Simmons College

Associate Professor of History and Women's and Gender Studies
Director of Graduate Program in History

Laura Prieto teaches courses in American cultural history, women and gender, race formation, sexuality, and historical methodology. She recently published a project on American feminist abolitionists online in Women and Social Movements in the United States. Her study of women missionaries to the Philippines will appear in the forthcoming anthology, Competing Kingdoms: Women, Mission, Nation, and American Empire (Duke University Press). Her book, At Home in the Studio: The Professionalization of Women Artists in America (Harvard University Press, 2001) studies how women painters, sculptors, and illustrators created a professional identity for themselves in the face of exclusion. Her ongoing research centers on American womanhood and imperialism during the era of the Spanish-American War. She is also writing a book surveying Women in America: Issues and Controversies for Facts on File. Laura currently directs the graduate program in History at Simmons, and she serves as president of the New England Historical Association.