In honor of Gerda Lerner, pioneering historian, author and teacher, who passed away on January 2, 2013, we would like to feature this archived recording of her reading at Prairie Lights Bookstore in 2002.

Gerda Lerner reading, Live From Prairie Lights, November 14, 2002

Gerda Lerner (April 30, 1920 - January 2, 2013) was one of the founders of the field of women's history, and was a former president of the Organization of American Historians. Lerner played a key role in the development of women’s history curricula. Lerner was a professor emerita of history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a visiting scholar at Duke University. She taught what is considered to be the first women’s history course in the world at the New School for Social Research in 1963. She was also involved in the development of similar programs at Long Island University (1965–1967), at Sarah Lawrence College from 1968 to 1979 (where she established the nation's first Women's History graduate program), at Columbia University (where she was a co-founder of the Seminar on Women), and since 1980 as Robinson Edwards Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

New York Times: Gerda Lerner, Pioneering Feminist and Historian, Dies at 92