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Faculty and Staff Directory

Mary Ann Irwin

Faculty - History, Pleasant Hill Campus

Miss Irwin attended Mesa Community College in San Diego, received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of California at Berkeley (1980), and a Masters in History from San Francisco State University (1995). She teaches history at San Francisco Bay Area colleges, including Diablo Valley College, Chabot College, Laney College, and California State University, East Bay. In January 2020, Irwin stepped in as editor of the 100-year-old, peer-reviewed academic journal California History, now housed in the History Department at California State University, East Bay.

In 2011 Miss Irwin won the National Coalition of Independent Scholars' Eisenstein-DeLacy Award for "Sex, War, and Community Service: The Battle for San Francisco's Jewish Community Center," Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Vol. 32, Issue 1 (May 2011). In 2003, she won one of six Fellowships presented by the Jewish Women's Archives "Jewish Women Building Community" project (funding provided by the Myra Reinhard Family Foundation of San Francisco). In 1999, Miss Irwin won the Coalition for Western Women's History's Jensen-Miller Best Article Prize for "'Going About and Doing Good': The Politics of Benevolence, Welfare, and Gender in San Francisco, 1850-1880," Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 68, Issue 3 (August 1999).

Miss Irwin is currently managing several writing projects, including a history of San Francisco's Emanu-El Sisterhood for Personal Service.

Mary Ann lives in Oakland and volunteers with several local organizations, including: St. Vincent de Paul Homeless Shelter (MSC-South); Save the Bay, the Bay Area's oldest environmental action group; and Taproot Foundation, a volunteer-matching group that connects professionals with not-for-profits needing their skills.

Education

Education

1995 San Francisco State Uni­versi­ty, Master of Arts / History
1980 University of Cali­fornia at Berkeley, Bachelor of Arts / History
1976 San Diego (Mesa) Community College

Honors

2011 National Coalition of Independent Scholars Eisenstein-DeLacy Award for "Sex, War, and Community Service: The Battle for San Francisco's Jewish Community Center," Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Vol. 32, Issue 1 (May 2011).
2003 Fellow, Jewish Women's Archive, “Jewish Women Building Community” project.
Fellow, Myra Reinhard Family Foundation.
1999 Coalition for Western Women's History Jensen-Miller "Best Article" Prize.
1995 Phi Alpha Theta (International Honor Society in History), Kappa Phi Chapter.
Publications
  • "Ministers of the Poor: The St. Vincent de Paul Society of San Francisco, 1860-2010" (St. Vincent de Paul Society of San Francisco/forthcoming);
  • Richard B. Rice, William A. Bullough, Richard J. Orsi, and Mary Ann Irwin, The Elusive Eden: A New History of California (4th ed.) (McGraw-Hill, 2011);
  • Robert W. Cherny, Mary Ann Irwin, and Ann Marie Wilson, eds., Women and Politics: California from the Gold Rush to the Great Depression (University of Nebraska Press, 2011);
  • "Sex, War, and Community Service: The Battle for San Francisco's Jewish Community Center," Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies special issue, "Gender and the City" Vol. 32, Issue 1 (May 2011);
  • "'The Air is Becoming Full of War:' Jewish San Francisco and World War I," Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 74, Issue 3 (August 2005);
  • James F. Brooks and Mary Ann Irwin, eds., Women and Gender in the American West: Jensen-Miller Essays from the Coalition for Western Women's History (University of New Mexico Press, 2004);
  • "'Going About and Doing Good' : The Politics of Benevolence, Welfare, and Gender in San Francisco, 1850-1880," Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 68, Issue 3 (August 1999) (Winner, Joan Jensen-Darlis Miller Prize, Best Article 1999);
  • "White Slavery as Metaphor: Anatomy of a Moral Panic," Ex Post Facto (Spring 1996).
Affiliations

Participation in Professional Organizations

  • February 2016-present, co-Editor, H-California listserv.
  • January 2016-December 2018, Council, Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (SHGAPE).
  • January 2016, Co-Editor, H-California, Study of California History.
  • September April 2014-April 2017, Secretary/Treasurer, California Conference of the American Association of University Professors.
  • September 2013-April 2014, Acting President, California Conference of the American Association of University Professors.
  • May 2014-September 2014: Vice-President for Community Colleges, California Conference of the American Association of University Professors.
  • January 2008-December 2010: Editorial Board member, Pacific Historical Review (University of California Press).
  • October 1997-October 2007: Steering Committee Chair, Coalition for Western Women Historians. Ex Officio, October 2007 to present.
  • May 2003-May 2007: Secretary, Western Association of Women Historians.
  • Anonymous referee, various publishers and academic journals.

Additional Professional Training

  • Contra Costa Community College District Teaching Academy: Web-based Retention / Persistence Strategies for Online and Face-to-face Classes, September, 2013 to October, 2013
  • 2013, Faculty Learning Community: Teaching With Technology, California State University, East Bay, February 2013 to June 2013
  • 2009, Certificate of Completion / Professional Sequence in Editing, University of California Extension
Last Updated: 12/7/23