Mary Elizabeth Grenander (21 November 1918 – 28 May 1998), was a professor of English and philanthropist, for whom the M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections & Archives of the University Libraries of the University at Albany, the State University of New York is named. She was an authority on Ambrose Bierce.
Grenander was born in Rewey, Wisconsin. She served in the U.S. Navy during the Second World War. She received an AB (1940), AM (1941), and PhD (1948) from the University of Chicago, each in English. Grenander taught at the State University of New York at Albany from 1948 until her retirement as Distinguished Service Professor of English in 1989. She directed the university's Institute of Humanistic Studies from 1977 to 1980.
She and her second husband, James Corbett (a professor of physics at SUNY), prospered through long-term investment in the stock market, and she was able to contribute $1 million to SUNY in his memory after his death in 1994.
Grenander died in East Berne, New York, at 79 years of age.
External links
“About M.E. Grenander” at the M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives New York Times obituary (as transcribed at szasz.com) “Obituary — M. E. Grenander” at albany.edu
Writers from New York (state) 1918 births 1998 deaths American academics of English literature University of Chicago alumni 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American philanthropists University at Albany, SUNY faculty United States Navy personnel of World War II