Mildred Davis Harding

Background

Mildred Harding was born on October 2, 1916 in Jacksonville, Florida, United States. She is a daughter of Richard Brayton and Maude Davis.

Education

Mildred Harding attended Agnes Scott College and finished it with Bachelor of Arts degree in 1938. Also she finished Columbia University with Master of Arts degree in English and comparative literature and with Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1939. She attended University of Chicago taken post-Master’s studies in English from 1940 to 1942.

Career

Mildred Harding held the positions of an assistant professor of English in such universities and colleges as: Shurtleff College, American University, Queen Aliya College, Beirut College for Women, American University of Beirut, Shimer College, University of South Florida, University of Maryland, Keene State College, College of Boca Raton, University of Maryland. Also she was an adjunct teacher of English, Florida Junior College, humanities teacher in International Academy.

Mildred worked in Fishweir Elementary School as a cadet teacher during one year from 1933. After that she was a freelance editor also for one year from 1940. She held the position of English instructor in New Jersey College for Women (now Douglass College) from 1943 until 1944. During the next period of her life, she was an assistant book editor in Coronet in 1943.

Mildred Harding was a literature teacher in Stephens College from 1945 to 1946. In the same year she held the position of English instructor in Washington University and held it for 1947, she held the same post at Stetson University from 1950 to 1951.

The next year Mildred became an assistant professor of English at the American University and served there till 1954. In 1955 Mildred was an assistant professor of English in Queen Aliya College during two years. Harding had been working in each educational institution for 1 or years, so that she worked at the Beirut College for Women in Lebanon from 1956 to 1957. Also in 1956, she became an assistant professor of English at the American University of Beirut. In 1961 she changed her working place to the American University of Beirut where she stayed until 1962. From 1962 to 1967 she was an assistant professor of English at the University of South Florida. In 1966 she held the same post in Keene State College. And in 1969 Harding was a humanities teacher in the International Academy. From 1974 – 1976 she served as an associate professor of English and philosophy in the College of Boca Raton. The same year she became an adjunct teacher of English in the Florida Junior College till 1980. That year she chance her working post to become a teacher and program coordinator of English as a second language in the Lutheran Refugee Services for 2 years. From 1984 to 1985 she was an associate professor of English at the University of Maryland.

Achievements

• Harding made a great contribution to the educational process working in many schools. colleges and universities in different countries.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Air-Bird in the Water: The Life and Work of Pearl Craigie (John Oliver Hobbes)

    (This work rescues from undeserved neglect the American-bo...)

  • Waking up in egypt 1999

Views

Quotations: “Favorable response to that book has led me to further work (now in progress) on Craigie/Hobbes: an essay for Oxford University Press’s New Dictionary of National Biography, and research in two sources of information, in England, that were not available to me when I wrote the book.

“What next? Publication of an almost completed double autobiography, tentatively entitled Love, Mildred: Lloyd Houser’s memoirs woven around my letters to him. Probably also short stories, memoirs, and essays.

“My advice to aspiring writers? Don’t be obsessed by ‘the Market’! Feed on excellent writings; analyze the technique that makes them good. Live intensely; be (as Henry James put it) ‘one upon whom nothing is wasted.’ Trust your vision, write from your heart, rewrite with your head.”

Membership

• Phi Betta Kappa

• Eta Sigma Phi

Connections

Mildred married John Boman Adams, a professor of anthropology in 1939, but they divorced in 1963. After that she married Robert Douglas Harding, a yacht captain, in 1973. That couple also divorced in 1991. Finally she married Robert V. Frey, an insurance and investments, in 1991. She has 2 children: Branwen Adams Denton and John Brayton Adams.

Son:

Branwen Adams Denton

Son:

John Brayton Adams

1-st husband:

John Boman Adams

2-nd husband:

Robert Douglas Harding

3-rd husband:

Robert V. Frey