Emily Vermeule (1928–2001)

Emily Dickinson Townsend was born in New York City and graduated from Brearley. She received her B.A. summa cum laude in Greek and philosophy from Bryn Mawr College in 1950, her M.A. in classical archaeology from Radcliffe in 1954, and her Ph.D. in Greek from Bryn Mawr in 1956. She won a Fulbright Scholarship in 1950, and attended the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Greece. As a Catherwood Fellow three years later, she studied at Oxford University. In 1957, she married Cornelius Clarkson Vermeule III, a fellow archeologist. During her Fulbright year, she discovered a Mycenean family tomb, and she would go on to become an expert in Mycenean culture. Greece in the Bronze Age (1964), her first book on Mycenean culture, was immediately recognized as a masterpiece on the subject and has remained a staple of college courses. Prof. Vermeule conducted numerous other excavations in Greece, Turkey, Libya, and Cyprus, often in the company of her husband. Her teaching career spanned 40 years and took her to Bryn Mawr, Wellesley, Boston University, and Harvard. In 1970, Prof. Vermeule became the Samuel Zemurray Jr. and Doris Zemurray-Stone Radcliffe Professor at Harvard, teaching in both the Classics and History of Art and Architecture Dpartments. Prof. Vermeule also wrote poetry, which appeared in The New Yorker and Poetry Magazine.