Her contributions to the history of women’s activism in Oregon and the nation have been profound. She recast the struggle for women’s suffrage in Oregon, expanded our understanding of women’s roles during World War I, and has intrigued audiences with her research into the emerging surveillance state in the early 20th century.
Jensen is a professor in the Department of History and Gender Studies Program of Western Oregon University at Monmouth in the mid-Willamette Valley. She is the author of Oregon’s Doctor to the World: Esther Pohl Lovejoy and A Life in Activism and Mobilizing Minerva: American Women in the First World War. Jensen is currently researching a book project tentatively titled “Civic Borderlands: Oregon Women’s Claims to Citizenship and Civil Liberties, 1913-1924.” Check her blog for more info.
Here’s what she wrote for MARIE EQUI:
Michael Helquist’s compelling biography of lesbian activist Marie Equi, M.D. creates an indisputable place in our collective history for this fearless advocate for workers, women, reproductive rights, and civil liberties, a “political individualist” jailed at the close of the First World War for challenging limits to free speech and powerful negative cultural views about same-sex relationships. Helquist navigates the personal and political aspects of Equi’s life and career to present her distinctive story. A must read for those who wish to understand more about women’s history, LGBTQ studies, the history of medicine, radical history, and Oregon and Pacific Northwest history. |