Lois Banner is Professor Emerita of History at the University of Southern California, where she served as Professor of History and Gender Studies since 1983 and chaired both the History Department and the Gender Studies Program. She earned a B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Ph.D. in American history from Columbia University in 1970. Her distinguished career includes teaching positions at Rutgers University (1967-1977 as Lecturer and Assistant Professor), Princeton University, Stanford University, George Washington University, University of Maryland, UCLA, and as adjunct professor at Josai International University near Tokyo. Banner has held fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation (1978-1979), Radcliffe Institute, and Australian National University, and lectured widely in the United States, Europe, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.

A pioneer in women’s history, Banner co-founded the Berkshire Conference on the History of Women with Mary S. Hartman in the 1970s, editing the classic collection Clio’s Consciousness Raised: New Perspectives on the History of Women (1974). She was the first woman president of the American Studies Association, past president of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, and past president of the Coordinating Committee on Women’s History of the American Historical Association. Her awards include the Bode-Pearson Lifetime Achievement Award (2006-2007), Mellon Award for Excellence in Mentoring (2005-2006), USC Raubenheimer Outstanding Senior Faculty Award (1996), USC Phi Kappa Phi Faculty Recognition Award (1990), and USC Associates Award for Creativity in Research and Scholarship (1989). Banner’s research focuses on women, gender, cultural history, nineteenth- and twentieth-century United States, masculinity studies, feminist studies, sexuality and queer studies, history of physical appearance, biographies, religion, dress, glamour, and popular theater. Key publications include Women in Modern America: A Brief History (1974), Elizabeth Cady Stanton: A Radical for Women’s Rights (1979), American Beauty (1983, Knopf), In Full Flower: Aging Women, Power and Sexuality (1992, Knopf), Finding Fran: History and Memory in the Lives of Two Women (1998, Columbia University Press), Intertwined Lives: Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Their Circle (2003, Knopf), MM—Personal (2010, Abrams), Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox (2012, Bloomsbury), and Ideal Beauty: The Life and Times of Greta Garbo (2023, Rutgers University Press). Her scholarship, based on archival research, oral history, and ethnography, has significantly influenced studies of gender, sexuality, and American culture.

Professional Email: lbanner@usc.edu