Harvard had a brand-new $250,000 chair in anything-at-all on one brand-new condition: a woman had to sit in it. The gift, with string attached, came from United Fruit Co.'s President Samuel Zemurray, no Harvardman himself. A committee of Harvard professors, representing departments from fine arts to physics, solemnly scoured all available corridors of learning for a suitable candidate. They finally found her in England: Dr. Helen Maud Cam, 62, a tweedy, vigorous history don at Cambridge (her specialty: medieval local government). She would be the first woman professor of arts & sciences in Harvard's 312 years.
Until she was 19, Helen Maud...
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