Viola Florence Barnes, 1885-1979 : : A Historian's Biography / / John Reid.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter UTP eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2015
• VerfasserIn: Reid, John,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2016]; ©2005
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Series: Studies in Gender and History
• Physical Description: 1 online resource

Viola Florence Barnes was one of the most prominent women historians in the United States from the 1920s to the 1950s. Born in 1885, Barnes was educated at Yale University and began teaching at Mount Holyoke College in 1919. She was an instrumental member of the 'imperial school' of historians, who interpreted North American colonial history within a British imperial framework. Specializing in New England and Canada's Maritime provinces, her best-known book was The Dominion of New England, published in 1923.In this probing biography, John G. Reid examines Barnes's life as a female historian, providing a revealing glimpse into the gendered experience of professional academia in that era. Reid also examines the imperial school, which, although rapidly losing favour by the 1950s, had yielded results that were crucial to the study of North American colonial history.Viola Florence Barnes was cited as one of 100 'outstanding career women' in the United States in 1940. The later years of her life were marked by difficulty and disillusionment, as she tried in vain to have her last book published. Yet, despite retiring in 1952, Barnes remained an active scholar almost to the time of her death in 1979. This exhaustive work is the first biography of Barnes - a major figure in the study of North American history.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Foreword / Katz, Stanley N. -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- 1. 'I desire that my children be strong and forceful': Nebraska Years, 1885-1916 -- 2. 'History is my life work': The Emerging Scholar, 1916-1929 -- 3. 'A very busy professional woman': Recognition, 1929-1939 -- 4. 'I want to build a good strong department': Maturity, 1939-1950 -- 5. 'There is not too much time left': Retirement, 1950-1960 -- 6. 'I have had a very happy old age': Long Life, 1960-1979 -- 7. Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index