"What women who share in life and work can mean to the world": Edith Abbott and Sophonisba Breckinridge at the University of Chicago, 1903-1948

For more than forty years, Edith Abbott and Sophonisba Breckinridge—known as “A & B” on the University of Chicago campus—shared both their daily lives and their life work.  Reflecting on their relationship in 1948, one mutual acquaintance wrote:  “Your beautiful devoted friendship shines with a rare light, showing us what women who share in life and work can mean to the world.”

Breckinridge and Abbott’s long-term relationship was a remarkable partnership, advancing both women’s careers and activism as well as providing them with emotional sustenance and practical support.  Relying on their personal correspondence as well as the observations and reminiscences of their friends, family members, and co-workers, this paper explores the dynamics and the significance of this same-sex relationship from the women’s first meeting in 1903 to Breckinridge’s death in 1948.

 Breckinridge and Abbott’s personal relationship fostered their professional success and their political effectiveness, offering a case study of the importance of women’s relationships in the academy and beyond.  By engaging with scholarly literatures on women’s sexuality, higher education, and social reform, my investigation of Abbott and Breckinridge’s personal intimacy, professional collaboration, and political effectiveness highlights the multiple ways in which women’s relationships enriched their lives. This paper also explores the challenges confronted by women in the early twentieth-century U.S. as both popular and professional understandings of female sexuality shifted in profound ways.