Joan Marie Johnson is a historian and author. She is the author of numerous books and articles on American’s women history, race, social reform, education, and philanthropy.
Joan’s new book is The Woman Suffrage Movement in the United States, published by Routledge in the Seminar Series for college classrooms. The book explores the history of the movement from the mid-19th century through passage of the 19th amendment in 1920, including well-known leaders, lesser-known activists, major national organizations and local efforts. The book highlights the efforts of working class women, wealthy, women, Black suffragists, and other women of color, examines the role of racism in the movement, and shows how and why women worked to win the right to vote.
Her book, Funding Feminism: Monied Women, Philanthropy, and the Women’s Movement, 1870-1967, was published by the University of North Carolina Press in October 2017. It shows how wealthy women wielded their money to help make change for women, including winning the right to vote, access to higher education, birth control, and better conditions for working women.
She is the author of Southern Women at the Seven Sister Colleges: Feminist Values and Social Activism, 1875-1915 and Southern Ladies, New Women: Race, Region and Clubwomen in South Carolina, 1898-1930. She also co-edited a three volume historical anthology on South Carolina women, South Carolina Women: Their Lives and Times.
Joan received her PhD in 1997 from UCLA in women’s and Southern history, and taught history at Northeastern Illinois University for twelve years, She was the co-founder and co-director of the Newberry Seminar on Women and Gender at the Newberry Library in Chicago, and now works in the Office of the Provost at Northwestern University. Joan lives in Evanston, Illinois, with her husband and three children.
Joan Marie Johnson 