Miriam K. Slater *71

Miriam died June 25, 2025, in Northampton, Mass., at the age of 93.

Born in Brooklyn Aug. 22, 1931, she did her undergraduate work at Douglass College of Rutgers, graduating in 1963, and earned her Ph.D. in history from Princeton in 1971.

After Princeton, Miriam joined the faculty of Hampshire College, where she was named the Harold F. Johnson Professor and was the first master of Dakin House. Her teaching and research focused on the history of the family and women’s studies. In 1984, she published Family Life in the Seventeenth Century: The Verneys of Claydon House, which had been the subject of her doctoral dissertation.

With her close friend, Penina Glazer, and their colleague, Gayle Hollander, Miriam created the first interdisciplinary course in Women’s Studies in the Five Colleges. With Glazer, in 1987 she published Unequal Colleagues: The Entrance of Women into the Professions, 1890-1940.

In 1985, after leaving Hampshire, where a faculty development fund was established in her honor, Miriam joined the faculty of Smith College, where she remained until retiring.

Predeceased by her husband Paul, Miriam is survived by her children Margaret and Leo *97, and siblings Irene and Carl.

Graduate alumni memorials are prepared by the APGA.