Dorothy Sue Cobble (June 28, 1949) is an American

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

, and a specialist in the historical study of work,

social movements A social movement is either a loosely or carefully organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of ...

, and

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

in the United States and worldwide. She is currently a Distinguished Professor at

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

, holding dual appointments in the Departments of

Labor Studies Labour relations in practice is a subarea within human resource management, and the main components of it include collective bargaining, application and oversight of collective agreement obligations, and dispute resolution. Academically, employe ...

and

History History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

since 1986. Her book ''The Other Women’s Movement'' (2005) coined the term labor feminism.

Early life and education

Cobble grew up in the South, before receiving her

B.A. A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree ...

from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

in 1972. She worked briefly as a

trade union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

stevedore A dockworker (also called a longshoreman, stevedore, docker, wharfman, lumper or wharfie) is a waterfront manual laborer who loads and unloads ships. As a result of the intermodal shipping container revolution, the required number of dockwork ...

in the mid-1970s before earning her Ph.D. in history from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

in 1986. A student of Carl Degler, she became a leading historian of women's labor movements.

Career

Cobble's first book ''Dishing It Out: Waitresses and Their Unions in the Twentieth Century'' (1991) was among the earliest studies of unionism and the service sector. Her second book, ''The Other Women's Movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in America'' (2005) is a political and intellectual history of women’s contributions to reforming the workplace. It received the 2005 Philip Taft Book Prize from

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

for the best book in American labor history. She edited ''The Sex of Class: Women Transforming American Labor'' (2007), published by the

Cornell University Press The Cornell University Press is the university press of Cornell University, an Ivy League university in Ithaca, New York. It is currently housed in Sage House, the former residence of Henry William Sage. It was first established in 1869, maki ...

. Most recently she coauthored, with

Linda Gordon Irene Linda Gordon (born January 19, 1940) is an American feminist and historian. She lives in New York City and in Madison, Wisconsin. She won the Marfield Prize and the WILLA Literary Award in Historical Nonfiction for ''Dorothea Lange: A Life ...

and Astrid Henry, ''Feminism Unfinished: A Short, Surprising History of American Women’s Movements'' (2014).

Publications

Books

* ''Dishing It Out: Waitresses and Their Unions in the Twentieth Century'' (1991) * ''The Other Women's Movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in America'' (2005) * ''The Sex of Class: Women Transforming American Labor'' (2007) *''Feminism Unfinished: A Short, Surprising History of American Women’s Movements'' with

and Astrid Henry (2014)

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cobble, Dorothy Sue 21st-century American historians Rutgers University faculty University of California, Berkeley alumni Stanford University alumni 1949 births Living people