Mary Mackall "Mamie" Gwinn Hodder (February 2, 1860 – November 11, 1940) was an American educator. She taught at

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 Sta ...

, and was one of the founders of the

Bryn Mawr School Bryn Mawr School, founded in 1885 as the first college-preparatory school for girls in the United States, is an independent, nonsectarian all-girls school for grades PK-12, with a coed preschool. Bryn Mawr School is located in the Roland Park c ...

in Baltimore. Her relationships with M. Carey Thomas and

Alfred Hodder Alfred LeRoy Hodder (September 18, 1866 – March 3, 1907) was an American author, attorney, Bryn Mawr College professor, private secretary to Manhattan District Attorney William Travers Jerome, muckraking journalist, and voice of the Progress ...

were fictionalized in

Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West (Pittsburgh), Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, Calif ...

's short novel ''Fernhurst'' (1905).

Early life and education

Gwinn was born in Baltimore, the daughter of Charles John Morris Gwinn and Matilda Elizabeth Bowie Johnson Gwinn. Her father was a lawyer associated with

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consiste ...

. Her maternal grandfather,

Reverdy Johnson Reverdy Johnson (May 21, 1796February 10, 1876) was a statesman and jurist from Maryland. He gained fame as a defense attorney, defending notables such as Sandford of the Dred Scott case, Maj. Gen. Fitz John Porter at his court-martial, and Mary S ...

, was a senator, an ambassador, and

United States Attorney General The United States attorney general (AG) is the head of the United States Department of Justice, and is the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government of the United States. The attorney general serves as the principal advisor to the p ...

. Gwinn was the youngest founding member of the "Friday Night Club", a women's study group in Baltimore, together with

Mary Elizabeth Garrett Mary Elizabeth Garrett (March 5, 1854 – April 3, 1915) was an American suffragist and philanthropist. She was the youngest child and only daughter of John W. Garrett, a philanthropist and president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B. & O.).S ...

, Julia Rebecca Rogers, Bessie Tabor King, and M. Carey Thomas. The members founded the Bryn Mawr School in 1885, and ensured that women would be admitted to the medical school at Johns Hopkins in the 1890s. Gwinn and Thomas traveled and studied together in Europe from 1879 to 1883, in Leipzig and Zurich. Gwinn was granted a doctoral degree from Bryn Mawr in 1888.

Career

Gwinn taught English literature at Bryn Mawr College, and worked on a translation of ''

Beowulf ''Beowulf'' (; ang, Bēowulf ) is an Old English Epic poetry, epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 Alliterative verse, alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and List of translations of Beo ...

'', until she married a male colleague, writer Alfred Hodder, and moved to New York City.

Personal life and legacy

Gwinn was the partner of M. Carey Thomas for over 20 years. They lived together in the Deanery at Bryn Mawr, from the 1880s until 1904, when Gwinn married Alfred Hodder, former common-law husband of activist

Jessie Donaldson Hodder Jessie Donaldson Hodder (March 30, 1867 – November 19, 1931) was a women's prison reformer. Early life Jessie Donaldson was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her mother died when she was a toddler and her father, upon remarrying, gave her to his Scottis ...

, and moved to New York City. He died in 1907. Mamie Gwinn Hodder died in 1940, at the age of 80, in Princeton, New Jersey. The romantic entanglements of Thomas, Gwinn, Mary Elizabeth Garrett and the Hodders are fictionalized in Gertrude Stein's short novel ''Fernhurst'' (1905). The Mary Mackall Gwinn Hodder Fund at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the n ...

supports graduate students in the arts. Princeton also holds the Alfred and Mary Gwinn Hodder Papers.

References

External links

"The Bryn Mawr Scandal of 1904, with Marne Litfin"
''Research Hole Podcast'' (November 8, 2021); a podcast episode about Mamie Gwinn, M. Carey Thomas, and Mary Garrett {{DEFAULTSORT:Hodder, Mamie Gwinn 1860 births 1940 deaths Educators from Baltimore Bryn Mawr College alumni Bryn Mawr College faculty