In Memoriam: Karin Woodruff Jackson, 1940-2023

Karin Woodruff Jackson, a long-time educator who taught at several colleges and universities, died on October 15. She was 83 years old.

A native of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, she grew up in Canaan, Connecticut, where her parents, who were immigrants from Sweden, owned a limestone quarry. Jackson was a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, where she majored in English literature. After earning a master’s degree at Stanford University, Jackson taught at the American International School in Vienna, Austria, from 1965-1967.

In 1974, Jackson began teaching courses in women’s studies at the University of Southern Maine. She earned a second master’s degree in English at Tufts University in 1977, focusing on women writers. She then taught writing, English literature, and women’s studies at Westbrook College in Portland, Maine from 1979-1987. From 1988 until her retirement in 2008, Jackson taught college writing, literature, major women writers, and modern literature at the University of Maine at Augusta