Completed Dissertations in U.S. Women's History
S.U.N.Y. Binghamton

Kathryn Kish Sklar, Chairperson

Robyn Rosen, "Federal Responsibility or Government Tyranny? -- Women's Reproductive Reform and the Growth of the Welfare State, 1917-1940" (1992). Published as Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights: Reformers and the Politics of Maternal Welfare, 1917-1940 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2003). Professor of History, Marist College, Poughkeepsie, New York.

Kathleen R. Babbitt, "Production and Consumption in the Countryside: Rural Women and Cooperative Extension Home Economists in New York State, 1870-1940" (1995). Finalist, Lerner-Scott Prize for the Best Dissertation in U.S. Women's History, 1996. Independent Scholar, Binghamton, New York.

Kimberly Schmidt, "Transforming Tradition: Women's Work and the Effects of Religion and Economics in Two Rural Mennonite Communities" (1995). Recipient, American Association of University Women Fellowship, 1993-94. Author of "Schism: Where Women's Outside Work and Insider Dress Collided," in Kimberly D. Schmidt et al., Amish and Mennonite Women in History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). Lecturer, University of Maryland, College Park.

Amy E. Butler, "The Search for Equality: Alice Paul and Ethel Smith in the Equal Rights Amendment Debate, 1921-1923" (1997). Published as Two Paths to Equality: Alice Paul and Ethel M. Smith in the E.R.A. Debate, 1921-1929 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002). Director of Development, Rural Community Assistance Program, Washington, D.C.

Carol Faulkner, "'The Hard Heart of the Nation': Gender, Race, and Dependence in the Freedman's Aid Movement, 1862-1877" (1998). Published as Women's Radical Reconstruction: The Freedman's Aid Movement, 1862-1876 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003). Portions published as "How Did White Women Aid Former Slaves during and after the Civil War and What Obstacles Did They Face?" on "Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000." Fellow, National Historical Records and Publications Commssion, Lucretia Mott Papers, Pomona College, Claremont, California (1998-1999); Price Visiting Fellowship, Clements Library, University of Michigan (2000). Associate Professor and Chair, History Department, Syracuse University.

Jan Doolittle Wilson, "'Citizens with Unselfish Aim': The Women's Joint Congressional Committee and Its Campaign for Progressive Legislation, 1920-1930," (2000). Published as "Organized Women under Attack": The Women's Joint Congressional Committee and Its Legislative Campaigns for Mothers and Children, 1920-1930 (University of Illinois Press, 2005). Recipient, Excellence in Teaching Award, SUNY Binghamton, 1999. Recipient, Henry du Pont Dissertation Fellowship in Business, Technology, and Society, Hagley Museum and Library, winter 2000. Recipient, General Federation of Women's Clubs Research Award, 2004. Visiting Assistant Professor, Grinnell College, 2000-2001. Assistant Professor, Ft. Hays State University, Hays, Kansas, 2001-2004; Associate Professor of History, Director of Women's and Gender Studies, University of Tulsa.

John McGuire, "A Catalyst for Reform: The Women's Joint Legislative Conference and Its Fight for Labor Legislation in New York State, 1918-1933" (2000). Author of "From the Courts to the State Legislatures: Social Justice Feminism, Labor Legislation, and the 1920s," Labor History Vol. 45, no. 2 (May 2004). Recipient, Margaret Storrs Grierson Grant, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, summer 1999; Dissertation Research Grant, Roosevelt Library, 2000. Assistant Professor, SUNY Oneonta.

Linda Shoemaker, "Charity and Justice": Gender and the Mission of Social Work -- Social Work Education in Boston, New York, and Chicago, 1898-1930" (2001). Portion of dissertation published as "The Gendered Foundations of Social Work Education in Boston, 1904-1930," in Susan Porter, ed., Women of the Commonwealth: Work, Family and Social Change in Nineteenth Century Massachusetts (University of Massachusetts Press, 1995), and "Early Conflicts in Social Work Education," Social Service Review, 72:2 (June 1998). Recipient, Newcombe Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson Foundation, 1997, Excellence in Research Award, SUNY Binghamton, 1998. Communications Director, Arlington (Mass.) Center for the Arts.

Connie Shemo, "The Medical Ministries of Kang Cheng and Shi Meiyu, 1872-1937" (2002). Recipient, Rockefeller Archives Grant, 1997, Louise Glockner Fellowship, Archives and Special Collections on Women and Medicine, Allegheny Medical College, Philadelphia, Summer 1997; Lecturer in U.S. History, Princeton University, 2002-2004. Associate Professor of History, SUNY Plattsburg.

Barbara Reeves-Ellington, "'That Our Daughters May Be As Corner Stones': American Missionaries, Bulgarian Nationalists, and the Politics of Gender, 1832-1872" (2002). Author of "Petko Slaveykov's Daughters," in Krassimira Daskalova and Raina Gavrilova, eds., Limits of Citizenship: European Women between Tradition and Modernity (in Bulgarian) (Sofia: Lik, 2001), 121-34. Fulbright Junior Fellow in Bulgaria, 1999-2000; Fellow, Leslie Center for the Humanities, Dartmouth College, Fall 2002; Visiting Assistant Professor of History, Connecticut College, Spring 2003. Associate Professor of History, Siena College, 2003-present.

Michelle M. Kuhl, "Modern Martyrs: African American Responses to Lynching, 1880-1940" (2004). Harry Frank Guggenheim Dissertation Fellowship, 2000-2001. Assistant Professor of History, University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh.

Daniel S. Wright, "'The First Causes to Our Sex: The Female Moral Reform Movement in the Antebellum Northeast, 1834-1848" (2004). Recipient, Best Dissertation in the Social Sciences, SUNY Binghamton, 2004. Portion published as "What Was the Appeal of Moral Reform to Antebellum Northern Women?" on Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000. Pastor, Weybridge Congregational Church, Weybridge, Vermont. Research Fellow, Center for the Historical Study of Women and Gender, SUNY Binghamton, 2004-2005.

Halle Lewis, "'Cripples are not the dependents one is led to think': Work and Disability in Industrializing Cleveland, 1863-1916" (2004). Excellence in Teaching Award, SUNY Binghamton, 2000. President's Office, Case Western Reserve, 2005-Present.

Suronda Gonzalez, "'Immigrants Who Are in Our Midst': Grace Abbott and the Immigrants' Protective League, 1908-1921" (2004). Director, Languages Across the Curriculum, SUNY Binghamton, 2001-present.

Laura Murphy, "'The Worker's Right to a Decent Livelihood': Catholic Activists, Catholic Social Thought, and the U.S. Minimum Wage, 1869-1938," (2005). Dissertation Fellowship, Project on Catholic Women in the Twentieth Century, Cushwa Center, University of Notre Dame; University Dissertation Fellowship, SUNY Binghamton, 2001-2002; Excellence in Teaching Award, SUNY Binghamton, 2003. Assistant Professor, Dutchess Community Colege, 2004-Present.

Sarah Boyle, "Creating a Union of the Union: The Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the Development of a Politicized Female Reform Culture, 1880-1892" (2005). Hostick fellowship for the Study of Illinois History, Illinois Historical Society, 2002. Dissertation Fellowship, Department of History, SUNY Binghamton, 2003. Associate Professor, Department of History, Johnson County Community College, 2006 to Present.

Linda Janke, "Prisoners of War: Prostitution, Sexuality, Venereal Disease, and Women's Incarceration during World War I" (2006). Recipient, Littleton-Griswold Award, American Historical Association, 2003. Associate Professor and Chair, Department of History, Anoka-Ramsey Community College, Minneapolis, MN.

Michele Materese, "The Nurse and the Community: Lillian Wald and Social Activism, 1893-1920" (2006). Assistant Professor, Department of Health Sciences & Physical Activities, Mansfield University, Mansfield, PA.

Deanna Gillespie, "'They Walk, Talk, and Act Like New People:' Black Women and the Citizenship Education Program, 1957-1970." (2008) Travel Award and Dissertation Fellowship, Department of History, SUNY Binghamton, Fall 2005. Recipient, Distinguished Dissertation Award in the Social Sciences, SUNY Binghamton, 2008. Assistant Professor, History Department, Gainesville (GA) State College.

Melyssa Wrisley, "Fashioning a New Feminity: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the Discourse of Women's Dress, 1875-1930." (2008) Department of History, SUNY Binghamton, Dissertation Research Grant, Spring 2005. Stella Blum Research Grant, Costume Society of America, Spring 2005. Visiting lecturer, Elmira College, 2007. Project Assistant, Teaching American History Program, SUNY Binghamton, 2007-2008.Lecturer, Writing Program, SUNY Binghamton, 2008-2009.

Gaylynn Welch, "Local and National Forces Shaping the American Woman Suffrage Movement: 1870-1890." (2009) Department of History Research Travel Grant, Summer 2004; Department of History Dissertation Research Grant, Fall 2004. Instructor, Department of History, SUNY Potsdam, 2003-2008.

Anne Derousie, "The Signers of the DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS: Kinship and Economic Ties in a Reform Community, 1779-1879," 2012. Historian, Women’s Rights National Historical Park, Seneca Falls, New York.

Jennifer E. Tomás, "The Women's History Movement in the United States: Professional and Political Roots of the Field, 1922-1987." (2012)  Assistant Professor, Piedmont Virginia Community College.

Thomas Dublin, Chairperson

Penelope Harper, "Investigating the Working Woman: Middle-Class Americans and the Debate over Women's Work, 1820-1920" (1997). Winner of university award for the outstanding dissertation in the social sciences; finalist for Lerner-Scott Dissertation Award in U.S. Women's History. High School teacher, Broome-Tioga BOCES, Binghamton, New York.

Melissa Doak, "'She Will Never Get Well While Doing Anything Unnatural': Women's Sexual Deviance and Institutional Psychiatry in New York City, 1890-1920" (1999). Freelance editor, Ithaca, New York.

Karen Pastorello, "A Power Among Them: Bessie Abramowitz Hillman and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America" (2001). Published as A Power Among Them: Bessie Abramowitz Hillman and the Making og the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (University of Illinois Press, 2007). Professor of History, Chair, Women and Gender Studies Program, Tompkins-Cortland Community College.

Susan Lewis, "Women in the Marketplace: Female Entrepreneurship, Business Patterns, and Working Families in Mid-Nineteenth Century Albany, New York" (2002). Recipient, Outstanding Dissertation in the Social Sciences, S.U.N.Y. Binghamton, 2002. Published as Unexceptional Women: Female Proprietors in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Albany, New York (Ohio State University Press, 2009).  Associate Professor of History, State University of New York at New Paltz.

Marian Horan, "Trafficking in Danger: Working-Class Women and Narratives of Sexual Danger in English and United States Anti-Prostitution Campaigns, 1875-1914" (2006). Historical consultant on native claims cases, Crown Law Office, Wellington, New Zealand.

Kazuhiro Oharazeki, "Japanese Prostitutes in the Pacific Northwest, 1887-1920” (2008). Winner of university award for the outstanding dissertation in the social sciences. Lecturer, Setsunan University, Osaka. Revised dissertation published as Japanese Prostitutes in the North American West, 1887-1920, (University of Washington Press, 2016).

Annette Varcoe, "'To Move the County': Women and Benevolence in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, 1820 – 1890" (2011). High school teacher, Endicott, N.Y.

Dorothy Tobin, "Paths to Power: Women Appointees to New York State Government, 1917-1942,” 2012, Academic Mentor, Empire State College, State University of New York.

Mary Berkery, “’We Are a Multitude’: The Significance of the 1977 National Women’s Conference and the Transformation of the Feminist Movement,” 2013, adjunct professor, State University of New York at Binghamton.

Allyn Van Deusen, "Isabella Beecher Hooker and John Hooker: Partners in Reform," 2013.  Academic Mentor, Empire State College, State University of New York,

Carol Linskey, “Invisible Politics: Dorothy Kenyon and Women’s Internationalism, 1930s-1950,” 2013.

Joseph Golowka, “’There Should Be No Sex in Industry’: Women and Gender in the Knights of Labor in North America,” 2013.

Denise Ireton, " 'Responsible to the Peoples of the World': Activist Women, Peace Efforts, and International Citizenship, 1890-1940," 2015. Managing Editor, "Women and Social Movements in Modern Empires," Center for the Historical Study of Women and Gender, Binghamton University.