Partner Margaret Pollock Sherwood

Queer Places:
Wellesley College (Seven Sisters), 106 Central St, Wellesley, MA 02481
Vassar College (Seven Sisters), 124 Raymond Ave, Poughkeepsie, NY 12604
Yale University (Ivy League), 38 Hillhouse Ave, New Haven, CT 06520
7 Midland Rd, Wellesley, MA 02482, USA
Pine Hill Cemetery, 131 Central Ave, Dover, NH 03820, United States

Martha Hale Shackford (August 25, 1875 - January 11, 1963) was born on August 25, 1875, in Dover, New Hampshire, to Charles Burnham Shackford and Caroline Cartland Shackford. She grew up alongside two brothers, Samuel Burnham Shackford and Moses Austin Cartland Shackford. Her ancestry was deeply rooted in academic, intellectual, and moral leadership; her great-great-great-grandfather, Samuel Hale, graduated from Harvard in 1740 and served as master of the Latin Grammar School at Portsmouth, while both of her grandfathers were passionate abolitionists who operated Underground Railroad stations to assist enslaved individuals escaping to Canada.

Following her early education, Shackford attended Wellesley College, graduating with her bachelor's degree in 1896. She pursued advanced studies in English literature, traveling through England and Italy to study poetry and painting while gaining teaching experience at Vassar College. She subsequently earned her Ph.D. (Litt.D.) from Yale University in 1901. That same year, she returned to her alma mater, Wellesley College, as an instructor in English. Her academic career flourished rapidly as she was promoted to associate professor in 1905 and full professor in 1918.

During her decades at Wellesley, Shackford became a cornerstone of the English department and a prolific scholar. Over a career spanning more than six decades of publication, she produced over 150 written works, culminating in her 1958 book Talks on Ten Poets. Her impact on her students was profound; in her honor, the Class of 1914 established a professorship in English, and she was widely renowned for hosting annual June teas at her home near campus during college reunions. Beyond her teaching, Shackford was an active member of numerous scholarly and civic institutions, including Phi Beta Kappa, the Modern Language Association, the London Shakespeare Society, the Shakespeare Association of New York, the Modern Humanities Research Association, the New Hampshire Historical Society, the Norfolk Record Society, and the Audubon Society. She retired from teaching in 1943 after 42 years of service but remained an active writer and scholar until the final years of her life.

Shackford’s personal life was central to her identity and professional longevity. She was part of a significant cultural movement among late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century female academics who entered into long-term, domestic, and romantic partnerships with other women—often referred to at the time as "Wellesley marriages." In an era when marriage to a man almost universally required a woman to forfeit her career and financial independence, female professors constructed brilliant domestic solutions by choosing each other. These arrangements provided love, companionship, mutual support, and intellectual collaboration while allowing them to maintain their hard-won academic appointments. At institutions like Wellesley, Vassar, Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Columbia, and the University of Chicago, these partnerships were common; at Wellesley, virtually the entire English faculty lived in such pairings, including Katharine Lee Bates with Katharine Coman, and Vida Dutton Scudder with Florence Converse.

For Martha Shackford, this life partner was fellow Wellesley English professor and author Margaret Pollock Sherwood. The two women lived together for decades, traveled extensively throughout Europe, and shared a home at 7 Midland Road in Wellesley. Historical census records from 1910 through 1940 consistently record them residing in the same household, designated variously over the years as companions, partners, or joint heads of household. Their mutual commitment was evident in every aspect of their lives: they applied for passports together, designated each other in legal matters such as estate executorship, and actively supported each other's academic endeavors. In 1953, Sherwood established the Martha Hale Shackford Scholarship at Wellesley College to honor her partner’s legacy.

When Shackford turned 85 in 1960, 85 of her friends, colleagues, and former students gathered to honor her with a dedicated book of her poetry, celebrating her as an incomparable friend, poet, and creative scholar. Martha Hale Shackford passed away at her home on January 11, 1963, at the age of 87. Her funeral was conducted by Professor Herbert M. Gale at the Waterman Chapel in Wellesley, and she was laid to rest alongside her family at Pine Hill Cemetery in Dover, New Hampshire. Through both her scholar-teacher legacy and her life with Margaret Sherwood, Shackford helped claim a permanent foothold for women in higher education.

References:


To Believe In Women: What Lesbians Have Done For America - A History – A Compelling Landmark Account of 19th and 20th Century Rights
by Lillian Faderman
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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