Ruth Putnam

Born in Yonkers, New York, in 1856, Ruth Putnam was raised in a prominent literary family as one of eleven children of the publisher George Palmer Putnam and his wife, Victorine Haven Putnam. She pursued higher education at Cornell University, earning her bachelor's degree in 1878, only five years after the institution graduated its very first female student. Putnam maintained a lifelong connection to Cornell, eventually serving the university as an alumni trustee.\n\nAs an author, Putnam specialized in historical scholarship. She was known for her meticulous research methodology, which involved consulting primary source materials in several languages, including Dutch, French, German, and English. Her linguistic skills and dedication to archival research allowed her to produce highly detailed historical narratives. Among her notable literary contributions was a biography of her eldest sister, Mary Corinna Putnam Jacobi, who was herself a pioneering physician and advocate for women's suffrage.\n\nIn addition to her academic and literary endeavors, Putnam was an active supporter of the women's suffrage movement, sharing this activist spirit with her sister. Her life and career bridged the worlds of historical scholarship, university governance, and social reform. She spent her later years in Europe, passing away in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1931.