Mary Augusta Jordan

Jordan was born in Ironton, Ohio, the daughter of Edward Jordan and Augusta Woodbury Ricker Jordan.{{Cite web |title=Collection: Mary A. Jordan Papers |url=https://findingaids.smith.edu/repositories/4/resources/44 |access-date=2023-06-17 |website=Smith College Finding Aids}} 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.{{Cite web |last=Grant |first=Stephen H. |title=Mary Augusta Jordan '1876 |url=https://vcencyclopedia.vassar.edu/distinguished-alumni/mary-augusta-jordan/ |access-date=2023-06-17 |website=Vassar College Encyclopedia |language=en}}

Jordan was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution.{{Cite book |last=Revolution |first=Daughters of the American |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s48BAAAAMAAJ&dq=Mary+Augusta+Jordan&pg=PA59 |title=Linage Book of the Charter Members of the Daughters of the American Revolution (revised) |date=1927 |pages=59–60 |language=en}} Her younger sister Emily married Henry Clay Folger; the Folgers founded the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.{{Cite book |last=Grant |first=Stephen H. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MW3eAgAAQBAJ&q=Mary+Augusta+Jordan |title=Collecting Shakespeare: The Story of Henry and Emily Folger |date=2014-04-26 |publisher=JHU Press |isbn=978-1-4214-1187-3 |language=en}} Federal judge Edward Jordan Dimock was her nephew.{{Cite news |date=1986-03-19 |title=Edward J. Dimock, 96, A Senior Federal Judge |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1986/03/19/obituaries/edward-j-dimock-96-a-senior-federal-judge.html |access-date=2023-06-17 |issn=0362-4331}}

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.

Jordan spoke at Vassar College's 50th anniversary celebration in 1915.{{Cite web |title=Mary Augusta Jordan: "Spacious Days at Vassar College" |url=https://vcencyclopedia.vassar.edu/documents-and-views-of-early-vassar/mary-augusta-jordan-spacious-days/ |access-date=2023-06-17 |website=Vassar College Encyclopedia |language=en}} An educated white woman from a prominent and wealthy family, she considered women's suffrage "superfluous",{{Cite book |last=Horowitz |first=Helen Lefkowitz |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z3qWLyDZ8PsC&dq=Mary+Augusta+Jordan&pg=PA194 |title=Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women's Colleges from Their Nineteenth-century Beginnings to the 1930s |date=1993 |publisher=Univ of Massachusetts Press |isbn=978-0-87023-869-7 |pages=193–194 |language=en}} and believed that women had sufficient opportunity for shaping society through other, existing means.{{Cite book |last=MacDougall |first=Pauleena M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nBBTY3bOxXgC&dq=Mary+Augusta+Jordan&pg=PA16 |title=Fannie Hardy Eckstorm and Her Quest for Local Knowledge, 1865–1946 |date=2013-07-19 |publisher=Lexington Books |isbn=978-0-7391-7911-6 |pages=16–17 |language=en}} She often debated suffrage and other issues with a fellow Vassar alumna and Smith professor, Mary Augusta Scott.

Jordan wrote on gender, rhetoric, and pedagogy,Wagner, Joanne. [https://books.google.com/books?id=9hgOM28mmRYC&dq=Mary+Augusta+Jordan&pg=PA185 "“Intelligent Members or Restless Disturbers”: Women’s Rhetorical."] in Andrea A. Lunsford, ed, Reclaiming Rhetorica: Women in the rhetorical tradition (University of Pittsburgh 1995). {{ISBN|9780822971658}} and proposed that women's education need not match men's, in form or content, pointing to the "under-inspiration of our over-examined young men" ("The College for Women", 1892).Jordan, Mary Augusta. "The College for Women." Atlantic Monthly (1892): 542. She noted that "It is a capital error in the education of women to ignore the part played by their feelings. It is still worse to try to supersede these feelings by what is called good judgment based on logical processes. The logic of feeling is quite as important as the manipulation of syllogisms, and likely to be a good deal more practical" (Correct Writing and Speaking, 1904). She also declared, "There is no one correct way of writing or of speaking English. Within certain limits there are many ways of attaining correctness" (Correct Writing and Speaking, 1904).{{Cite journal |last=Kates |first=Susan |date=1997 |title=Subversive Feminism: The Politics of Correctness in Mary Augusta Jordan's Correct Writing and Speaking (1904) |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/358455 |journal=College Composition and Communication |volume=48 |issue=4 |pages=501–517; quotes from page 506 and 508 |doi=10.2307/358455 |jstor=358455 |issn=0010-096X}}{{Cite book |last=Kates |first=Susan |title=Making and Unmaking the Prospects for Rhetoric |publisher=Routledge |year=1997 |isbn=9780203811207 |editor-last=Enos |editor-first=Theresa Jarnagin |chapter=The History of Language Conventions in Mary Augusta Jordan's Rhetoric Text, Correct Writing and Speaking (1904) |doi=10.4324/9780203811207 |chapter-url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203811207-18/history-language-conventions-mary-augusta-jordan-rhetoric-text-correct-writing-speaking-1904-susan-kates}}

Jordan held honorary doctorates from Smith College (in 1910) and Syracuse University (in 1921). Jordan House, a dormitory at Smith, was named for her in 1922.{{Cite news |last=Manning |first=Alice H. |date=1975-06-28 |title=Mary Augusta Jordan: One of the Giants |pages=6 |work=Daily Hampshire Gazette |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/daily-hampshire-gazette-mary-augusta-jor/126591480/ |access-date=2023-06-17 |via=Newspapers.com}} The college also offers a Jordan Prize for student writing,{{Cite journal |date=1927–1928 |title=General Information |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-Q04AAAAMAAJ&dq=Mary+Augusta+Jordan&pg=PA182 |journal=Smith College Bulletin |pages=182}} and a Jordan named chair in the English department.

• "Concerning the Higher Education" (1886){{Cite book |last=Jordan |first=Mary A. (Mary Augusta) |url=http://archive.org/details/concerninghigher00jord |title=Concerning the higher education. An address before the Western Association of Collegiate Alumnae, Oct. 30th, 1886, Chicago |date=1886 |publisher=[Chicago] |others=The Library of Congress}}
• "The Years in Vassar College" (1899){{Cite book |last=Thwing |first=Charles Franklin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4VqzdD_feHkC&dq=Mary+Augusta+Jordan&pg=PA4 |title=Carrie F. Butler Thwing: An Appreciation by Friends |date=1899 |publisher=Helman-Taylor Company |language=en}}
• Correct Writing and Speaking (1904){{Cite book |last=Jordan |first=Mary Augusta |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lmpCAAAAYAAJ |title=Correct Writing and Speaking |date=1906 |publisher=A. S. Barnes |language=en}}
• "Spacious Days at Vassar" (1915){{Cite book |last=Jordan |first=Mary Augusta |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uoEAAAAAYAAJ&dq=Mary+Augusta+Jordan&pg=PA45-IA2 |title=The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Opening of Vassar College, October 10 to 13, 1915;: A Record |date=1916 |publisher=Vassar college |pages=45–46 |language=en |chapter=Spacious Days at Vassar}}

• Milton's Minor Poems (1904){{Cite book |last1=Milton |first1=John |url=http://archive.org/details/minorpoemsmiltons00miltrich |title=Milton's minor poems |last2=Jordan |first2=Mary A. (Mary Augusta) |date=1904 |publisher=New York, American book company |others=University of California Libraries}}
• Emerson, Compensation, self-reliance, and other essays (1907){{Cite book |last1=Emerson |first1=Ralph Waldo |url=http://archive.org/details/compensationself00emer |title=Compensation, self-reliance, and other essays, by Ralph Waldo Emerson; ed. by Mary A. Jordan |last2=Jordan |first2=Mary A. (Mary Augusta) |date=1907 |publisher=Boston, New York [etc.] Houghton Mifflin and company |others=The Library of Congress}}
• Emerson, Manners, Friendship, and other essays (1907){{Cite book |last1=Emerson |first1=Ralph Waldo |url=http://archive.org/details/mannersfriendshi00emer |title=Manners, friendship, and other essays |last2=Jordan |first2=Mary A. (Mary Augusta) |date=1907 |publisher=Boston ; New York [etc.] : Houghton, Mifflin and company |others=The Library of Congress}}

Jordan was briefly engaged to her first cousin, Stanford University president David Starr Jordan. She lived in campus housing for much of her time at Smith, and opened her personal library for student use. She died in 1941, at the age of 85, in New Haven, Connecticut.{{Cite news |date=1941-04-15 |title=Mary Augusta Jordan; Taught English at Smith College, 1884-1921; Vassar Alumna |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1941/04/15/archives/mary-augusta-jordan-taught-english-at-smith-college-18841921vassar.html |access-date=2023-06-17 |issn=0362-4331}} Smith College has a collection of Jordan's papers.

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Category:1855 births

Category:1941 deaths

Category:People from Ironton, Ohio

Category:Vassar College alumni

Category:Smith College faculty

Category:American women writers

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