Annelise Orleck

Annelise Orleck is a Professor of History at Dartmouth College, where she has taught for more than three decades. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, amid a rich tapestry of cultures, she developed a lifelong interest in history, ethnicity, race, and immigration—themes central to her research and teaching. Orleck holds a B.A. from The Evergreen State College and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from New York University. Her academic interests include U.S. history since 1877, U.S. political history, U.S. women, women and American radicalism, race, ethnicity and immigration, Jewish immigration, and gay and lesbian studies. She teaches courses such as HIST 2: Histories of America since the Civil War, HIST 19: U.S. Political History in the Twentieth Century, HIST 28: American Women's History since 1920, HIST 29: Women and American Radicalism Left and Right, HIST 32: The Life, Death and Rebirth of Great American Cities, HIST 96: Race, Ethnicity and Immigration in U.S. History, and JWST 33/HIST 6: American Jewish History.

Orleck has authored and edited key works on working-class activism, poverty, labor movements, and women's politics. These include Common Sense and a Little Fire: Women and Working Class Politics in the United States (University of North Carolina Press, 1995), The Politics of Motherhood: Activist Voices from Left to Right (co-edited with Alexis Jetter and Diana Taylor, UPNE, 1997), The Soviet Jewish Americans (Greenwood Press, 1999), Storming Caesar’s Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty (Beacon Press, 2005), The War on Poverty: A New Grassroots History, 1964-1980 (co-edited with Lisa Gayle Hazirjian, University of Georgia Press, 2011), Rethinking American Women's Activism (Routledge, 2014), and We Are All Fast-Food Workers Now: The Global Uprising Against Poverty Wages (Beacon Press, 2018). Her articles feature in Nancy Foner’s One Out of Three (Columbia University Press, 2013), Contexts (Winter 2012), and New Labor Forum (2011). Ongoing projects include "Low Wages: I'm Not Lovin' It: The Rise of a New Global Labor Movement" and "Reflections Through A Glass Closet: The Lesbian Presence in American Progressivism." Orleck received Dartmouth’s Dean of Faculty Award in 2007 and has served as Co-Chair of the Program in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.

Professional Email: Annelise.Orleck@dartmouth.edu