Jane Ellen Harrison

Jane Ellen Harrison was a British classical scholar, linguist and feminist. Harrison is one of the founders, with Karl Kerenyi and Walter Burkert, of modern studies in Greek mythology. She applied 19th century archaeological discoveries to the interpretation of Greek religion in ways that have become standard. Contemporary classics scholar Mary Beard, Harrisons biographer, has described her as in a way ... first female professional career academic. Ellen Wordsworth Crofts, later second wife of Sir Francis Darwin was Jane Harrisons best friend from her student days at Newnham, and during the period from 1898 to her death in 1903.

Harrison was born in Cottingham, Yorkshire onSeptember 1850. Her mother died shortly after she was born and she was educated by a series of governesses. These governesses taught Harrison German, Latin, Ancient Greek and Hebrew, but she later expanded her knowledge to about sixteen languages, including Russian. Harrison spent most of her professional life at Newnham, the progressive, recently established college for women at Cambridge. At Newnham, one of her students was Eugenie Sellers, the writer and poet, with whom she lived in England and later in Paris and possibly even had a relationship with in the late 1880s. Between 1880 and 1897 Harrison studied Greek art and archaeology at the British Museum under Sir Charles Newton. Harrison then supported herself lecturing at the museum and at schools . Her lectures became widely popular and 1600 people ended up attending her Glasgow lecture on Athenian gravestones. She travelled to Italy and Germany, where she met the scholar from Pragu

Source: Wikipedia