Degrees

Ph.D., Columbia University (1989)
B.A., University of Chicago (1967)

Teaching Interests

My teaching interests, like my research, began with and still embrace women's history and gender. I try to integrate both into my other interests, which include Colonial North America and the U.S. up to the Civil War, the Old South and African American and Native American history. Students in one of my history courses are working to improve selected Wikipedia articles. Recently, a colleague in Political Science and I have developed a course on human rights, which we introduce to students through its history, its evolving philosophy including critiques, and through case studies of activism and work in the field.

Awards and Honors

Whiting Travel Fellowship, 2012

Cullman Fellow, New York Public LIbrary, 2007--2008

Doshisha Lecturer, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan (2006)

Miner D. Crary Award, Amherst College (2000-2001)

Bunting Fellow, Radcliffe College (1995-1996)

Mellon Fellow, Society of Fellows in the Humanities, Columbia (1988-1990)

Lane Cooper Award, Columbia (1987-1988)

Mary Ellen Shimke Award, Wellesley College (1986-1987)

Presidential Fellow, Columbia (1985-88)

Boston Globe Annual Award for Louisa May Alcott (1977)

Scholarly and Professional Activities

Member, Authors' Guild

Member, PEN, Secretary of PEN Executive Board, 1986-1989

Member, PEN/Martha Albrand Award Committee, 1992

Member, Willie Lee Rose Prize Committee, 1996 (Southern Association for Women's Historians)

Member, Julia Spruill Prize Committee, 1999 (Southern Association for Women's Historians)

Member, Louis Pelzer Memorial Award Committee, AHA, 2005-6

Co-founder and co-editor of The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth, 2006

See also: Selected Publications and Research Interests