Florence Howe
| Florence Howe | |
|---|---|
Florence Howe
|
|
| Born |
Florence Rosenfeld March 17, 1929 Brooklyn, New York |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts |
| Academic work | |
| Main interests | Feminist author, publisher, literary scholar and historian |
Florence Rosenfeld Howe (born March 17, 1929), is an American author, publisher, literary scholar and historian who is considered a leader of the contemporary feminist movement.
Born in Brooklyn, New York on March 17, 1929, Florence was the daughter of Samuel and Frances Stilly Rosenfeld. Florence loved learning from a young age. Her mother, Frances, a bookkeeper, encouraged her daughter to follow a teaching career.
In 1946, at age 16, Howe entered Hunter College High School. She was one of only five young women from Brooklyn to do so. In 1949, she was awarded entrance to Phi Beta Kappa, the elite academic organization which commends superlative academic achievement. Various people in power encouraged her to take graduate courses in literature and to become a college professor. After receiving a BA in English in 1950 from Hunter College, Howe entered Smith College and earned an MA in English in 1951. She was awarded an honorary doctorate by DePauw University in 1987.
She taught black children in a Mississippi freedom school during 1964 and chaired the Modern Language Association commission on the Status of Women in the Profession. In 1967, she signed a public statement declaring her intention to refuse to pay income taxes in protest against the U.S. war against Vietnam. Howe also founded The Feminist Press in 1970, "an educational nonprofit organization founded to advance women's rights and amplify feminist perspectives", the organization had published three books by 1973.
The Florence Howe Award for feminist scholarship of the Women's Caucus for the Modern Languages is named in her honor.
She contributed the piece "The Proper Study of Womankind: Women's Studies" to the 2003 anthology Sisterhood Is Forever: The Women's Anthology for a New Millennium, edited by Robin Morgan.
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