Sophie Kerr collection

Sophie Kerr (1880-1965) was born August 23 in Denton, Maryland. She graduated Denton High School in 1895 and then received her bachelor’s degree from Hood College and her master’s from University of Vermont. In 1904 she married John DeLoss Underwood, a civil engineer, but the pair divorced four years later. Kerr supported herself by working as a women’s page editor in Pittsburgh for The Chronicle Telegraph and The Pittsburgh Gazette. She then moved to New York and became the managing editor of The Woman’s Home Companion. Here she began her career writing fiction, she worked from 1920 until her death in 1965; she wrote numerous books and short stories on topics of class and gender issues in the first half of the 20th century. In 1945 Washington College awarded her an honorary degree, along with Eleanor Roosevelt, in honor of the 50th anniversary of co-education at Washington College. Upon her death she donated the bulk of her estate with the stipulation that half its income be awarded annually to a senior showing “the most ability and promise for future fulfillment in the field of literary endeavor.”