[3] She was the daughter of Charles Butler Nicolson, editor-in-chief of the Detroit Free Press during World War I and later that paper's correspondent in Washington, DC, and Lissie Hope Morris.

[4] She taught first at the University of Michigan and was granted an assistant professorship before continuing her graduate study at Johns Hopkins College from 1923–1926.

During her time at Smith College, Nicolson was a strong ally of President Neilson and defender of women's right to have a real academic education.

Nicolson, or Miss Nicky, as she was intimately known by a few special students, became a much admired professor and scholar, who inspired many doctoral candidates while at Columbia.

She wrote throughout her life, and was awarded the British Academy Crawshay prize in 1947, for one of her early works, Newton Demands the Muse.

[5] She was the first woman to receive the Wilbur Cross Medal, an award for distinguished alumni of the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.