Pound, Louise (1872–1958)

American scholar, teacher, and athlete who was an expert on her nation's speech and folklore. Born on June 30, 1872, in Lincoln, Nebraska; died on June 28, 1958, in Lincoln; middle of three children and older of two daughters of Stephen Bosworth Pound (a lawyer,district court judge, and state senator) and Laura (Biddlecombe) Pound; home schooled; attended the Latin School of the University of Nebraska, 1896–98; University of Nebraska, B.L., 1892, A.M., 1895; awarded Ph.D. in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1900; never married; no children.

Born in 1872 in Lincoln, Nebraska, which would be her lifelong home, Louise Pound was raised in a socially and culturally elite family. Her father Stephen Bosworth Pound, a lawyer, was also a district court judge and a state senator, and her mother Laura Biddlecombe Pound had been a teacher. All the Pound children were home schooled, as Laura believed the public schools inadequate. Louise did attend the preparatory Latin School of the University of Nebraska for two years before enrolling at the university. Her college career was notable for both her academic excellence and her extra-curricular activities; in addition to being class orator and poet, and associate editor of the college newspaper, Pound was the women's state tennis champion. Upon her graduation in 1892, she began her teaching career as an English fellow at the university.

Between teaching and earning her master's degree, Pound continued her athletics, winning a series of "century runs" (cycling 100 miles in 12 hours) and playing on the women's basketball team, for which she served variously as coach and team captain. She also continued to play tennis and was a ranking golfer and figure skater as well. (She gave up tennis in her 80s, she said, only because her bifocals created havoc with her ground stroke.) After earning her master's degree, she spent two summers at the University of Chicago, then went off to obtain her Ph.D. in Germany, completing her courses in two semesters, instead of the usual seventeen.

In 1900, Pound returned to the University of Nebraska, where she remained for the next 45 years, becoming a full professor in 1912. She taught a wide range of subjects and was remembered as an inspiring teacher whose interest in her students continued long after they graduated. In addition to her heavy teaching load, Pound accomplished an enormous amount of scholarly research, much of it on the origin of ballads (Poetic Origins and the Ballad [1921]). A major contribution was her scholarly study of American speech and folklore, including etymology and modern changes in the English language as spoken in the United States. Considered pioneering at the time, this work was recorded in part in American Speech, a journal Pound founded and served as senior editor. Much of her study of folklore also resulted in publications, among them Folk-Song of Nebraska and the Central West: A Syllabus (1915) and Nebraska Folklore (published posthumously in 1959). Pound was honored for her work in 1955, when she was elected as the first woman president of the Modern Language Association. That same year, she also became the first woman elected to the Nebraska Sports Hall of Fame. "First woman again,—Life has its humors," the 82-year-old wrote to a friend.

Pound, who never married, lived her entire life in her family home, a large Victorian house in which she occupied a tower suite. An attractive woman with naturally red hair worn in braids wrapped around her head, she was known as a feisty individualist. She was an outspoken advocate of women's rights, particularly as they applied to education, and frequently addressed women's groups around the state. She also supported efforts to improve the status of women within the University of Nebraska. Louise Pound died of a heart attack in 1958, at age 85.

sources:

Sicherman, Barbara, and Carol Hurd Green, eds. Notable American Women: The Modern Period. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1980.

Barbara Morgan , Melrose, Massachusetts