Duckett, Eleanor Shipley.

Eleanor Shipley Duckett was a noted philologist and historian, and a significant character in the history of Smith College. Although she taught courses on classical languages and literature at Smith College for nearly thirty years, it was her work on the history of Europe during the Early Middle Ages that brought her the greatest joy and garnered the most acclaim. Her body of work placed her firmly in the ranks of respected scholars of her field, but attracted a popular audience as well. Although scholarly and based on solid research, her work was written specifically for the layperson. She wanted to communicate her love of medieval history and culture to more than an academic audience. Her ability to translate the intricacies of her fields for the uninitiated also served her well as a professor. She was a favorite of Smith students, and an integral part of the campus community.

Duckett was born November 7, 1880, in Somerset, England. Encouraged by her father to study the classical texts, she worked diligently through her preparatory education in order to attend college. She was accepted at the University of London, receiving her B.A in 1903, her M.A. in 1904, and a Diploma in Pedagogy in 1905. She used these degrees to teach the classics at Sutton High School in Surrey until 1907, but then left to resume her own education with a scholarship to Girton College, the first women's college at Cambridge University. In 1911 she passed the Classical Tripos examination, and promptly left Europe on another scholarship for Ph.D. work at Bryn Mawr. She received her doctorate in 1914, and became an instructor at Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio. She taught Latin and Greek there until 1916 when she became a Latin instructor at Smith College. In 1928 she was named the John M. Greene Professor of Classical Languages and Literature at Smith, and remained in that position until her retirement in 1949. In 1952, Cambridge University awarded Duckett a Doctor of Letters degree for her work in medieval Latin literature, but she never received a degree for her initial studies at Cambridge. Women were not awarded either full degrees or the benefits of membership at Cambridge until 1948. For more on women and the degree system at Cambridge, see Rita McWilliams-Tullberg, "Women and Degrees at Cambridge University, 1862-1897," in A Widening Sphere: Changing Roles of Victorian Women, edited by Martha Vicinus (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977), 117-145.

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