Welcome to my author site. I study gender and women’s history, with a focus on the early twentieth century.

Image of Kimberly Jensen in front of bookshelf
Kimberly Jensen, Professor of History and Gender Studies, Western Oregon University

 

 

 

 

 

I’m happy to announce the June 2024 publication date for Oregon’s Others: Gender, Civil Liberties, and the Surveillance State in the Early Twentieth Century by the University of Washington Press.

 

 

 

 

Oregon’s Doctor to the World: Esther Pohl Lovejoy and a Life in Activism (University of Washington Press, 2012)  Cover of Oregon's Doctor to the World

“Jensen has unearthed an extraordinary level of detail about the life and work of Dr. Esther Pohl Lovejoy …address[ing] a number of themes, including women in medicine, social justice, women’s rights, politics, peace activism, public health, international health, and health activism. – Susan Smith, Bulletin of the History of Medicine

“Jensen’s careful political contextualization [demonstrates] a great deal about Portland politics, western women’s Progressive agenda, and women physicians’ medical activism. Indeed, in our own profoundly conservative time, when many of the ideas and policies Lovejoy fought for are on the chopping block, her vigorous civic engagement and passionate, no-nonsense commitment to social welfare generate nostalgia for her era, one still full of promise. — Regina Morantz-Sanchez, American Historical Review

“Jensen offers a richly textured narrative of Lovejoy’s remarkable life, opening a window into the worlds of Northwest timber country, Progressive Era Portland, and the medical profession during the early twentieth century. . . immensely valuable addition to the history of women, social reform, and medicine . . . – Marisa Chappell, Oregon Historical Quarterly

“Kimberly Jensen has written an incredibly rich, exhaustively researched biography. A simple narrative chronology of this exceptional woman would alone be exciting to read. But Jensen gives us so much more. – Barbara Winslow, Journal of American History

“. . . a vivid biography of the pioneering physician and activist Esther Pohl Lovejoy. Jensen does an excellent job of bringing to life the story of Esther Pohl Lovejoy. Jensen’s writing is approachable for undergraduates as well as graduates. – Cody Stanley, Pacific Northwest Quarterly

 

Cover of book Mobilizing Minerva showing Esther Pohl Lovejoy in uniformMobilizing Minerva: American Women in the First World War (University of Illinois Press, 2008)

“As we struggle to understand the roots of violence against women and also to train women in the military and police forces to exercise violence in the name of the state, Kimberly Jensen’s timely book helps us place important challenges in historical context. Jensen’s imaginative research reveals many unappreciated dimensions of the First World War; her wise analysis deepens our understanding of civilian and military culture. An important book.”–Linda K. Kerber, author of No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies: Women and the Obligations of Citizenship

“The archives and popular printed magazines and papers that Jensen has tracked down are full of juicy insight into both the anti-suffrage and suffrage debates. She does a superb job of showing the reader how America’s entrance into WWI affected those suffrage debates and discourses.”–Cynthia Enloe, author of Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics and Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women’s Lives

“Jensen astutely analyzes the interplay between US women’s attempts to attain professional and civic equality and overcome gender-based violence during WWI. . . . She expertly interweaves case studies and gender representations from women activists, popular culture, wartime propaganda, real-life accounts, and a host of other sources. Highly recommended.”–Choice

“Not simply a tale about World War I or the women’s suffrage movement, but a story of the complicated intersection of gender, citizenship, violence, and war in the early twentieth century.”–H-Minerva

Mobilizing Minerva is a useful analysis that contributes thoughtfully to the history of women, gender, war, and antiviolence activism and joins a growing body of literature that places the suffrage campaign within a much wider context of women’s activism.”–Oregon Historical Quarterly

“Kimberly Jensen’s study of women in the First World War is a valuable contribution to the expanding scholarship on the American social and military history of that conflict.”–Military History

“A fascinating and well-researched book on the mobilization of American women during the First World War.”–Minerva Journal of Women and War