Agassiz, Elizabeth Cabot Cary

Agassiz, Elizabeth Cabot Cary ăgˈəsē [key], 1822–1907, American author and educator, b. Boston. In 1850 she married Louis Agassiz, and together they established the pioneering Agassiz School for girls in Boston (1856–65). She accompanied her husband on expeditions to Brazil (1865–66) and along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the Americas (1871–72). She was one of a group (along with Arthur Gilman and Alice Longfellow) influential in the founding of Radcliffe College, and was (1894–1903) its first president. Her writings include A Journey in Brazil (in collaboration with her husband, 1868); a biography of her husband (1885); and, with her stepson Alexander Agassiz, Seaside Studies in Natural History (1865).

See study by L. A. Paton (1919); L. Tharp, Adventurous Alliance (1959).

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