Martha Saxton

Martha Porter Saxton (September 3, 1945 – July 18, 2023) was an American professor of history and women's and gender studies at Amherst College who authored several prominent historical biographies.

Martha Saxton
Born	Martha Porter Saxton (1945-09-03)September 3, 1945 New York City, U.S.
Died	July 18, 2023(2023-07-18) (aged 77) Norfolk, Connecticut, U.S.
Academic background
Alma mater	Columbia University, University of Chicago
Academic work
Discipline	History
Sub-discipline	Women's studies, gender studies
Institutions	Amherst College

Life

Martha Porter Saxton was born in Manhattan on September 3, 1945. Her parents worked in the publishing industry.^[1] She graduated from Columbia University, and University of Chicago.

Saxton taught at Amherst College,^[2] and Hampshire County Jail and House of Correction.^[3][4]

In 2003, she wrote Being Good: Women's Moral Values in Early America.^[5] The TV film The Jayne Mansfield Story featuring Loni Anderson and Arnold Schwarzenegger was based on her book Jayne Mansfield and the American Fifties.^[6]

Saxton also published findings of a classroom experiment on Wikipedia's inclusion of women in historical articles. In her course, "Women's History 1865-Present," Saxton guided students as they identified Wikipedia articles that would benefit from additional information regarding women's involvement in a given topic (e.g. the Shaker movement). Students conducted academic research on the topic of their choosing and then revised Wikipedia pages accordingly. ^[7] She was a recipient of the PEN New England Award.

Martha Saxton died of lung cancer at her home in Norfolk, Connecticut, on July 18, 2023, at the age of 77.^[1]

Publications

Books

• The Widow Washington: The Life of Mary Washington (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019). ISBN 9780809097012, OCLC 1081339249^[8]
• Being Good: Women's Moral Values in Early America (Hill and Wang, 2003). ISBN 9780374110116, OCLC 50645380
• Interpretations of American History (seventh edition) with Frank Couvares (previously edited by Gerald Grob and George Billias), Free Press, Spring 2000.
• Louisa May Alcott: A Modern Biography (Houghton Mifflin, 1977) (Avon, 1978; Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1995). ISBN 9780374524609, OCLC 928246371
• Jayne Mansfield and the American Fifties (Houghton Mifflin, 1976) (Bantam, 1976). ISBN 9780553025569, OCLC 74376010

Essays, reviews, and other

• "Lives of Missouri Slave Women: A Critique of true Womanhood," in eds. Manisha Sinha and Penny Von Eschen, Contested Democracy: Freedom, Race and Power in American History, Columbia U. Press, 2007.
• "Curing Gender Amnesia," Women's Review of Books 24.1 (Jan Feb 2007): 24.
• "Masquerade: the Life and Times of Deborah Sampson, Continental Soldier," by Alfred Young, in The William and Mary Quarterly, forthcoming.
• "River Gods-and Goddesses. Women's Review of Books 21.9 (June 2004): 10.
• "Neither Lady Nor Slave," The S.C. Historical Magazinheae, October 2004.
• "La Formazione degli Stati Uniti," Journal of American History, February, 2004.
• "Sexism and the City," Journal of Urban History, January, 2003.
• "Examining our Revolutionary Baggage," Reviews in American History, December, 2000
• "The Moral Minority, Prescriptive Literature in Early St. Louis," Gateway-Heritage, The Quarterly Magazine of the Missouri Historical Society (Fall 2000): 18–31.
• "Women Without Rights," in Not for Ourselves Alone, ed. by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns (New York: A. A. Knopf, Inc., 1999), 52–57.
• "Puritan Women: The Seeds of a Critical Tradition," History Today, 44.10 (Sept./Oct. 1994): 28–33.
• "Civil War Nurses," in The Face of Mercy, A Photographic History of Medicine at War, ed. by Matthew Naythons, and William Styron (San Francisco: Epicenter, 1993).

Awards and honors

• Whiting Travel Fellowship, 2012
• Cullman Fellow, New York Public Library, 2007–2008
• Doshisha Lecturer, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan (2006)
• Miner D. Crary Award, Amherst College (2000-2001)
• Bunting Fellow, Radcliffe College (1995-1996)
• Mellon Fellow, Society of Fellows in the Humanities, Columbia (1988-1990)
• Lane Cooper Award, Columbia (1987-1988)
• Mary Ellen Shimke Award, Wellesley College (1986-1987)
• Presidential Fellow, Columbia (1985–88)
• Boston Globe Annual Award for Louisa May Alcott (1977)

Scholarly and professional activities

• Member, Authors' Guild
• Member, PEN, Secretary of PEN Executive Board, 1986-1989
• Member, PEN/Martha Albrand Award Committee, 1992
• Member, Willie Lee Rose Prize Committee, 1996 (Southern Association for Women's Historians)
• Member, Julia Spruill Prize Committee, 1999 (Southern Association for Women's Historians)
• Member, Louis Pelzer Memorial Award Committee, AHA, 2005-6
• Co-founder and co-editor of The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth, with Laura Lovett^[9]

References

1. Risen, Clay. "Martha Saxton, Historian Who Explored Women's Lives, Dies at 77". The New York Times. Retrieved July 20, 2023.
2. "Faculty & Staff | Saxton, Martha | Amherst College". www.amherst.edu. Retrieved 2019-07-15.
3. Lederman, Diane (2015-12-17). "Inside/Outside Amherst College-Hampshire jail collaboration 'eyeopener' for all". masslive.com. Retrieved 2019-07-15.
4. "Martha Saxton". www.washcoll.edu. Retrieved 2019-07-15.
5. "Nonfiction Book Review: BEING GOOD: Women's Moral Values in Early America by Martha Saxton, Author . Hill and Wang $30 (416p) ISBN 978-0-374-11011-6". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2018-10-08.
6. "The Television Picture", The Milwaukee Journal, page 4, 1982-04-27
7. Nawrotzki, Kristen, ed. (2013). "Writing History in the Digital Age". Digital Humanities. doi:10.3998/dh.12230987.0001.001.
8. DuVal, Kathleen. "'The Widow Washington' Review: Mary, Mother of George". WSJ. Retrieved 2019-07-15.
9. Saxton, Martha. (2007). "Introduction". The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth. 1 (1): 1–3. doi:10.1353/hcy.2008.0014. ISSN 1941-3599.

External links

• Macmillan
• Amherst College
• University of Massachusetts