Family background, growing up in Indiana with her widowed mother and maternal grandparents; social and educational experiences in high school, college at Wellesley, diverse studies, teaching experiences at Mount Holyoke College; graduate study at Johns Hopkins University, Ph.D. 1917; work with Robert W. Wood, other faculty; career as professor of physics and Dean of students at Wellesley College, 1917-1954; studies at University of Manchester with William Bragg, 1924; comments on women physicists and on their status in general. Also prominently mentioned are: Joseph Ames, Mabel Chase, Dorothy Heyworth, Elizabeth Laird, and Louise McDowell.