John Donne scholar who is hospitalized for and dying of ovarian cancer. Edson graduated with a B.A. in Renaissance History from Smith College, and received a master's in English literature from Georgetown University. While she was writing "Wit," she held a variety of jobs that were unconnected to the theater, …
- Allen Weinstein
Allen Weinstein is the Archivist of the United States. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on February 16, 2005.
- Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz
Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz is the Sydenham Clark Parsons Professor of History at Smith College. She received her B.A. from Wellesley College and her Ph.D. from Harvard University. Her book, "Alma Mater," (1984) is a comprehensive history of the development of the Seven Sister Colleges. Her 2002 book "Rereading Sex" was a finalist for the 2003 Pulitzer Prize in history.
- Elizabeth Cutter Morrow
Elizabeth Cutter Morrow (born Elizabeth Reeve Cutter; 1873-1955) was an American poet in the early 20th century, and became the first female head of the Smith College, acting as college president from 1939 to 1940 (though she never officially was granted the title). She was the wife of U.S. Senator Dwight Morrow, and the mother of four children, including Anne Morrow Lindbergh, distinguished American author and wife of aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh.
- Natalie Babbitt
Natalie Babbitt was born and grew up in Ohio. She spent large amounts of time in those early years reading fairy tales and myths, and drawing. Her mother, an amateur landscape and portrait painter, provided early art lessons and saw to it that there was always enough paper, pain, pencils, and encouragement. In those days Natalie wanted only to be an illustrator, and went on to specialise in art at Laurel School in Cleveland and at Smith College.
- Mary Ellen Chase
Mary Ellen Chase (February 24, 1887 in Blue Hill, Maine, USA - July 28, 1973 in Northampton, Massachusetts) was a teacher, scholar, and writer. Chase received a Ph.D. in English from the University of Minnesota where she served as an assistant professor from 1922 to 1926. She taught at Smith College from 1926 until her retirement in 1955. She wrote more than 30 books, many using her cherished Maine heritage as the setting, …
- Joel Dorius
Raymond Joel Dorius (January 4 1919 - February 14 2006) was an academic and a professor of literature at Yale University, Smith College, San Francisco State University and University in Hamburg, Germany. Dorius was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. He studied at the University of Utah and Harvard University. 1949 he got a job as professor at the Yale University and 1958 he changed as professor to the Smith College.
- Rick Fantasia
Rick Fantasia is a professor of sociology at Smith College. He frequently conducts research in France, and his research interests include the interaction between labor and culture in the United States and France. He was particularly influenced by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu.
- Joseph Brodsky
Joseph Brodsky (May 24, 1940 - January 28, 1996), born Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky was a Russian poet and essayist who won the Nobel Prize in Literature (1987) and was chosen Poet Laureate of the United States (1991-1992). He had an honorary degree of the University of Silesia.
- Kurt Koffka
Kurt Koffka was a Gestalt psychologist. In 1909 he received his PhD from the University of Berlin. Together with Wolfgang Köhler he became assistant at the University of Frankfurt, where he worked with Max Wertheimer. From 1911 to 1927 he taught at the University of Giessen. There he wrote "Growth of the Mind: An Introduction to Child Psychology" (1921).
- Catharine MacKinnon
Catharine Alice MacKinnon (born 7 October 1946) is an American feminist, widely-cited scholar, lawyer, teacher, and activist. She was educated at Smith College (B.A., 1969), Yale Law School (J.D., 1977), and Yale University Graduate School (Ph.D. in political science, 1987). As of 2006, she is the Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School and is also a long-term Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Chicago.
- Roger Sessions
Roger Huntington Sessions (28 December 1896 - 16 March 1985) was an American composer, critic and teacher of music. Born in Brooklyn, New York to a family that could trace its roots back to the American revolution, Sessions studied music at Harvard University from the age of 14. There, he wrote for and subsequently edited the Harvard Musical Review.
- Alfred Einstein
Alfred Einstein (December 30, 1880 - February 13, 1952) was a German American musicologist and music editor. He was noted as one of the widest-ranging music historians in the first half of the 20th century. Einstein was born in Munich. Though he originally studied law, he quickly realized his principal love was music, and he acquired a doctorate at Munich University, focusing on instrumental music of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras, …
- Merle Curti
Merle Curti was a leading American historian. His specialty was social and intellectual history. He founded three academic disciplines—peace studies, intellectual history and social history—and helped create cliometrics as a tool in historical research.
- Senda Berenson Abbott
Senda Berenson Abbott (March 19 1868, Vilnius, Lithuania, Russian Empire - February 16 1954) was a pioneer of women's basketball, authoring the first Basketball Guide for Women (1901-07). She was inducted to the Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor on July 1, 1985 and into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999. She modified existing men's basketball rules for women in 1899.
- Anna Deavere Smith
Anna Deavere Smith (born September 18, 1950, in Baltimore, Maryland) is an American actress, playwright, and professor in the Department of Performance Studies at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. She formerly taught in the drama department at Stanford University. Smith is best known as the author of "Fires in the Mirror", which dealt with the 1991 Crown Heights Riot, and "Twilight: Los Angeles 1992", …
- Olive Higgins Prouty
Olive Higgins Prouty (January 10 1882 – March 24 1974) was an American novelist, best known for her pioneering consideration of psychotherapy in "Now, Voyager" starring Bette Davis and her feminist melodrama "Stella Dallas". The latter was used as the basis for two successful films - the 1937 version, which starred Barbara Stanwyck, was nominated for two Academy Awards - and a radio serial which was broadcast daily for 18 years, …
- Mary Patterson McPherson
Mary Patterson McPherson served as the sixth president of Bryn Mawr College from 1978-1997. She received her B.A. and L.L.D. from Smith College, her M.A. from the University of Delaware, and her Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr College. She has taught at the University of Delaware and served as professor and dean at Bryn Mawr before being elected president. She is currently Vice President of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and will lead the American Philosophical Society.
- Natalie Zemon Davis
Natalie Zemon Davis (born November 8, 1928) is an Canadian and American historian of early modern Europe. Her work originally focused on France, but has since broadened. For example, "Trickster's Travels" (2006) views Italy, Spain, Morocco and the rest of North Africa through the lens of Leo Africanus's pioneering geography. Born in Detroit, Davis graduated from Cranbrook Kingswood School and was subsequently educated at Smith College, Radcliffe College, …
- Laurenus Clark Seelye
Laurenus Clark Seelye (1827-1924) was the first president of Smith College, serving from 1873-1910. He was also the brother of Julius Hawley Seelye.
- Laura D'Andrea Tyson
Laura D'Andrea Tyson (b. June 28, 1947, New Jersey) is an American economist and former Chair of the President's Council of Economic Advisers. She also served as Director of the National Economic Council. She is currently a professor at the Haas School of Business of the University of California, Berkeley. From 2002 to 2006, Tyson was the first female Dean of the London Business School. From 1998 to 2001, she was Dean of the Haas School of Business.
- Chris Pureka
Chris Pureka is an acoustic musician hailing from Northampton, Massachusetts, though she was raised in Connecticut. She began writing songs at the age of 16 and soon became a frequent performer at local coffee houses and open mics. As a young performer, she opened shows for such artists as Erin McKeown and Pamela Means, all the while completing a degree in biology at Wesleyan University. She began work in a microbiology research lab at Smith College in Northampton, …
- Amy Clampitt
Amy Clampitt (1920 - 1994) was an American poet and author.