Lily Bess Campbell
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lily Bess Campbell (June 20, 1883 – February 18, 1967) was an American educator and Shakespeare scholar. She was an English professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) from 1922 to 1950.
Campbell was born in Ada, Ohio,[1] and raised in Texas, the daughter of Zephaniah Beall Campbell and Anna Barrington Campbell. Her father was a Presbyterian minister. She graduated from the University of Texas in 1905,[2] and earned a master's degree there in 1906. She was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta at Texas.[3] She completed doctoral studies at the University of Chicago in 1921, encouraged by the example of Myra Reynolds.[4]
Career
Campbell taught English at the University of Wisconsin from 1911 to 1918, and worked for the YWCA as a regional executive secretary from 1918 to 1920. She was a professor of English at UCLA from 1922 to 1950. One of her students was choreographer Agnes De Mille.[5]

Campbell held a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1951.[6] She received an Achievement Award from the American Association of University Women in 1960,[7] and was named Woman of the Year by the Los Angeles Times in 1962. "She is erudite without being dull; profound without being solemn, and she frequently brings to bear a flashing and satirical wit," wrote Louis B. Wright of the Folger Shakespeare Library in describing Campbell. "Pompous dullards rarely escape unseared."[5]