Mary Ann Irwin - DVC history faculty named as new journal editor
Jul 10, 2019
University of California Press is pleased to announce that Mary Ann Irwin, lecturer at California State University, East Bay (Hayward, California), and Diablo
Valley College (Pleasant Hill, California), has been chosen as the next editor of
California History. Irwin will take over in January 2020 from California State University, Northridge’s
Dr. Josh Sides, who has served as editor since 2014.
Says Rachel Lee of UC Press: “I am delighted to welcome Mary Ann as incoming editor.
The state of California is a leader and an influencer. California History reflects
on the lessons of the past to inform California’s current role in the West and globally.
Mary Ann’s extensive knowledge of this field, combined with her deep editorial experience,
will continue and sustain the excellent scholarship showcased in California History.
I’m excited for the future of this journal!”
With a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Berkeley (1980) and a Masters
in history from San Francisco State University (1995), Irwin has more than twenty
years’ teaching experience. She taught her first California history course at DVC
in 1996. Since then, she has taught at San Francisco State University and CSU East
Bay. Beginning in January 2020, CSU East Bay will become the journal’s new home.
The Pacific Historical Review published Irwin’s first article, “‘Going About and Doing
Good’: The Politics of Benevolence, Welfare, and Gender in San Francisco, 1850-1880”
(1999), which won that year’s Coalition for Western Women’s History “Jensen-Miller”
prize. The article was later included as a chapter in Women and Gender in the American
West (University of New Mexico Press, 2004). Irwin was principal editor of this anthology,
with co-editor James F. Brooks. Another of Irwin’s publications, “‘The Air is Becoming
Full of War’: Jewish San Francisco and World War I,” appeared in PHR in 2005. A third
article, “Sex, War, and Community Service: The Battle for San Francisco's Jewish Community
Center,” appeared in Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies in May 2011, and won that
year’s National Coalition of Independent Scholars best article prize. Irwin penned
two chapters in Women and Politics: California from the Gold Rush to the Great Depression
(University of Nebraska Press, May 2011), one a historiography of political activism
by women of color. She served as principal editor of the latter volume, with co-editors
Robert W. Cherny and Ann Marie Wilson.
Irwin is co-author and principal editor of the perennially popular California history
textbook Elusive Eden: A New History of California, the fifth edition of which Waveland
Press will release in September 2019. Irwin is currently managing several writing
projects, including a book-length history of San Francisco's Emanu-El Sisterhood for
Personal Service.
She has presented her work at conferences of the Western Association of Women Historians,
Organization of American Historians, Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical
Association, and Western History Association; has given talks to the American Association
of University Women, Lehrhaus Judaica, and Kol Hadash; has served as consultant to
several television programs, including SFGovTV2, NBC’s “Who Do You Think You Are?,”
and The Travel Channel’s “Hidden City;” and is currently serving as project advisor
for the California Museum’s newly reimagined exhibition “Remarkable California Women,”
scheduled to open in March 2020.
Irwin is active in numerous professional organizations, including an ongoing role as co-Editor of the listserv H-California (February 2016-present); and the Organization of American Historians’ “Committee on the Status of Women in the Historical Profession” (2019-2022). Previously she served on the Council of the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (2016-2018); Secretary/Treasurer, California Conference of the American Association of University Professors (2014- 2020); Acting President, California Conference of the American Association of University Professors (2013- 2014); Editorial Board, Pacific Historical Review (2008-2010); and Steering Committee Chair, Coalition for Western Women's History (2001-2007).
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