Alice Huntington Bushee

Bushee was born on December 4, 1867 in Worcester, Massachusetts.[1] She grew up in Morrisville, Vermont.[2] Bushee graduated from the Peoples Academy in 1886.[2] In 1891, she graduated from Mount Holyoke College.[1] She was the class valedictorian.[3]

After graduation, Bushee taught in schools in the United States.[4]

In 1893, she traveled to Europe to be a missionary where she was slated to work in San Sebastian.[4][5] In San Sebastian, she worked as a librarian, math teacher and Spanish literature teacher at the International Institute for Girls in Spain (IIGS).[4] In 1904, she organized the IIGS.[4] When her father died in 1907, Bushee returned to the United States.[4]

Bushee graduated with a master's degree in Spanish from Boston University in 1909.[4] She became a Spanish teacher at Wellesley College in 1911.[4] Bushee published Fundamentals of Spanish Grammar in 1917 which was praised by Hispania as "nothing quite like it in modern language grammars published in this country."[6] The grammar book used a deductive method of language instruction.[6] In 1931, she became the Helen J. Sanborn Chair of Spanish literature at Wellesley.[4] Other accomplishments include recovering a "lost" volume of the book, The Sucesos of Mateo Alemán, which helped fill in missing history about Mateo Alemán's life in Mexico.[7] Hispanic Review called Bushee an early pioneer in Hispanic studies in the United States.[8] She published Three Centuries of Tirso de Molina in 1939 about theater of writer, Tirso de Molina.[8] She later published a study about de Molina called La prudencia en la mujer in 1948.[8]

In 1936, Bushee retired to live with her family in Rhode Island.[4] Bushee died on April 28, 1956 in Woonsocket in the hospital after an illness.[1][8]

• Bushee papers
• The Fundamentals of Spanish Grammar
• Find-a-Grave Memorial