#emily jordan folger

Emily Jordan Folger (May 15, 1858 – February 21, 1936), was the wife of Henry Clay Folger and the co-founder of the Folger Shakespeare Library. During her husband’s lifetime, she assisted him in building the world’s largest collection of Shakespeare materials. After his death in 1930, she funded the completion of the Folger Shakespeare Library to house the collection, remaining involved with its administration until her death in 1936.

In 1932, she became the third woman to receive an honorary degree from Amherst College, following Mary Emma Woolley, president of Mount Holyoke College, in 1901; and Martha Dickinson Bianchi,editor of Emily Dickinson’s poems, in 1931.