Agnes E. Wells

Agnes Ermina Wells, Ph.D. (January 4, 1876 – July 6, 1959) was an American educator and a women's equal rights movement activist. She was Dean of Women at Indiana University and professor of mathematics and astronomy there.

Early life and education Wells was born in Saginaw, Michigan, on January 4, 1876, to Edgar S. and Julia H. Comstock Wells.

She attended the Arthur Hill High School Wells spent another year in Dresden, Germany, where she studied the German language and music. She studied at Bryn Mawr College before transferring to the University of Michigan, where she studied mathematics and graduated in 1903 with a Bachelor of Arts. In 1916, she earned her Master of Arts degree from Carleton College in Minnesota, where her field of study was astronomy. and that year also began to teach astronomy courses. She retired as the dean of women in 1938, and she taught mathematics and astronomy at the university from that point until 1944.

For the American Association of University Women, she established a fellowship fund in the amount of $1 million.

Notable leadership positions she held were chairman of the National Woman's Party, president of the Michigan Society, president of the American Association of Deans of Women, first vice president of the American Association of University Professors, state president and national vice president of the American Association of University Women, and president of the Indiana State Federation of Business and Professional Women.

Under Wells' authority, the National Woman's Party fought for a revision of the Nineteenth Constitutional Amendment. This revision was that “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. Congress and the several states shall have power, within their respective jurisdictions, to enforce this article by appropriate legislation”.

Personal life She lived with a woman named Lydia Woodbridge, a teacher at Indiana University, who was identified as Well's partner in Bloomington, Indiana. Woodbridge was assistant dean of woman and a professor of French. When Wells retired as dean, Woodbridge also stepped down as assistant dean and devoted her efforts towards teaching French. Woodbridge died on July 28, 1946, in Bloomington, Indiana, at the age of 70. Soon after her death, Wells wrote in a letter to Anita Pollitzer, an acquaintance in the Party, that her “friend of 41 years and house-companion for 28 years” had just died.

In her later years, she lived with her sister Florence Wells in Saginaw, Michigan.

Selected published works Wells, Agnes E. A Study of the Relative Proper Motions and Radial Velocities of Stars in the Pleiades Group, University of Michigan, 1924.