Mary McHenry


Mary Williamson McHenry is credited with bringing AfricanAmerican literature to Mount Holyoke College, where she is Emeritus Professor of English. McHenry also introduced her then student, the Pulitzer Prizewinning playwright SuzanLori Parks, to Five Colleges faculty member James Baldwin during the 1980s. Parks would later credit McHenry with her success.

McHenry was born Mary Elizabeth Williamson Murphy in Washington DC to Alphonso Williamson and Elizabeth Bennett Williamson . She graduated from Oakwood School in Poughkeepsie, New York in 1950, received her B.A. in English literature from Mount Holyoke College in 1954, her M.A. from Columbia University in 1960, and continued further graduate work at George Washington University from 19611964. McHenry also was married and divorced twice. Her first marriage was to Harry Saunders Murphy Jr. The couple married on July 31, 1954 and divorced around 1959. They had a son together. Three years later in 1962, she married Donald F. McHenry. Donald and Mary have two daughters together and later divorced on August 8, 1976. One of her daughters is named Elizabeth McHenry, a professor of English at New York University.

Source: Wikipedia


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