Sophie Chantal Hart
A white woman in 3/4 profile, wearing her long hair in an updo, a white blouse with a distinctive brooch pinned to the neck, and a darker jacket or overblouse
Sophie Chantal Hart, from a 1915 yearbook
BornAugust 20, 1868
Waltham, Massachusetts
DiedDecember 4, 1948
Tucson, Arizona
OccupationCollege professor

Sophie Chantal Hart (August 20, 1868 – December 4, 1948) was an American professor of English composition and head of the English department at Wellesley College from 1906 to 1936.

Early life

Hart was born in Waltham, Massachusetts, the daughter of Eugene Hart and Ann McCormick Hart. She lived in San Francisco as a girl, after her widowed mother remarried. She earned a bachelor's degree at Harvard Annex (later Radcliffe College) in 1892, in the same small class as astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt.[1] She earned a master's degree at the University of Michigan in 1898.[2][3][4]

Career

Hart taught English Composition at Wellesley College from 1892 to 1937, and head of the English department from 1906 to 1936.[5][6] She edited and annotated editions of Tennyson's Gareth and Lynette, Lancelot and Elaine and The passing of Arthur (1903),[7] and Nicholas Rowe's The Fair Penitent and Jane Shore (1907).

During World War I, Hart led the college's successful fundraising effort to provide an ambulance for the Red Cross in Paris.[8] In addition to her studies in England, she took study and service trips to Russia,[9] China, India, Turkey, and Japan.[10] She was feared in danger after the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake.[11] She knew Gandhi from her interest in the peace movement,[12] and was a friend to Wellesley alumnae Ying Mei Chun[13] and Mei-ling Soong.[3][14][15] She retired from Wellesley in 1937; the following year, the school established a named chair and a lecture series in her honor.[3][5]

Hart participated in the women's suffrage movement in Boston, and while visiting in England. She was also active in the American Association of University Women, the Modern Language Association, the YWCA and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in the 1920s.[10][16][17] In 1933, Marjory Stoneman Douglas hosted her as a speaker at her studio in Florida.[18] In retirement, she was president of the Tucson branch of the National League of American Pen Women.[3]

Personal life

Hart became guardian of three Japanese women students in the 1910s, bringing them from Japan to the United States for schooling.[10][19] Hart retired to Tucson, Arizona,[5] and died there in 1948, aged 80.[3][20][21]

References

  1. ↑ "Harvard Annex Girls; Graduates of 1892 Get their Certificates". The Boston Globe. 1892-06-28. p. 10. Retrieved 2021-08-29 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ↑ "College Women to Hold March Meeting". The Montclair Times. 1931-03-07. p. 21. Retrieved 2021-08-29 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Sophie C. Hart Taken in Death". Arizona Daily Star. 1948-12-05. p. 2. Retrieved 2021-08-29 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ↑ "Wellesley College Notes". The Sun. 1898-10-10. p. 5. Retrieved 2021-08-29 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. 1 2 3 "Hart Lecture to be Given Mar. 10". Arizona Daily Star. 1942-03-08. p. 24. Retrieved 2021-08-29 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ↑ "Sorority to Mark Founders Day Tonight". Tucson Daily Citizen. January 26, 1940. p. 4. Retrieved August 28, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ↑ Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson (1903). Tennyson's Gareth and Lynette, Lancelot and Elaine and The passing of Arthur;. New York [etc.] hdl:2027/mdp.39015005560258 – via HathiTrust.
  8. ↑ "Gives Motor Ambulance". The Boston Globe. 1915-03-13. p. 5. Retrieved 2021-08-29 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ↑ "A Lecture to Aid Wellesley". The Kansas City Star. 1916-03-26. p. 8. Retrieved 2021-08-29 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. 1 2 3 "Letter from Sophie Chantal Hart to Margaret Brackenbury Crook". Jane Addams Digital Edition. April 18, 1921. Retrieved 2021-08-28.
  11. ↑ "Anxiety Felt for Prominent Boston People Who Were In Japan". The Boston Globe. 1923-09-04. p. 11. Retrieved 2021-08-29 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ↑ "Wellesley Girls Should See Boston". The Boston Globe. 1925-09-24. p. 3. Retrieved 2021-08-29 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ↑ Hart, Sophie C. (July 1919). "Wellesley Women in China". Wellesley Alumnae Quarterly. 3 (4): 293.
  14. ↑ "Won the 'Old South Prize'". The San Francisco Examiner. 1889-03-23. p. 3. Retrieved 2021-08-29 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ↑ DeLong, Thomas A. (2007-02-28). Madame Chiang Kai-shek and Miss Emma Mills: China's First Lady and Her American Friend. McFarland. p. 109. ISBN 978-0-7864-2980-6.
  16. ↑ "Fiction Topic of Speaker at Club". The Montclair Times. 1931-03-11. p. 11. Retrieved 2021-08-29 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. ↑ "Letter from Sophie Chantal Hart to Jane Addams". Jane Addams Digital Edition. May 9, 1921. Retrieved 2021-08-28.
  18. ↑ "Professor Speaks of British Figures". The Miami Herald. 1933-12-20. p. 2. Retrieved 2021-08-29 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. ↑ "A Welcome at Wellesley". Bulletin of the Japan Society. 58: 175. May 22, 1919.
  20. ↑ "Miss Sophie Hart". Arizona Daily Star. 1948-12-06. p. 7. Retrieved 2021-08-29 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. ↑ "Clubs to Honor Sophie Hart at Memorial Meet". Arizona Daily Star. 1949-01-20. p. 10. Retrieved 2021-08-29 – via Newspapers.com.
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