Julia Warner Snow joined Kappa Alpha Theta while she was undergraduate student at Cornell University.
Sigma Xi was founded at Cornell University in 1886. In 1888, Snow along with her fellow Theta, entomologist Anna Botsford Comstock, and a few other women inducted by the Cornell Chapter.
Snow earned a bachelor’s and Master’s degree at Cornell in 1888 and 1889, respectively. The May 28, 1889, issue of the Cornell Daily Sun listed the eight candidates who were taking exams for graduate degrees with this explanation:
The examinations for advanced degrees in the University will be held from June first to June sixth. As has been the custom, all examinations will be oral and will be conducted by a committee selected for each subject. All theses for advanced degrees must be presented and accepted before candidates can be admitted to the examinations.
Snow’s thesis dealt with the Diseases of the Strawberry Plant. In a time when fellowship opportunities were few and far between, she received the Women’s Education Association Fellowship (it later became known as the AAUW European Fellowship). The $500 fellowship helped her study in Switzerland and she earned her Ph.D. from the University of Zurich in 1892.
In 1902, she was hired by Smith College and she spent the rest of her life in Northampton, Massachusetts. Between her years at Cornell and Smith, she taught at Coates College in Terre Haute, Indiana, Rockford College in Illinois, and the University of Michigan.
She spent her life teaching, doing research and traveling around the world.
Snow bequeath 44 curios and articles to the Hillyer Art Gallery at Smith College.
