In Memoriam: Carol R. Rothrock Bleser, 1933-2013

Carol Bleser, the first woman to hold a full-time faculty position at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, died late last month at her home in Bellport, New York. She was 79 years old.

In 1970, Dr. Bleser was hired as an associate professor of history at Colgate. Later, she served as interim director of the women’s studies program. Dr. Bleser remained on the Colgate faculty until 1985. She then joined the faculty at Clemson University in South Carolina as the Kathryn and Calhoun Lemon Distinguished Professor of United States History. She retired in 2000.

Professor Bleser was the author of The Promised Land: The History of the South Carolina Land Commission, 1869-1890 and was the editor of Secret and Sacred: The Diaries of James Henry Hammond, a Southern Slaveholder.

Dr. Bleser was a graduate of Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. She held a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in American history from Columbia University.