Constance Mayfield Rourke

Constance Mayfield Rourke (born Nov. 14, 1885, Cleveland—died March 23, 1941, Grand Rapids, Mich., U.S.) was a U.S. historian who pioneered in the study of American character and culture. After earning an A.B. from Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, N.Y., (1907) and studying at the Sorbonne in Paris, Rourke taught English at Vassar. In 1915 she resigned, thereafter working as a research historian and free-lance writer devoted to defining the historical aspects of the American character through...