Joan Maria Jensen (born December 9, 1934) is an American historian best known for her work in North American women's history and agricultural history. She is professor emerita at New Mexico State University, where she played a founding role in the women's studies program. The Jensen-Miller Award of the Coalition for Western Women's History is named in her honor. She has served as president (1992–1993) and fellow (1995–) of the Agricultural History Society and was awarded its lifetime achievement award in 2012.
Early life and education Jensen was born December 9, 1934 in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She attended Pasadena City College and then transferred to the University of California, Los Angeles, where she earned a B.A. (1957), an M.A. (1959), and a Ph.D. (1962).
Career From 1962 to 1971, Jensen taught at U.S. International University in San Diego, California. She left this job to join a farming commune in southern Colorado. From 1974 to 1975, she taught as a visiting professor at Arizona State University, and from 1975 to 1976 she taught as visiting professor at UCLA.
She next taught history at New Mexico State University 1976–1994, when she became professor emerita. Jensen suggested creating the university's Women's Studies program in 1988 and served as its founding director in 1989. Her 1988 book on the history of women of the Mid-Atlantic around the time of the American Revolution and before the Civil War, Loosening the Bonds: Mid-Atlantic Farm Women, 1750–1850, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and was awarded the Sierra Prize of the Western Association of Women Historians.
In 1990, the Coalition for Western Women's History honored Jensen by creating the Jensen-Miller Award for the best scholarly article published in the preceding year in the field of women and gender in the trans-Mississippi West.
In 1992–1993, Jensen served as president of the Agricultural History Society.
Awards 2012 Gladys L. Baker Award for lifetime achievement from the Agricultural History Society 2007 Merle Curti Award Honorable Mention for Calling This Place Home: Women on the Wisconsin Frontier, 1850–1925 (Minnesota Historical Society Press) 1995 fellow of the Agricultural History Society 1993 New Mexico Endowment for the Humanities Award for Excellence in the Humanities. Western Association of Women Historians Sierra Prize, for Loosening the Bonds: Mid-Atlantic Farm Women, 1750–1850 Old Sturbridge Village Research Library Society E. Harold Hugo Memorial Book Prize, for Loosening the Bonds: Mid-Atlantic Farm Women, 1750–1850 New Mexico Presswomen’s Zia Award and the Governor’s Award for Historic Preservation, for New Mexico Women: Intercultural Perspectives
Works
Agricultural History Society: National Conference on American Rural and Farm Women in Historical Perspective.
References
External links Joan Jensen Asian Indian immigrant research materials MSS 585. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego Library.
Review of With These Hands in The Boston Phoenix