Biography
Linda Gordon was Vilas Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Wisconsin came to NYU in 1999 as University Professor of the Humanities and History. Her PhD was in Russian history and her first book was Cossack Rebellions: Social Turmoil in the Ukraine. Turning then to US history, her early work focused on the historical roots of social policy issues, particularly as they concern gender and family, including Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right: The History of Birth Control in America; Heroes of Their Own Lives: The History and Politics of Family Violence; and Pitied But Not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare. She then turned to narrative as a way of illuminating historical developments. Her 1999 book, The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction, the story of a vigilante action against Mexican-Americans, won the Bancroft prize for best book in American history and the Beveridge prize for best book on the history of the Western Hemisphere. Her Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits won a second Bancroft prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography, and the National Arts Club prize for best arts writing. She continued her interest in photography with a brief biography of photographer Inge Morath. She published The Second Coming of the KKK in 2017; her newest book, Seven Social Movements that Changed America (2025) extends her work on the KKK to include its progeny—American fascist groups of the 1930s.
