Allison Stacey Cowles, Educational Advocate, Dies at 75
By JAMES BARRON
Published: April 25, 2010
Allison Stacey Cowles, a longtime trustee of Wellesley College who was the wife of a newspaper publisher in Spokane, Wash., and, after he died, of the former publisher of The New York Times, died Saturday night in Spokane, Wash. She was 75.
Colvin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review, via Associated Press
Allison Stacey Cowles in 1996.
The cause was pancreatic cancer, said her son, William Stacey Cowles.
Ms. Cowles was an influential advocate for educational and conservation programs, both in New York and in Washington State. But her ties to Wellesley were particularly strong. As a student there she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and was editor of The Wellesley News in 1955, the year she graduated.
As the Wellesley president Diana Chapman Walsh noted in 1999, Ms. Cowles inhabited the world of newspaper publishing for the rest of her life. Her first husband was William H. Cowles III, whose family owns The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash. He died in 1992.
Four years later she married Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, whose family controls The New York Times. He was publisher of the paper and chairman and chief executive of The New York Times Company; he is currently the company’s chairman emeritus.
When Ms. Cowles left Wellesley, she was set on becoming a history professor. She received a master’s degree in history from Radcliffe College and studied for a doctorate while Mr.