Florence Fensham (May 25, 1861 – February 15, 1912)[1] was a suffragist and the first woman to receive a seminary degree from the Congregational Church.[2]
Fensham was born in New York.[3] Her parents were Lambert and Sarah Bartel Simmons.
She attended school in Edinburgh, Cambridge, and Oxford.[4] In Edinburgh, she studied under Patrick Geddes, and then she studied history in Cambridge with J. Rendel Harris.[5] She then began studying theology and missionary work at Mansfield College in Oxford.
On May 9, 1902, Fensham received a Bachelor of Divinity from the Fisk theological seminary in Chicago; this made her the first woman to receive a seminary degree from the Congregational Church.[6] The New York Times reported her achievement in an article entitled "Unusual Honor to a Woman".[7]
In 1883, Fensham became the dean of the American college for girls in Constantinople. Among other things, she taught Old Testament Literature at the college.[8]
Fensham became dean of the women's college at Beloit College.
She is an author of A Modern Crusade in the Turkish Empire, a book she wrote with Mary Ely Lyman and Mrs. H. B. Humphrey.[9]