Queer Places:
Radcliffe College, Harvard University (Ivy League), 2 Kirkland St, Cambridge, MA 02138
Bryn Mawr College (Seven Sisters), 101 N Merion Ave, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
University of Cambridge, 4 Mill Ln, Cambridge CB2 1RZ
University of Chicago, 5801 S Ellis Ave, Chicago, IL 60637, United States
British Cemetery, C. Comandante Fontanes, 7, Carabanchel, 28019 Madrid, Spain

Alice Bache Gould (January 5, 1868 – July 25, 1953) was born on January 5, 1868, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to the noted astronomer Benjamin Apthorp Gould and Mary Apthorp Quincy Gould. As a young child, she briefly lived in Córdoba, Argentina, where her father served as the head of the Argentine National Observatory, before returning to Cambridge in 1871 to live with relatives. Academically gifted, she began her higher education at the Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women (later Radcliffe College) in 1885 and subsequently attended Bryn Mawr College, graduating in 1889 as part of its second graduating class with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics. She pursued further advanced studies in mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Newnham College at the University of Cambridge, and later undertook graduate work at the University of Chicago under mathematician E.H. Moore. Though she taught mathematics for a time at Carleton College and worked with naval recruits during World War il, chronic health challenges and the death of her father prevented her from completing her doctoral dissertation.

Shifting her focus from mathematics to history and philanthropy, Gould traveled to Puerto Rico in 1903 to recover from an illness. There, she engaged deeply in social reform, helping establish the Porto Rico Teachers' Fund and raising money to support a nursing school. Her historical curiosities soon drew her to the study of Christopher Columbus and the colonization of the Americas. In 1911, she relocated to Spain, where she spent the remainder of her life immersed in archival research, most notably at the Archivo de Simancas. During World War I, she briefly returned to the United States and volunteered for war work, and also served at the American Embassy in Madrid. Her meticulous archival investigations culminated in the most exhaustive and definitive biographical compilation of the crew members aboard Columbus's first voyage. Her scholarship earned her high international acclaim; in 1942, she became the sole female corresponding member of the Real Academia de la Historia (Spanish Royal Academy of History), and she was honored with the Order of Isabella the Catholic in 1952. Gould never married, spent decades living and working independently abroad, and passed away on July 25, 1953, in Simancas, Spain.

References:


Improper Bostonians Lesbian and Gay Histor Paperback – January 1, 1998
by The History Project

Other references:

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