Perrin, Porter Gale (1896-1962) | Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Porter Gale Perrin was born on September 17, 1896 in Williamstown, VT. He was the son of Justus Newton Perrin Jr. (1863-1940), a clergyman, and Laura Athelia Gale (1864-1896), who died at the time of his birth. Perrin’s father married Gertrude Lilly Greeley (1863-1947) in 1898.

Perrin graduated with a BA from Dartmouth College in 1917, after which he worked as a history teacher at Provincetown High School in Provincetown, MA. In 1919, Perrin began working as an instructor of English at the University of Maine, where he earned an MA in 1921. He worked as an instructor at various institutions—including Northwestern University, Middlebury College, and University of Chicago—until 1929, when he accepted an assistant professorship at Colgate University. In 1947, Perrin resigned as head of the English Department at Colgate to work as a professor of English at the University of Washington, Seattle.

Perrin was a prominent member of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), serving as chairman of the College Section, the Committee on Current English Usage, and the Committee on Courses in Communication, as a founding member and assistant director of the Curriculum Commission, as both vice president and president (1946-1947), and later as a Trustee of the Research Foundation. Perrin was also a member of the Modern Language Association of America (MLA).

Perrin married Dorothy Louise Merchant (1897-1985), a scholar of geology and noted painter, on October 5, 1926. The couple shared three children. Perrin died on September 9, 1962 in Seattle, WA, and is buried in Riverside Cemetery in Hancock, ME.

“Deaths.” Dartmouth Alumni Magazine 55, no. 2 (November 1962): 93. https://archive.dartmouthalumnimagazine.com/article/1962/11/1/deaths.

“Dr. Porter Perrin Resigns Position.” The Mid-York Weekly, June 26, 1947. NYS Historic Newspapers.

Find a Grave. “Justus Newton Perrin.” Accessed October 8, 2026. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/201569965/justus-newton-perrin.

Find a Grave. "Porter Gale Perrin." Accessed October 8, 2026. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/242751729/porter-gale-perrin.

“Laura Gale Perrin, death record, 17 Sept. 1896.” New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, MA. Available in “Vermont, U.S. Vital Records, 1720-1908.” Ancestry.com.

“Porter Gale Perrin ('P G')." In Nineteen Seventeen: Dartmouth College, edited by Ralph Sanborn. Dartmouth College, 1927. Ancestry.com.

“Perrin, Porter Gale, 1896-1962.” Dartmouth Libraries Archives & Manuscripts, Hanover, NH. https://archives-manuscripts.dartmouth.edu/agents/people/1981.