Matilda White Riley papers

Matilda White was born in Boston on April 19, 1911. She attended Brunswick High School in Maine, where she met her future husband John Riley, Jr. They married in 1931 and had two children. Throughout her career, she often collaborated with her husband and co-authored papers together.

Matilda White Riley earned a bachelor’s degree in 1931 and a master’s degree in 1937, both from Radcliffe College. Her varied career began in 1933 when she became a research assistant at Harvard University. From 1939 till 1949 she was a researcher and executive at the Market Research Company of America, a firm she established with her father. During that period (1942-1944) she also worked for the U.S. War Production Board as a consulting economist. In 1950 she joined the faculty of Rutgers University, where she remained till 1973. She then became the first woman full professor at Bowdoin College, serving until 1981. She built a modern sociology-anthropology department at Bowdoin College and was named the Daniel B. Fayerweather Professor of Political Economy and Sociology in 1975; in 1996 the building housing the department was named in her honor.

In 1979, at the age of 68, she joined the NIH’s National Institute on Aging, retiring in 1998. Riley was a pioneering figure in the field of sociology. Riley had a long academic and research career, publishing sixteen books independently and in conjunction with other scientists. Later in her career, Riley focused her attention on gerontology and was a leading figure on work involving age stratification. She conducted scientific research on the issue, and her work challenged the stereotype of aging as an irreversible biological phenomenon, bringing attention to the psychological and sociological complexities of the process. Riley also served as president of the American Sociological Association (1985) and was elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1994). On May 8, 1996, the Matilda White Riley House was dedicated in her honor as part of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Bowdoin College. The National Institute of Health’s Matilda White Riley Early Stage Investigator Honors program and Matilda White Riley Lecture and Award in the Behavioral and Social Sciences both honor Riley’s work in the field of sociology and aging studies.

Matilda White Riley died on November 14, 2004 in Brunswick, Maine.