Kathleen Cairns

California; Media; Women’s History
E-mail: kcairns@calpoly.edu
Office: Bldg. 47, 25D
Phone: (805)765-2543

EDUCATION

• Ph.D. University of California, Davis (1995)
• B.A. (1976), M.A. (1989) History, California State University, Long Beach

RESEARCH & TEACHING INTERESTS

• California
• Depression era (California and U.S.)
• Crime
• Media
• Women

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS & PRESENTATIONS 

Conference papers, 2007-08:
• “Murder Most Feminine,” Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, June 2008, Minneapolis, MN
• “Woman to Woman, Class, Conflict and the Tehachapi Prison Experience in California.” Western Association of Women Historians, San Diego, May.
• “Writing for their Lives, ‘The Clarion’ and Female Inmates at the California Institution for Women, Tehachapi.” Western History Association, Oklahoma City, OK, October.

Books:
• The Enigma Woman: The Death Penalty of Nellie May Madison, University of Nebraska Press (May 2007)
• Front-Page Women Journalists, 1920-1950, University of Nebraska Press (May 2003)
• Hard Times: The History of the California Institution for Women, Tehachapi, 1933-1952. Forthcoming, University of New Mexico Press.

Articles:
• “Writing for Their Lives,” Western Legal History (Fall, 2008).
• “Enigma Woman: Nellie Madison, Femme Fatales and Noir Fiction,” Montana, the Magazine of Western History (Spring 2004).            

ORGANIZATIONAL MEMBERSHIPS

• Western Association of Women Historians
• Western History Association

COURSES
• HIST 208 – California History
• HIST 322 – Twentieth Century America

• HIST 435 – Women’s History
• HIST 440 – Special Topics