Jill Ker Conway (born 9 October 1934) is an Australian-American author. Well known for her autobiographies, in particular her first memoir, 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. In 2004 she was designated a Women's History Month Honoree by the National Women's History Project.^[1]

Biography[link]

Conway was born in Hillston, New South Wales in the outback of Australia. Together with her two brothers, Conway was raised in near-total isolation on a family owned 73 square kilometres (18,000 acres) tract of land, Coorain (aboriginal word for "windy place"), which was eventually expanded into 129 square kilometres (32,000 acres). On Coorain she lived a lonely life, and grew up without playmates except for her brothers. She was schooled entirely by her mother and a country governess.

Conway spent her youth working the sheep station; by age seven, she was an important member of the workforce, helping with such activities as herding and tending the sheep, checking the perimeter fences and lugging heavy farm supplies around. The farm prospered until a drought that would last for seven years. This and her father's worsening health put an increasing burden on her shoulders. But this ended abruptly when she was 11 and her father drowned in an unfortunate diving accident, while trying to extend the farm's water piping.

Initially Conway's mother, a nurse by profession, refused to leave Coorain. But after three more years of drought she was compelled to move Jill and her brothers to Sydney, to allow them to lead a normal life.

Conway found the local state school a rough environment. The British manners and accent ingrained by her parents clashed with her peers' Australian habits provoking taunts and jeers. This resulted in her mother enrolling her at Abbotsleigh, a private girls school, where Conway found intellectual challenge and social acceptance. After finishing her education at Abbotsleigh, she enrolled at the University of Sydney where she studied History and English and graduated with honours in 1958. Upon graduation, Conway sought a trainee post in the Department of External Affairs, but the conservative all-male committee was intimidated by her and she was refused for being, as she learned later, "too good looking" and "too intellectually aggressive."

After this setback she travelled through Europe with her now emotionally volatile mother. In 1960 she decided to strike out on her own and move to the United States. At age 25, she was accepted into the Harvard University history program. There she assisted a Canadian professor, John Conway, who became her husband until his death in 1995. Conway received her Ph.D. at Harvard in 1969 and taught at the University of Toronto from 1964 to 1975. Her book True North deals about her time in Toronto.

From 1975-1985 Conway was the president of Smith College. Since 1985 she has been a Visiting Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has received thirty-eight honorary degrees and awards from North American and Australian colleges, universities and women's organizations.

President of Smith College[link]

Smith College campus

In 1975 Conway became the first woman president of Smith College, the largest women's college in the United States. Located in Northampton, Massachusetts, Smith is a private liberal arts college and is the only women's college in the U.S. to grant its own degrees in engineering.

One of Conway's most notable accomplishments is a program she instigated to help students on welfare. At the time many students who were also welfare mothers were not pursuing liberal arts as accepting Smith's scholarship meant losing their welfare benefits. The students were forced to choose between supporting their children or furthering their education. By not giving them scholarships but paying their rent instead, Conway circumvented the state's system. She also gave the students access to an account at local stores, access to physicians and so on. ABC's Good Morning America even profiled graduates of the program, giving it national exposure. Eventually the state of Massachusetts, convinced about the importance of the program, changed its welfare system so that scholarship students wouldn't lose their benefits.

Conway also created the Ada Comstock Scholars program. This program allows older women, often with extensive work and family obligations, to study part-time. These women can take classes for a Bachelor's degree at Smith's at a slower pace over a longer period.

In 1975, Conway was named by Time as a Woman of the Year.

[edit] The Road from Coorain

Conway started writing her first memoirs after leaving Smith College, during her period at MIT. The Road from Coorain was published in 1989 (ISBN 0-394-57456-7) and deals with her early life, from Coorain in Australia to Harvard in the United States.

The book starts off with her early childhood at the remote sheep station Coorain in Hillston. Conway writes about her teenage years in Sydney and especially her education at the University of Sydney, where university studies were open to women but the culture was focused heavily on the men. She described her intellectual development and her feelings realizing there is a bias against women, after being denied a traineeship at the Australian foreign service.

In 2001 Chapman Pictures produced a television film, The Road from Coorain (IMDB entry), featuring Katherine Slattery as the grown-up Jill, and Juliet Stevenson as her mother.

List of works[link]

• Felipe the Flamingo (2006)
• A Woman's Education (2001)
• Women on Power: Leadership Redefined (2001)
• Earth, Air, Fire, Water: Humanistic Studies of the Environment (2000)
• Overnight Float (with Elizabeth Topham Kennan as Clare Munnings) (2000)
• In Her Own Words: Women's Memoirs from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States (1999)
• When Memory Speaks (1998)
• Modern Feminism: An Intellectual History (1997)
• Written By Herself, vol. 2, Autobiographies of Women from Britain, Africa, Asia and the U.S. (1996)
• Written by Herself (editor) (1995)
• Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (with Russell Baker and William Zinsser) (1995)
• True North: A Memoir (1995)
• The Politics of Women's Education (with Susan Bourque) (1993)
• Autobiographies of American Women: An Anthology (1992)
• The Road from Coorain (1989)
• Learning About Women (with Susan Bourque and Joan Scott) (1989)
• Utopian Dream or Dystopian Nightmare? Nineteenth Century Feminist Ideas About Equality (1987)
• Women Reformers and American Culture (1987)
• The Female Experience in 18th- and 19th-Century America (1982)
• Women Reformers and American Culture: 1870-1930 (1972)
• Merchants and Merinos (1960)

See also[link]

• Literature
• Literature of the United States
• Feminism
• Smith College
• ImagineNations Group

References[link]

• Studying Women's Lives
• National Women's History Project - Jill Ker Conway biography
• Jill Ker Conway: A Life
• Reading Group Center - Jill Ker Conway
• The Borzoi Reader - Jill Ker Conway

External links[link]

• The Road from Coorain - Discussion questions
• Excerpts from The Road from Coorain
• IMDB entry on The Road from Coorain TV-film
• Masterpiece Theatre - The Road from Coorain
• Booknotes interview with Ker Conway on When Memory Speaks: Reflections on Autobiography, May 24, 1998.

Sam Thompson
200px
Outfielder
Born: (1860-03-05)March 5, 1860 Danville, Indiana
Died: November 7, 1922(1922-11-07) (aged 62) Detroit, Michigan
Batted: Left	Threw: Left
MLB debut
July 2, 1885 for the Detroit Wolverines
Last MLB appearance
September 10, 1906 for the Detroit Tigers
Career statistics
Batting average	.331
Home runs	127
Runs batted in	1299
Teams
Detroit Wolverines (1885–1888) Philadelphia Quakers/Phillies (1889–1898) Detroit Tigers (1906)
Career highlights and awards
NL batting champion: 1887 2-time NL home run champion: 1889, 1895 2-time NL RBI champion: 1887, 1895 3-time NL hits leader 2-time NL doubles leader
Member of the National
Baseball Hall of Fame
Induction	1974
Election Method	Veteran's Committee

Samuel Luther Thompson (March 5, 1860 – November 7, 1922) was a 19th-century Major League Baseball player. "Big Sam" (6 feet 2 inches, and 200 pounds) was known for his offensive production and was second on the career home runs list at the time of his retirement. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974.

Thompson's 1887 total of 166 RBIs stood as a Major League record for 34 years until Babe Ruth broke the record in 1921. He was the only 19th-century player to drive in 150 or more runs and he did it twice. His .923 RBIs/Game is still a major league record, and he has the still-standing record of 61 RBIs in 1 month, which he accomplished for the Philadelphia Phillies in August 1895.

Born in Danville, Indiana, Thompson entered the National League in 1885 with the Detroit Wolverines and played his first full season in 1886. An outfielder, Thompson had his breakout season in 1887 when he batted .372 with 118 runs, 203 hits, 11 home runs and 166 RBIs en route to leading the Wolverines to the National League pennant as well as a World Series victory over the St. Louis Browns of the American Association - the other major league at the time. The Wolverines finished the 1888 season in fifth place, losing so much money that the team folded and the players were sold off. Thompson was purchased by the Philadelphia Quakers (known as the Philadelphia Phillies beginning in 1890), for $5,000 cash (equal to $129,333 today). He would play for them until 1898.

Thompson enjoyed his most consistent years from 1889 until 1896, only missing the 100 RBI plateau once (with 90, in 1891) and 100 runs plateau once (with 99 in 1894) while batting .407 in 1894 and leading the league in home runs in 1889 and 1895 (with 20 and 18 respectively). In 1889 he became the first Major League player to reach 20 home runs and 20 stolen bases in the same season. Back problems brought a premature end to Thompson's career, limiting him to 3 games in 1897 and 14 in 1898. After the 1898 season, he left baseball for nearly a decade before briefly returning to play in 8 games for the Detroit Tigers in 1906, when he became one of oldest players to hit a triple. He retired with 1256 runs, 1299 RBIs, a .331 batting average, and 127 home runs which was at the time second only to Roger Connor.

Thompson's great-great-grandson is mandolin master Chris Thile, who wrote a reel entitled "Big Sam Thompson" which is on his solo album Not All Who Wander Are Lost.

Thompson hit for the cycle, playing for the Phillies, on August 17, 1894.

In 1894, Thompson was part of the only all-.400-hitting outfield of all-time. All four Philadelphia outfielders ended the season with a batting average better than .400 (Tuck Turner at .416, Thompson and Ed Delahanty at .407, and Billy Hamilton at .404). Thompson hit .407 despite missing a month with a finger injury which necessitated the amputation of a fingertip. As a team, the 1894 Phillies batted .349.

See also[link]

• 1887 Detroit Wolverines season
• List of Major League Baseball players with 100 triples
• List of Major League Baseball players with 1000 runs
• List of Major League Baseball players with 1000 RBIs
• List of Major League Baseball leaders in career stolen bases
• Hitting for the cycle
• List of Major League Baseball RBI champions
• List of Major League Baseball batting champions
• List of Major League Baseball home run champions
• List of Major League Baseball doubles champions
• List of Major League Baseball triples champions

External links[link]

• Sam Thompson at the Baseball Hall of Fame
• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or The Baseball Cube, or Baseball-Reference (Minors)
• The Deadball Era

v t e Members of the Philadelphia Baseball Wall of Fame Inducted as Phillies Roberts • Ashburn • Klein • Alexander • Ennis • Bunning • Delahanty • Williams • Hamner • Owens • Carlton • Schmidt • Bowa • Short • Simmons • Allen • Jones • Thompson • Callison • Luzinski • McGraw • Cravath • Maddox • Taylor • Magee • Hamilton • Boone • Green • Vukovich • Samuel • Kalas • Daulton • Kruk Inducted as Athletics Mack • Foxx • Grove • Simmons • Cochrane • Dykes • Plank • Waddell • Collins • Moses • Johnson • Valo • Bender • Coombs • Baker • Shantz • Joost • Rommel • Fain • Miller • Chapman • Earnshaw • Zernial • Walberg • Oldring

Ada Comstock
Ada Comstock in the 1910s, photograph by E. Stahlberg
Born	Ada Louise Comstock (1876-12-11)December 11, 1876 Moorhead, Minnesota
Died	December 12, 1973(1973-12-12) (aged 97) New Haven, Connecticut
Cause of death	Heart failure
Other names	Ada Comstock Notestein
Education	Smith College Columbia University
Title	President of Radcliffe College
Term	1923-1943
Predecessor	LeBaron Russell Briggs
Successor	Wilbur Kitchener Jordan
Spouse	Wallace Notestein

Ada Comstock (December 11, 1876-December 12, 1973) was an American women's education pioneer. She served as the first dean of women at the University of Minnesota and later as the first full-time president of Radcliffe College.

Biography[link]

Early life and education[link]

Ada Louise Comstock was born on December 11, 1876 in Moorhead, Minnesota to Solomon Gilman Comstock, an attorney, and Sarah Ball Comstock. The oldest of three children, she graduated from Moorhead High School at age 15.^[1] Comstock began her undergraduate studies at the University of Minnesota in 1892, transferring to Smith College after two years. After graduating from Smith in 1897, she returned to Minnesota to complete a graduate course in teaching at Moorhead Normal School (now Minnesota State University, Moorhead), then went to Columbia University where she earned a master's degree in 1899.^[2]

Career[link]

Comstock began her career at the University of Minnesota as an assistant in the rhetoric department under Maria L. Sanford. She was promoted to the position of instructor in 1900 and assistant professor in 1904. She was appointed the school's first dean of women in 1907 and a full professor in 1909. In 1912 Comstock accepted an invitation to become the dean of Smith College, where she served as acting president for a period in 1917-1918.^[3] From 1921 to 1923, she served as president of American Association of University Women. On October 20, 1923, Comstock was inaugurated as president of Radcliffe College. She spent twenty years leading the school, strengthening its academic programs and, in 1943, persuaded Harvard to accept classroom coeducation.

In addition to her academic career, Comstock was appointed to the National Committee on Law Observation and Enforcement, known as the Wickersham Commission, in 1929.^[4][5]

After her retirement from Radcliffe, Comstock remained active in academia, serving on the Smith board of trustees, working on a graduate center for Radcliffe, and traveling extensively in support of her husband's research.^[1]

Marriage[link]

A week after her retirement from Radcliffe, Comstock married Yale professor emeritus Wallace Notestein.^[3] The couple had no children together. He died in 1969.^[6]

Death and afterward[link]

Ada Comstock Notestein died of congestive heart failure at her home in New Haven, Connecticut on December 12, 1973.^[2]

The largest collection of her papers, the Ada Louise Comstock Papers, 1897-1950, are housed at the Smith College Archives.

Comstock's name has been honored with buildings on college and university campuses, including Comstock Hall at the University of Minnesota^[7] and Comstock Hall in the Radcliffe Quad ^[8], a program for non-traditional students at Smith College,^[9] and a lecture series.

Awards and honors[link]

• 1958: Jane Addams Medal, Rockford College^[10]
• 1966: Founder's Award, Radcliffe College^[11]
• 1967: Hollins Medal ^[12]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Ada Louise Comstock Papers, 1897-1950
• Ada Comstock Distinguished Women Scholar Award & Lecture
• Ada Comstock Scholars Program