Joyce Follet

Joyce Follet is a historian who specializes in eh experience of U.S. women with a focus on diversity and movements for social change. She holds a B.S. from Georgetown University, an M.S. in U.S. History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her recent research examines the interplay between the changing status of women, community dynamics, and the formation of public policy. On that topic she is writing Reforming the State: From Patriarchy to Protection, 1820-1920. She is also a producer of video documentary, including Step by Step: Building a Feminist Movement, 1941-1977 (1988) and Creating Women's History: The Sophia Smith Collection (2000). She teaches American Studies 221: Women's History through Documentary. The course surveys U.S. women's experience from the colonial era to the present and assesses the effectiveness of documentaries in presenting it. (09/09)

Step by Step: Building a Feminist Movement, 1941-1977
A film by Joyce Follet, 1998, 56 min., Color
"****Proving beyond a doubt that feminism began well before the 1960s, and that its players were not just the white middle class, this inspiring tape ...