BiographyEllen Churchill Semple was born on January 8, 1863, in Louisville, Kentucky. Her father owned a hardware store while her mother took care of Ellen and four, to six, of her siblings. As a child, books of history and travel cought her eye. She attended public and private schools untill the age of six teen when she went to college at Vassar College in Poughkeeepsie, New York. By the age of nineteen, she earned her bachelor's degree in history. Her studies in the Kentucky Highlands made her a well-know geographer. In 1904 she became one of 48 member of the Association of American Geographers. From 1904 to 1910 she was the editor of the journal of Geography. In 1906 she was recruited by the University of Chicago until 1924 and taught there every other year. In 1912 she taught geography at Oxford University and lectured at Wellesley College, the University of Chicago, Western Kentucky University, and UCLA over the next twenty years. During World War One she gave lectures to officers about the geography of the Italian front. In 1921 she was elected as the president of the Association of American Geographers and took the position as Professor of Anthropology at Clark University and stayed until death. She averaged one important paper or book each year. In 1923 she was awarded a Doctorate degree in Law and established the Ellen Churchill Semple Room to store he personal library. She had a heart attack in 1929 and died on May 8, 1932 in West Palm Beach and was buried in Louisville, Kentucky.
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http://earthscienceandgeography.vassar.edu/about/index.html
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