Anne Scott

Who is Anne Scott?

Anne Firor Scott is a prominent historian. In 1941 she graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Georgia. She earned a master's degree in political science from Northwestern University in 1944, and a PhD from Radcliffe College in 1949. She had temporary teaching appointments at Haverford College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and in 1961 became assistant professor of history at Duke University, where she stayed until her retirement in 1991. In 1965 President Lyndon Johnson appointed her to the Citizens Advisory Council on the Status of Women.

In 1970 her book The Southern Lady: From Pedestal to Politics, 1830–1930, was published; it is now considered a classic that almost singlehandedly created the modern field of Southern women's history. Firor Scott became the first female chair of Duke's history department in 1980. In 1984 she became president of the Organization of American Historians. In 1987 the Anne Firor Scott Research Fund was created as an endowment to support students conducting independent research in women's history.