Ellen churchill semple biography of mahatma

Born 8 January 1863, Louisville, Kentucky; died 11 May 1932, West Palm Beach, Florida

Daughter of Alexander and Emerine Price Semple

Ellen Churchill Semple was the daughter of a prosperous businessman.

In 1882 Semple graduated from Vassar College with a B.A. in history. She then taught in a private school in Louisville, and began work on her masters degree in history (Vassar, 1891). During this time, she came into contact with the writings of the renowned geographer Friedrich Ratzel, who coined the word "anthropogeography" to designate the study of the effect of the natural landscape on society.

In 1891 Semple went to Leipzig to study with Ratzel. Although women could not matriculate at Leipzig, Semple was permitted to listen to Ratzel's lectures from outside the open classroom door.

In "The Anglo-Saxons of the Kentucky Mountains" (Geographic Journal, 1901), Semple adds to a description of life in the isolated mountains of eastern Kentucky explan