Barbara Sicherman is an American historian and academic who specializes in

women's history Women's history is the study of the role that women have played in history and the methods required to do so. It includes the study of the history of the growth of woman's rights throughout recorded history, personal achievement over a period of ...

. She is the

William R. Kenan Jr. William Rand Kenan Jr. (April 30, 1872 – July 28, 1965) was an American chemist, engineer, manufacturer, dairy farmer, and philanthropist. Early life William Rand Kenan Jr. was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, on April 30, 1872., son of Willi ...

Professor of American Institutions and Values Emerita at

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

Hartford, Connecticut Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since the ...

Education

Sicherman earned her B.A. from

Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeduca ...

and her M.A. and Ph.D. from

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 ...

Career

Sicherman was a professor at Trinity College from 1982 through 2005. She taught courses on women's history,

American culture The culture of the United States of America is primarily of Western, and European origin, yet its influences includes the cultures of Asian American, African American, Latin American, and Native American peoples and their cultures. The U ...

, and

women's studies Women's studies is an academic field that draws on feminist and interdisciplinary methods to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining social and cultural constructs of gender; systems of privilege and oppress ...

. She helped establish Trinity's Women's Studies Program and was involved in efforts to increase faculty diversity. Sicherman is a specialist in women's history and has conducted research on topics such as medical and

psychiatric history A psychiatric history is the result of a medical process where a clinician working in the field of mental health (usually a psychiatrist) systematically records the content of an interview with a patient. This is then combined with the mental sta ...

, women's biography, and the role of reading in women's lives. She is the author of several books, including ''Alice Hamilton: A Life in Letters'', ''Well-Read Lives: How Books Inspired a Generation of American Women'', and ''The Quest for Mental Health in America, 1880-1917''. She is also a co-editor of the biographical dictionary ''Notable American Women: The Modern Period''. Sicherman has published articles and chapters on a variety of topics, including

reproductive rights Reproductive rights are legal rights and freedoms relating to reproduction and reproductive health that vary amongst countries around the world. The World Health Organization defines reproductive rights as follows: Reproductive rights rest on t ...

and women's reading habits. She was a Bunting Fellow at Radcliffe from 1973 to 1974, and a Guggenheim fellow in 1996. She served on the board of the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center for many years and was a volunteer tutor at Literacy Volunteers of Greater Hartford.

Selected works

Books

* Alice Hamilton: A Life in Letters. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984; reissued by University of Illinois Press, 2003. * Well-Read Lives: How Books Inspired a Generation of American Women. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010. * The Quest for Mental Health in America, 1880–1917. New York: Arno Press, 1980. * Notable American Women: The Modern Period, ed. with Carol Hurd Green. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sicherman, Barbara 20th-century American historians 21st-century American historians American women historians Columbia University alumni Swarthmore College alumni Trinity College (Connecticut) faculty Living people Year of birth missing (living people)