Agnes Frances Perkins (1875 - December 27, 1959) was a distinguished American educator, scholar, and writer whose career spanned nearly four decades at
Wellesley College.Queer Places:
Bryn Mawr College (Seven Sisters), 101 N Merion Ave, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010
Columbia University (Ivy League), 116th St and Broadway, New York, NY 10027
Wellesley College (Seven Sisters), 106 Central St, Wellesley, MA 02481
Riverview Cemetery, 4204 County Rd 32, Oxford, NY 13830, United States
Agnes Frances Perkins (1875 - December 27, 1959) was a distinguished American educator, scholar, and writer whose career spanned nearly four decades at
Wellesley College.
Born around in 1875, Perkins pursued an extensive higher education, earning her Bachelor of Arts degree from Bryn Mawr College in 1898, followed by a Master of Arts degree from the same institution the next year. Her lifelong commitment to academic growth later led her to secure a second master’s degree from Columbia University in 1930, alongside studies at the Columbia School of Journalism from 1929 to 1931. Over the course of her scholarly life, she authored and edited notable works on composition and career guidance, including "Introduction to Rhetoric" and "Vocations for the Trained Woman."
In 1906, Perkins joined the faculty of Wellesley College, beginning an influential thirty-eight-year tenure in the Department of English Composition. Her academic leadership culminated in her serving as department chairman from 1935 until 1942. Beyond her domestic teaching duties, Perkins engaged in international education; notably, around 1912, she traveled to Turkey to teach English at the American School for Girls in Constantinople, where she and her colleagues supported relief efforts during the Balkan War by making garments for wounded soldiers. She also pursued international study to observe journalism styles in Europe.
Throughout her years at Wellesley, Perkins formed vital personal and domestic connections within a network of prominent women academics, suffragists, and activists. She engaged in a shared domestic life—a living arrangement often characterized historically as a "Boston marriage"—sharing a Wellesley home with fellow English professor Etta Herr and the renowned pacifist, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and Wellesley economist Emily Greene Balch. Their shared household later welcomed educator Mabel Cummings. These domestic partnerships provided both personal companionship and a supportive network for women navigating professional life in higher education at a time when marriage often meant the end of an academic career.
Following her retirement as Professor Emeritus in 1944, Perkins spent her summers in upstate New York. It was during her final active years at Wellesley that she became a colleague of the famed author Vladimir Nabokov, who taught at the college in the 1940s. Although Nabokov initially referred to her in private correspondence as a representative of the conservative, spinsterish academic establishment, the two developed a warm friendship over the following decade. In 1952, Nabokov presented her with an inscribed first edition of his memoir, Conclusive Evidence, complete with a hand-drawn illustration of a butterfly.
Perkins passed away on December 27, 1959, at her home in Wellesley, Massachusetts, at the age of 84. She was buried in Riverview Cemetery in Oxford, Chenango County, New York.
References:
 Improper Bostonians Lesbian and Gay Histor Paperback – January 1, 1998 by The History Project |
 In Adamless Eden: The Community of Women Faculty at Wellesley by Patricia Ann Palmieri |
Other references:
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