Margery Bailey
Margery Bailey (May 12, 1891 – June 17, 1963) was an English professor at Stanford University known for her work in literature and drama. She was born in Santa Cruz, California, and earned a bachelor’s degree at Stanford in 1914, a master’s in English in 1916, and a PhD from Yale in 1920. Bailey taught at Stanford from 1916 to 1963 and became the university’s first woman tenured professor in 1937, finally becoming a full professor in 1953. She is remembered as one of Stanford’s most celebrated teachers of the 1930s to the 1950s.
Her students included John Steinbeck, whom she encouraged to stay connected with Stanford, and Edith R. Mirrielees, another influential figure in his early development. Bailey was active in Stanford’s drama scene and played a key role in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, founded by her student Angus Bowmer, where she acted and directed. She built a large collection of Shakespeare books, which she donated to Southern Oregon University; the collection grew to more than 7,200 volumes, and she published Ashland Studies in Shakespeare in 1957.
In the mid-1930s she started the Stanford University Dramatists’ Alliance and helped launch a Shakespearian Festival in the San Francisco Bay Area. She wrote several children’s books illustrated by Alice Bolam Preston and edited James Boswell’s The Hypocondriac (1928). She also wrote an introduction for Boswell’s Column (1951). Bailey corresponded with many famous writers and public figures.
From 1939 to 1963 she lived with her partner, Dr. Margaret Lamson, in Palo Alto; their home is now a historic landmark. The Lamson family was involved in a notable local case, and Stanford colleagues helped overturn the verdict. Margery Bailey died in 1963 at age 72. Stanford honors her with the Margery Bailey Professorship in English; the Bailey Lounge in the university’s graduate housing and the Margery Bailey Renaissance Collection at Southern Oregon University remember her legacy.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 11:09 (CET).