Birthday profile

Jill Ker Conway

Jill Ker Conway, Australian historian and author (died 2018)

Born
October 9, 1934
Died
June 1, 2018
Zodiac sign
Libra
Birth year
1934

About Jill Ker Conway

Jill Ker Conway was an Australian-American scholar and author. Well known for her autobiographies, in particular her first memoir, The Road from Coorain, she also was Smith College's first woman president (1975–1985) and most recently served as a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2004 she was designated a Women's History Month Honoree by the National Women's History Project. She was a recipient of the National Humanities Medal. Ker Conway was also the first female Chairman of Lendlease. In 1975, Ker Conway became the first female president of Smith College, the largest women's college in the United States. Ker Conway started writing her first memoir after leaving Smith College, during her period at MIT. Conway took a keen interest in fundraising and under her presidency the endowment nearly tripled from $82 million to $222 million.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Jill Ker Conway was born

Jill Ker Conway was born in 1934. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1934

  • #1 song"Stars Fell on Alabama"
  • Top movieIt Happened One Night
  • Best-selling bookTender Is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentFirst Masters Tournament held at Augusta National
  • Top headlineFBI kills John Dillinger outside a Chicago theater
  • Technology milestoneFirst streamlined passenger train (Burlington Zephyr)
  • Defining fadShirley Temple mania
  • Notable inventionLaundromat
  • World population2.20 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderFranklin D. Roosevelt
  • Sports championSt. Louis Cardinals (World Series)
  • U.S. population126.4M

1934 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Jill Ker Conway's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19342026
Gas$0.19$3.45/gal
Average home$4,900$435,000
Average income$2,500$67,500
Minimum wage$0.25$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.20$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population126.4M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.