26. Plath’s early academic career was supported by a wealthy and generous fellow female writer
After graduating high school, Plath won a scholarship to study at Smith College, a prestigious but expensive women-only liberal arts college in Massachusetts. Her scholarship was funded by Olive Higgins Prouty, a wealthy novelist and poet. Not only did she want to help “promising young writers” such as Plath, but she had also suffered from acute depression herself. Plath and Smith college were a natural fit. Despite her background, she excelled at the elite institution. As she wrote to her mother of her first year: “The world is splitting open at my feet like a ripe, juicy watermelon.”