Patricia Nelson Limerick (born May 17, 1951) is an American

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

, author, lecturer and teacher, considered to be one of the leading historians of the

American West The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the Wes ...

Early life and education

Limerick is the daughter of Grant and Patricia Nelson and was born and raised in

Banning, California Banning is a city in Riverside County, California, United States. The population was 29,505 as of the 2020 census, down from 29,603 at the 2010 census. It is situated in the San Gorgonio Pass, also known as ''Banning Pass''. It is named for Ph ...

. She received a B.A. in

American studies American studies or American civilization is an interdisciplinary field of scholarship that examines American literature, history, society, and culture. It traditionally incorporates literary criticism, historiography and critical theory. Schol ...

in 1972 at the

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the ed ...

, and a Ph.D. in American studies in 1980 at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...

Career

Limerick taught at

as a graduate teaching assistant, where she helped teach the highly regarded "daily themes" class. She was then an assistant professor of history at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

from 1980 to 1984, when she joined the

University of Colorado at Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado sy ...

. Limerick became a tenured Associate Professor of History in 1987 and a Full Professor in 1991. She was also chair of the Board of the Center of the American West. She was president of the

Organization of American Historians The Organization of American Historians (OAH), formerly known as the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, is the largest professional society dedicated to the teaching and study of American history. OAH's members in the U.S. and abroad inc ...

(2014) and is a former president of the

American Studies Association The American Studies Association (ASA) is a scholarly organization founded in 1951. It is the oldest scholarly organization devoted to the interdisciplinary study of U.S. culture and history. The ASA works to promote meaningful dialogue about t ...

(1996–1997) and the

Western History Association The Western History Association (WHA), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, was founded in 1961 at Santa Fe, New Mexico by Ray Allen Billington et al. Included in the field of study are the American West and western Canada. The Western History A ...

(2000). Limerick is known for her 1987 book ''The Legacy of Conquest'', which is part of a body of historical writing sometimes known as the

New Western History The "new western history" movement emerged among professional historians in the 1980s, a belated manifestation of the 1970s "new social history" movement. The new western historians recast the study of American frontier history by focusing on race, ...

. Her essay on the

Modoc War The Modoc War, or the Modoc Campaign (also known as the Lava Beds War), was an armed conflict between the Native American Modoc people and the United States Army in northeastern California and southeastern Oregon from 1872 to 1873. Eadweard M ...

, titled "Haunted America" appears in the collection ''Ways of Reading,'' a textbook widely used by undergraduate English students. She also co-edited a collection of essays, titled ''Trails: Toward a New Western History'' which relate to her 1989 "Trails Through Time" exhibit. In 1995, Limerick was awarded a

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...

. In January 2016, she was appointed to be the Colorado State Historian and served until August 2018. Also in January 2016, she was appointed to the National Council on the Humanities, the advisory board to the

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

. Limerick was nominated by President Obama in spring 2015 and was confirmed by the United States Senate in November 2015. In late September 2022, Glen Krutz, the new dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at CU Boulder, fired Limerick. The executive committee of the Center of the American West board resigned in protest.

Works

Academic

* * * * *

Op-eds

*Monthly column for the ''

Denver Post ''The Denver Post'' is a daily newspaper and website published in Denver, Colorado. As of June 2022, it has an average print circulation of 57,265. In 2016, its website received roughly six million monthly unique visitors generating more than 1 ...

'' (current)

Awards and honors

*Alumni Achievement Award,

, 1990 *State Humanist of the Year, Colorado Endowment for the Humanities, 1992 *MacArthur Fellow, 1995–2000 *Hazel Barnes Prize, University of Colorado's highest award for teaching and research, 2001 *Colorado State Geographic Naming Advisory Board, Aug. 2020

Personal life

Limerick's first marriage was to architect Jeffrey Limerick, who died of a stroke in 2005. She married J. Houston Kempton in 2007."Patricia Nelson Limerick - Full CV"
Center of the American West. Accessed 16 January 2016

References

Notes Further reading *Lauck, Jon K. (Fall 2011) "How South Dakota Sparked the New Western History Wars: A Commentary on Patricia Nelson Limerick," ''South Dakota History'' 41. 353–81.

External links

Limerick's monthly column in the Denver PostC-SPAN video, "Fifty Years: Reflections of the Past & Future of Western History," a session at the Western History Association's annual meeting, Oct. 13, 2011
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Limerick, Patricia Nelson American columnists 21st-century American historians Historians of the United States Historians of the American West MacArthur Fellows People from Banning, California University of California, Santa Cruz alumni Yale University alumni Harvard University faculty University of Colorado Boulder faculty 1951 births Living people American women historians Journalists from California American women columnists 21st-century American women Historians from California