Dorothy Schurman Hawes (December 19, 1905 – July 24, 1977) was an American writer. Her father,

Jacob Gould Schurman Jacob Gould Schurman (May 2, 1854 – August 12, 1942) was a Canadian-born American educator and diplomat, who served as President of Cornell University and United States Ambassador to Germany. Early life Schurman was born at Freetown, Prince Ed ...

, was the United States minister to China in the 1920s, and her first husband, James M. McHugh, was an American intelligence officer in China. She wrote ''To the Farthest Gulf: The Story of the American China Trade'' (1941).

Early life

Dorothy Schurman was born in

Ithaca, New York Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca is the seat of Tompkins County and the largest community in the Ithaca metropolitan statistical area. It is named a ...

, the youngest daughter of Jacob Gould Schurman and Barbara Forrest Munro Schurman. Her parents were both born in Canada; her father was an American diplomat, and third president of

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

. She graduated from Rosemary Hall School in Connecticut and attended

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh: ) is a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of elite, historically women's colleges in the United St ...

. She left Bryn Mawr after two years, to help her mother with social duties at the American embassies in Beijing and Berlin.

Career

Schurman lived with her parents in China, and moved with them to Berlin in 1925, when her father was American ambassador to Germany. She was living in China again in 1931. Hawes wrote a series of articles about the trade history between the United States and China for the

Essex Institute The Essex Institute (1848–1992) in Salem, Massachusetts, was "a literary, historical and scientific society." It maintained a museum, library, historic houses; arranged educational programs; and issued numerous scholarly publications. In 1992 th ...

, based on ships' logs and other primary sources archived in Massachusetts, and compiled the series into a book, ''To the Farthest Gulf: The Story of the American China Trade'' (1941). Schurmans1925

Personal life and legacy

Dorothy Schurman married three times. She married U.S. Marine Corps officer James Marshall McHugh in 1926, in Germany. They had two sons, James Jr. and George, and divorced in 1940. She married attorney Robert Nicholas Hawes in 1940, as his second wife; they had a daughter, Nicole, and divorced in 1946. Soon after her second marriage began, she was fined for

driving while intoxicated Driving under the influence (DUI)—also called driving while impaired, impaired driving, driving while intoxicated (DWI), drunk driving, operating while intoxicated (OWI), operating under the influence (OUI), operating vehicle under the infl ...

in Missouri. She married James Strother Sisk; they had a daughter, Suzanne, born in 1949. She was widowed when James Sisk died in 1970; she died in 1977, aged 71 years, in

Purcellville, Virginia Purcellville is a town in Loudoun County, Virginia. The population was 8,929 according to the 2020 Census. Purcellville is the major population center for Western Loudoun and the Loudoun Valley. Many of the older structures remaining in Purcellvil ...

. Dorothy Schurman Hawes' book, ''To the Farthest Gulf'', was reissued in 1990, and is still cited by scholars, and found on suggested reading lists for the topic.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hawes, Dorothy Schurman 1905 births 1977 deaths People from Ithaca, New York 20th-century American women writers Bryn Mawr College alumni American expatriates in China