Olive Higgins Prouty

Olive Higgins Prouty, a novelist and author of Stella Dallas, became a friend and patron of Sylvia Plath after helping finance Plath’s education at Smith College. Her documented role is brief but consequential: a scholarship endowed by Prouty formed part of the support that enabled Plath to enter college and pursue her work as a writer.

Identity and Background

Prouty is identified as the novelist who wrote Stella Dallas. The account also describes her as a later friend and patron of Plath, placing her not only in the background of Plath’s education but within a continuing personal relationship. No further biographical details about Prouty are provided in the evidence.

Support for Plath’s Education

In September 1950, Plath entered Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, on two scholarships: one from the Wellesley Smith Club and another endowed by Prouty. The two awards formed distinct parts of the financial support behind Plath’s enrollment. Prouty’s contribution thus connects her literary identity to a practical act of sponsorship at the beginning of Plath’s college years.

Patronage and Significance

At Smith, Plath became a highly successful student, held class and college offices, served on the editorial board of The Smith Review, and published stories and poems in Seventeen. Prouty’s scholarship helped make that period possible, though the evidence does not attribute Plath’s later achievements to the award alone. The relationship instead illustrates a concrete form of literary patronage: an established novelist’s support helped a younger writer gain access to the education and opportunities through which her own literary work developed.