Dr. Kirsten Swinth

Kirsten Swinth is Professor of History and American Studies at Fordham University in New York and has a Ph.D. from Yale University. She specializes in the history of women, work, and family as well as the history of feminism and the women’s movement. She comments on issues of work-life balance; care work and emotional labor; labor in the U.S.; and women in the workforce. She recently published a book on the 1960s and 70s U.S. women's movement and written on the politics of work and family in the 1980s. She is currently writing a book on the history of the modern U.S. "working family."

Other areas of expertise include: (1) the 1970s and the history of women and work in postindustrial America; and (2) American women artists.

She is the author of:

~Feminism’s Forgotten Fight: The Unfinished Struggle for Work and Family (Harvard University Press, 2018)
~Painting Professionals: Women Artists and the Development of Modern American Art, 1870-1930 (University of North Carolina Press, 2001)
~How Did Settlement Workers at Greenwich House Promote the Arts as Integral to a Shared Social Life?, edited document collection (2006)

Prof. Swinth appears on radio and tv (CNN, WFUV, WNYC, "To the Point") and comments regularly for the media (New York Times, Washington Post, Working Mother.com). She has published op-eds for the New York Daily News, CNN.com, Huffington Post, and Christian Science Monitor.

She has been awarded fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Fulbright Foundation, the John Paul Getty Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, among others. She was awarded a Harry S. Truman Scholarship in 1987.

Sub-specialities:

work and family
work-life balance
women and work
feminism and women's movements in the United States
gender history
history of work, especially since 1975
labor history
America since 1945
American women artists
U.S. cultural history