Profile
Laura Schor, professor of history at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center, received her PhD in modern European history at the University of Rochester in 1974. Her early work focused on the women silk workers of Lyon, culminating in a book, Women and the Making of the Working Class: Lyon, 1830-1870, published in 1979. This was followed, in 1983, by a study of gender role education in French primary schools, published as What Were Little Girls and Boys Made Of? In 1988, Schor published her first biography, The Odyssey of Flora Tristan, a French feminist-socialist of the first half of the 19th century. This was followed by a study of women’s struggle for political rights in 1848 and the political satire depicting that struggle culminating in an exhibit and catalogue of the cartoons of Edmund de Beaumont titled, Les Jolies femmes de Paris. In recent years, Dr. Schor has turned her attention to Jewish women’s history, publishing, The Life and Legacy of the Baroness Betty de Rothschild, in 2006, followed by her study of the Evelina de Rothschild School, The Best School in Jerusalem: Annie Landau’s School for Girls, 1900-1960, published in 2013.
Dr. Schor has presented her research at academic conferences in the United States, Europe, and Israel.
In addition to research and teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels, Dr. Schor has had a substantial career in academic administration. She was a pioneering director of Women’s Studies at the University of Cincinnati, where she initiated a Friends of Women’s Studies group, created a Scholar in Residence Program, and initiated a Women in Science series.
She later was appointed vice provost for academic planning and supervised the distribution of significant investment in academic excellence funds. Dr. Schor served Hunter College as provost for nine years, creating the Freshman Year program and hiring 100 new faculty members. During a brief hiatus from academe, Dr. Schor was the executive director of Hadassah, where she was instrumental in establishing the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and the Hadassah Foundation. Returning to university life, she was appointed Founding Dean of the Macaulay (then CUNY) Honors College, serving from its inception until the graduation of the first class in 2005.
Dr. Schor serves on three boards: the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, the Macaulay Honors College Foundation Board, and the Slim Peace Board.
Women and the Making of the Working Class: Lyon, 1830-1870
What Were Little Boys and Girls Made of?: Primary Education in Rural France 1830-1880
The Odyssey of Flora Tristan
The Life & Legacy of Baroness Betty de Rothschild
The Best School in Jerusalem: Annie Landau’s School for Girls, 1900-1960