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Kimberly Jensen

Kimberly Jensen received her Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in women’s and U.S. history and teaches history and gender studies at Western Oregon University. She is the author of Mobilizing Minerva: American Women in the First World War (University of Illinois Press, 2008) and Oregon’s Doctor to the World: Esther Pohl Lovejoy and a Life in Activism (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2012). She served as guest editor for the special issue of the Oregon Historical Quarterly on women and citizenship in Fall 2012. Her new book, Oregon's Others: Gender, Civil Liberties, and the Surveillance State in the Early Twentieth Century will be published by the University of Washington Press in June 2024.

Author's Entries

  • Elizabeth Eggert (1848-1935)

    Elizabeth Avery Eggert, a homeopathic physician, businesswoman, and activist, helped secure the right to vote for Oregon women. She combined a career in medicine and business with social activism, contributing to local and national reform in suffrage, public health, and philanthropy.  Born in Oxfordshire, England, in 1848, Elizabeth Avery was …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Esther Clayson Pohl Lovejoy (1869-1967)

    Physician Esther Clayson Pohl Lovejoy took an active and significant role in public health reform, suffrage, and politics in early twentieth century Portland. Lessons she learned in Oregon became the foundation for her subsequent career in transnational medical relief and international health.   Esther Clayson was born in Seabeck, Washington …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Harry Lane (1855-1917)

    Harry Lane epitomized the spirit and activism of Oregon’s progressive reform era, as a physician and public health advocate, a two-term Portland mayor, and a United States senator. He challenged injustice in the medical profession, worked for reform in public health and Indian policy, supported women’s rights, battled the power …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Katherine Manion (1867-1956)

    As an activist and physician, Katherine Manion contributed to Oregon women's quest for complete citizenship in the early twentieth century. She also worked for a secure place for women physicians in Oregon medicine. Katherine C. Galbraith was born in Walla Walla, Washington, in 1867 and graduated from St. Mary’s Academy …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Kathryn Clarke (1873-1940)

    Kathryn Clarke, the first woman to serve in the Oregon Senate, made worldwide news for her accomplishment. She was born in Douglas County in 1873, the daughter of John and Catherine McGregor Clarke, who had come to Oregon from Canada. She was born in the same year as her cousin, …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Lizzie Weeks (1879-1976)

    Lizzie Koontz Weeks was an African American activist in Portland in the years after women in Oregon had achieved the right to vote in 1912. She organized Black women to empower them to be successful voters and was an early candidate for local party office. Weeks was the first female …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Mae Harrington Whitney Cardwell (1853-1929)

    Mae Harrington, the first woman to hold a position on a hospital staff in Oregon, was born in Cherry Hill, Pennsylvania, on July 23, 1853. A teacher at age fourteen, she married Dr. H.W. Whitney when she was sixteen years old. It is uncertain when and why that marriage ended. …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Marian B. Towne (1880 - 1966)

    As the first woman elected to the Oregon House of Representatives (1914), and one of the first women in the state to serve with the Naval Reserve Corps in World War I, Marian Towne was a leader in expanding opportunities for Oregon women in the early twentieth century. Towne was …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Mary Cachot Therkelsen (1875-1937)

    Physician, businesswoman, and suffragist Mary Agnes Cachot Therkelsen contributed to Oregon's Progressive Era activism and created a bridge between local and national advocates for women's rights. By attaining a medical degree and engaging in business, she pushed the boundaries of women's participation in the economic and social life of the …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Maurine Neuberger (1906-2000)

    Maurine Brown Neuberger entered politics as an Oregon state legislator and, as of 2010, was Oregon’s first and only woman to serve in the United States Senate. Neuberger was an advocate for consumer rights and women’s issues, and she advanced the causes of the Democratic Party in Oregon and the …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Nan Wood Honeyman (1881–1970)

    Nan Wood Honeyman made history as the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Oregon, serving from 1937 to 1939. Her friendship with Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt connected her, and many Oregon Democrats through her, to national Democratic Party politics and policies from the 1930s to the …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Sarah Ann Shannon Evans (1854-1940)

    Sarah A. Evans epitomized the characteristics of clubwomen of the United States from the 1890s to World War II. A leader in Oregon reform efforts, she left a strong legacy of activism for women and Progressive Era causes in Oregon. Born in Bedford, Pennsylvania, in 1854, Sarah Ann Shannon graduated …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Susan Castillo (1951-)

    Susan Castillo was the first Latina elected to the Oregon State Legislature and the first to hold statewide elected office as superintendent of public instruction. She was also the last person to fill that post, which was abolished by legislation in 2011. Castillo made important legislative and policy contributions to …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Woman Suffrage in Oregon

    The campaign to achieve voting rights (also called suffrage or the franchise) for Oregon women from 1870 to 1912 is part of a broad and continuing movement at the regional, national, and international levels to secure equality and full citizenship for women. Oregon has the distinction of placing the question …

    Oregon Encyclopedia