Neilson, Nellie (1873–1947)

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Neilson, Nellie (1873–1947)

American historian and the first woman president of the American Historical Association. Born on April 5, 1873, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; died on May 26, 1947, in South Hadley, Massachusetts; daughter of William George Neilson (a metallurgical engineer) and Mary Louise (Cunningham) Neilson; Bryn Mawr College, A.B., 1893, M.A., 1894, Ph.D., 1899.

Taught at Mt. Holyoke College, Massachusetts (1902–39), and chaired history department (1903–39); awarded honorary doctorates from Smith College (1938) and Russell Sage (1940); became president of the American Historical Association (1943).

A dedicated and meticulous scholar, Nellie Neilson was born in Philadelphia in 1873, the eldest of six children. She majored in Greek and English at the newly founded Bryn Mawr College, near her hometown, graduating in 1893, and by 1899 had also earned an M.A. and a Ph.D. in history from Bryn Mawr. From 1897 to 1902, she taught in Philadelphia.

In 1902, Neilson transferred to Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts, where she worked first as a history instructor, then as a professor of European history, and, from 1905, as a professor of history. As chair of the college's history department from 1903 to 1939, she helped to create a robust department and an impressive specialized library. She found history an adventurous subject, "to be loved and cultivated for its own sake," and was a tireless researcher who ardently promoted the importance of honors and graduate work.

In 1898, Neilson had published her doctoral dissertation, Economic Conditions on the Manors of Ramsey Abbey. Continuing to write academic articles and books during summers and leaves of absence, she crossed the Atlantic repeatedly, even during World War I, to study historical records in England. She primarily concerned herself with medieval English economic, legal, and agrarian history, and became known in both Great Britain and the United States as a respected authority on those subjects. She was admired for her ability to fuse scholarship and teaching, and to support general historical concepts with impeccable detail. Among the other publications she either wrote or edited were A Terrier of Fleet, Lincolnshire, from a Manuscript in the British Museum (1920), The Cartulary and Terrier of the Priory of Bilsington, Kent (1928), Year Books of Edward IV (1931), and Medieval Agrarian Economy (1936), designed for use as a college text.

Neilson was an active member of several professional organizations in her field, including the Royal Historical Society, and fully cognizant of her part in the struggle of women scholars to gain respect for their achievements. She was the first woman to publish a volume in the "Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History" series (Customary Rents, 1910), and to edit a yearbook of the Selden Society. She was also the first woman to publish an article in the Harvard Law Review and to be elected as a fellow of the Mediaeval Academy of America. After serving on the council and board of editors of the American Historical Association, and as its vice president, in 1943 Neilson became its first woman president.

A great lover of the outdoors who enjoyed climbing in the Adirondack mountains, horseback riding, and ice skating, Neilson was also an early aficionado of skiing. When a heart attack in 1925 hindered her active lifestyle, she learned to drive and often toured the Connecticut Valley. Nellie Neilson died of cerebral arteriosclerosis in her home in South Hadley, Massachusetts, on May 26, 1947.