Jill Ker Conway | Women’s History, Autobiography, Education
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Jill Ker Conway was an Australian-born American scholar, the first woman president of Smith College (1975–85), whose research as a historian focused on the role of feminism in American history. Jill Ker grew up in Coorain, a remote grasslands locale where her parents ran a sheep ranch. After her
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Encyclopedia Britannica
Jill Ker Conway (born October 9, 1934, Hillston, New South Wales, Australia—died June 1, 2018, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.) was an Australian-born American scholar, the first woman president of Smith College (1975–85), whose research as a historian focused on the role of feminism in American history.

Jill Ker grew up in Coorain, a remote grasslands locale where her parents ran a sheep ranch. After her father’s unexpected death, her mother moved the family to Sydney. Ker was educated at Abbotsleigh, a private girls’ school, and at the University of Sydney, where she took an honours degree in history in 1958. Two years later, after her rejection by the Australian foreign service on the basis of her sex, she immigrated to the United States for graduate work.

While earning her doctorate at Harvard University (Ph.D., 1969), she met and married John Conway. The Conways then moved to Toronto. There she taught 19th- and 20th-century American history at the University of Toronto, where she also became one of five vice presidents of the university. In 1975 Conway became the first woman president of Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, a position she held for a decade. In 1985 she became a visiting scholar and professor in the Science, Technology, and Society program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.