McGill Library
McLennan Library Building3459 rue McTavish
Montreal, Quebec
H3A 0C9
Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Clarke, Elizabeth Lawrence
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1893-1994
History
Elizabeth Lawrence Clarke was born on September 3, 1893, in Williamstown, Berkshire, Massachusetts, the daughter of Samuel Fessenden Clarke (1851-1928), a professor of natural sciences at Williams College and the founder of the American Society of Naturalists in the 1880s.
She was an American scientist. She became one of the few women scientists in the emerging field of agribusiness. After graduating from Smith College in 1916, she spent a year at the Massachusetts Agricultural College (now the University of Massachusetts Amherst). During World War I, she joined the Woman's Land Army. Discovering her passion for agriculture, she secured a position at Dimock Farms in Vermont, which later became the Dimock Potato Corporation. Clarke served as the chief inspector of seeds, and in 1929, she made history as the first woman field inspector for the Vermont Seed Potato Certificate Service.
She died on December 29, 1994, in Sarasota, Florida.