Mary Beth Norton to Lead the American Historical Association

Mary Beth Norton, the Mary Donlon Alger Professor of American History at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, was named president-elect of the American Historical Association. She will serve as president-elect in 2017 and will become president of the association for a one-year term in January 2018.

Professor Norton will be the fifth faculty member at Cornell to lead the American Historical Association. The organization was founded in 1884 in Washington, D.C. In the association’s first 100 years only one woman, Nellie Nielson, was elected to the presidency. Dr. Nielson was a professor of European history at Mount Holyoke College and served as president of the American Historical Association in 1943. Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson also served as president of the association.

Professor Norton is the author of several books including Founding Mothers & Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society (Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She has served on the faculty at Cornell since 1971.

Dr. Norton is a graduate of the University of Michigan. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.