Historian and author
Joan Marie Johnson, PhD, is a historian, author, and speaker on women and philanthropy, race, feminism, activism, and education. She is the author of Funding Feminism: Monied Women, Philanthropy, and the Women’s Movement, 1870-1967, which shows how and why wealthy women funded the suffrage movement, as well as women’s increased access to higher education, reproductive rights, and labor activism.
She has also written books on women’s higher education and on black and white women’s clubs. With the centennial of the 19th amendment in 2020, she has been speaking frequently on race in the suffrage movement.
Joan taught women’s history at Northeastern Illinois University, co-founded the Seminar on Women and Gender at the Newberry Library in Chicago, and now is the Director for Faculty in the Office of the Provost at Northwestern University. She received her bachelor’s degree from Duke University and her PhD in history from UCLA.
