Alice Kessler-Harris (June 2, 1941, Leicester) is R. Gordon Hoxie Professor Emerita of American History at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, and former president of the Organization of American Historians, and specialist in the American

labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the la ...

and comparative and interdisciplinary exploration of

women A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardl ...

and

gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures ...

Education

Kessler-Harris received her

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

from

Goucher College Goucher College ( ') is a private liberal arts college in Towson, Maryland. It was chartered in 1885 by a conference in Baltimore led by namesake John F. Goucher and local leaders of the Methodist Episcopal Church.https://archive.org/details/h ...

in 1961 and her Ph.D. from

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...

in 1968.

Career

She contributed the piece "Pink Collar Ghetto, Blue Collar Token" to the 2003 anthology '' Sisterhood Is Forever: The Women's Anthology for a New Millennium'', edited by

Robin Morgan Robin Morgan (born January 29, 1941) is an American poet, writer, activist, journalist, lecturer and former child actor. Since the early 1960s, she has been a key radical feminist member of the American Women's Movement, and a leader in the ...

. Her newest book, ''A Difficult Woman: The Challenging Life and Times of

Lillian Hellman Lillian Florence Hellman (June 20, 1905 – June 30, 1984) was an American playwright, prose writer, memoirist and screenwriter known for her success on Broadway, as well as her communist sympathies and political activism. She was blacklisted aft ...

'', was published in June 2012. Her other books include ''Gendering Labor History'', which collects some of her best-known essays on women and wage work; ''In Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men, and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in Twentieth Century America'', which won several prizes including the

Joan Kelly Joan Kelly, also known as Joan Kelly-Gadol (March 29, 1928 – August 15, 1982) was a prominent American historian who wrote on the Italian Renaissance, specifically on Leon Battista Alberti. Among her best known works is the essay "Did Wom ...

Prize, the Philip Taft award, and the

Bancroft Prize The Bancroft Prize is awarded each year by the trustees of Columbia University for books about diplomacy or the history of the Americas. It was established in 1948, with a bequest from Frederic Bancroft, in his memory and that of his brother, ...

. Among her other fellowships and awards, Kessler-Harris has been a fellow at the

National Humanities Center The National Humanities Center (NHC) is an independent institute for advanced study in the humanities. The NHC operates as a privately incorporated nonprofit and is not part of any university or federal agency. The center was planned under the auspi ...

in Durham, North Carolina and at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She is the past president of the

Labor and Working-Class History Association The Labor and Working-Class History Association (LAWCHA) is a non-profit association of academics, educators, students, and labor movement and other activists that promotes research into and publication of materials on the history of the labor move ...

Selected works

Books

* ''Women Have Always Worked: A Historical Overview'' (1981) * ''Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States'' (1982) * ''A Woman's Wage: Historical Meanings and Social Consequences'' (1990) * ''In Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in Twentieth Century America'' (2001) * ''Gendering Labor History'' (2007) * ''A Difficult woman: The Challenging Life and Times of Lillian Hellman'' (2012)

References

External links