Anne Valk

Valk is a specialist in oral history, public history, and the social history of 20th century United States. Before coming to The Graduate Center, she was associate director for public humanities and a lecturer in history at Williams College, where she taught experiential and community-based classes in oral history and public history. Prior to that, she was associate professor of history and director of women’s studies at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and deputy director of the Center for Public Humanities at Brown University.  She has written extensively in the areas of women’s history, history of feminism, and oral history. Her books include Radical Sisters: Second-Wave Feminism and Black Liberation in Washington, DC, 1968-1980 and Living with Jim Crow: African American Women and Memories of the Segregated South, co-authored with Leslie Brown and recipient of the 2011 Oral History Association Book Prize. Valk has served as president of the Oral History Association and is book series editor of the Oral History Series published by Oxford University Press.

Selected Articles and Chapters

• "Imagining a Transnational and Transhistorical Movement Against Violence," in German Historical Institute London Blog (2022)

• "Recalling Our Bitter Experiences," in Radical Roots: Public History and a Tradition of Social Justice Activism, ed. Denise D. Meringolo (Amherst College Press, 2021)

• “Women’s Movements in 1968 and Beyond,” in Reframing 1968: American Politics, Protest and Identity, ed. Martin Halliwell and Nick Witham (Edinburgh University Press, 2018)
• “Industrial Remains: Community Narratives of Mashapaug Pond in Providence, Rhode Island,” in Telling Environmental Stories, ed. Katie Holmes and Heather Goodall (Palgrave, 2018)
• “Turning toward Mashapaug: Using Oral History to Teach about Place and Community in Providence, Rhode Island,” co-authored with Holly Ewald Transformations (Summer 2017)
• “Remembering Together: Take Back the Night and the Public Memory of Feminism,” in U.S. Women’s History: Untangling the Threads of Sisterhood (Rutgers University Press, 2017)
• “Bringing a Hidden Pond to Public Attention: Increasing Impact through Digital Tools,” co-authored with Holly Ewald, Oral History Review (winter/spring 2013)
• “Engaging Communities and Classrooms: Lessons from the Fox Point Oral History Project,” co-authored with Amy Atticks, Rachael Binning, Elizabeth Manekin, Aliza Schiff, Reina Shibata, and Meghan Townes, Oral History Review (spring 2011)
• “Framing Abortion as a ‘Health Right’ in Washington, DC,” in Feminist Coalitions: Historical Perspectives on Second-Wave Feminism in the United States, ed. Stephanie Gilmore (University of Illinois Press, 2008)
• “Black Durham ‘Behind the Veil’: An Urban Case Study;” “Behind the Veil: Behind Brown,” and “Educational Resources for Teaching Jim Crow History on Web Sites and in Films,” (three articles) co-authored with Leslie Brown, in OAH Magazine of History (January 2004)
• “’Our Territory’: Race, Place, Gender, Space and African American Women in the Urban South,” co-authored with Leslie Brown, in Katherine T. Corbett and Polly Kaufman, ed., Her Past around Us: Interpreting Sites for Women’s History (Krieger Publishing Company, 2003)
• “Living a Feminist Lifestyle: The Furies Collective,” Feminist Studies (Summer 2002). Reprinted in No Permanent Waves: Recasting Histories of U.S. Feminism, ed. Nancy A. Hewitt (Rutgers University Press, 2010)
• “Marching for Pride,” Gateway Heritage (Summer 2001)
• “’Mother Power’: The Movement for Welfare Rights in Washington, D.C., 1966-1972,” Journal of Women’s History (Winter 2000). Reprinted in Sharon Block, Ruth Alexander, and Mary Beth Norton, Major Problems in American Women’s History 5th Edition (NY: Wadsworth, 2014)