Elisabeth Israels Perry

Elisabeth Israels Perry
Born
Elisabeth Miriam Israels

(1939-03-29)March 29, 1939
New York, New York, U.S.
DiedNovember 11, 2018(2018-11-11) (aged 79)
Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.
Other nameElisabeth Israels Lazarof
OccupationsHistorian, college professor
Spouse(s)Henri Lazarof (m. 1958)
Lewis Perry (m. 1970)
RelativesBelle Moskowitz (grandmother)
Mordecai Bauman (stepfather)
Chuck Israels (brother)

Elisabeth Israels Perry (March 29, 1939 – November 11, 2018) was an American feminist historian and college professor. She was president of the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (SHGAPE) from 1998 to 2000.

Early life and education

Perry was born in New York City, the daughter of Irma Commanday Bauman and her first husband, attorney Carlos Lindner Israels. Her mother and stepfather, singer Mordecai Bauman, co-founded and ran the Indian Hill Music Workshop in Massachusetts. Her brother is jazz musician Chuck Israels; their paternal grandmother was activist Belle Moskowitz.

Perry attended Hunter College High School, graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1960, and completed her doctoral studies in French history there in 1967, based on research she conducted in Paris on a Fulbright fellowship.

Career

Perry taught at the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Cincinnati, the University of Iowa, Vanderbilt University, and Brooklyn College. She and her husband held a joint faculty appointment at Saint Louis University, where she was chair of the history department and interim chair of the women's studies department. In 1994 she was named director of the master's program in women's history at Sarah Lawrence College. She directed the NEH Summer Seminar in Women's History seven times.

Perry was president of the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (SHGAPE) from 1998 to 2000. She contributed articles to the Jewish Women's Archive and The Encyclopedia of New York City, and was a member of the editorial advisory board of Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia (1997).

Publications

Perry's research appeared in scholarly journals including Labor History, American Quarterly, Canadian Review of American Studies, New York History, Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Journal of Women's History, National Forum, OAH Magazine of History, and The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.

Personal life

Elisabeth Israels married Bulgarian-born composer Henri Lazarof in 1958. She married fellow historian Lewis Perry in 1970. They had two children together, Susanna and David. She died from cancer in 2018, at the age of 79, in Omaha, Nebraska.

References

  1. ↑ "Irma Commanday is Wed in Yonkers; Marriage to Carlos L. Israels, New York Attorney, Takes Place in Her Home". The New York Times. 1935-09-26. p. 21. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-03-27.
  2. ↑ "Child Born to Mrs. C.L. Israels". The New York Times. March 30, 1939. p. 27. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-03-27.
  3. ↑ "Mordecai and Irma Bauman Papers". NYU Special Collections Finding Aids. Retrieved 2026-03-27.
  4. ↑ "Interviews with Morty and Irma Bauman". Jewish Historical Society of Western Massachusetts. Retrieved 2026-03-27.
  5. ↑ "Collection: Belle Moskowitz papers". Linda Lear Center for Special Collections and Archives, Connecticut College. Retrieved 2026-03-27.
  6. 1 2 Greene, Donna (1994-04-17). "Westchester Q&A;: Elisabeth Israels Perry; Women's History as a Continuing Study". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-03-27.
  7. 1 2 "Mrs. Israels Receives Ph.D." The Berkshire Eagle. 1967-06-08. p. 20. Retrieved 2026-03-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Perry, David. "Elisabeth Israels Perry (1939–2018)". AHA Perspectives. Retrieved 2026-03-26.
  9. 1 2 3 Parker, Charles. "Elisabeth Perry, Ph.D.: 1939-2018". Saint Louis University. Retrieved 2026-03-26.
  10. 1 2 "Mrs. Lazarof Wins Fulbright for Paris Study". The Berkshire Eagle. 1964-04-18. p. 21. Retrieved 2026-03-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. 1 2 "New Director". Mount Vernon Argus. 1994-02-22. p. 8. Retrieved 2026-03-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ↑ "Scholar, journalist to speak at Monmouth College". The Register-Mail. 2003-03-23. p. 5. Retrieved 2026-03-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ↑ "Event celebrates Methodist women". The Tennessean. 2007-03-10. pp. B5. Retrieved 2026-03-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ↑ "Officers, Council Members, & Committees". SHGAPE. Retrieved 2026-03-26.
  15. 1 2 "Elisabeth Israels Perry". Jewish Women's Archive. Retrieved 2026-03-26.
  16. ↑ Jackson, Kenneth T.; Keller, Lisa; Flood, Nancy (2010-12-01). The Encyclopedia of New York City: Second Edition. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-18257-6.
  17. 1 2 Perry, Elisabeth Israels (January 1982). "Industrial reform in New York City: Belle Moskowitz and the protocol of peace, 1913–1916". Labor History. 23 (1): 5–31. doi:10.1080/00236568208584642. ISSN 0023-656X.
  18. 1 2 Perry, Elisabeth I. (1985). ""The General Motherhood of the Commonwealth": Dance Hall Reform in the Progressive Era". American Quarterly. 37 (5): 719–733. doi:10.2307/2712618. ISSN 0003-0678.
  19. 1 2 Perry, Elisabeth Israels (September 1987). "Scholars confront the E.R.A.". Canadian Review of American Studies. 18 (3): 393–398. doi:10.3138/CRAS-018-03-05. ISSN 0007-7720.
  20. 1 2 Perry, Elisabeth Israels. "Women's Political Choices After Suffrage: The Women's City Club of New York, 1915-1990" New York History 71(4)(October 1990).
  21. 1 2 Perry, Elisabeth Israels (2001). "Rhetoric, Strategy, and Politics in the New York Campaign for Women's Jury Service, 1917-1975". New York History. 82 (1): 53–78. ISSN 0146-437X.
  22. 1 2 Perry, Elisabeth Israels. "" The Very Best Influence": Josephine Holloway and Girl Scouting in Nashville's African-American Community." Tennessee Historical Quarterly 52, no. 2 (1993): 73.
  23. 1 2 Perry, Elisabeth Israels (September 1993). "From Achievement to Happiness: Girl Scouting In Middle Tennessee, 1910s-1960s". Journal of Women's History. 5 (2): 75–94. doi:10.1353/jowh.2010.0275. ISSN 1527-2036.
  24. 1 2 Perry, Elisabeth Israels. "Critical journey: From Belle Moskowitz to women's history." National Forum 77(3)(1997); Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi.
  25. 1 2 Perry, E. I. (1999-03-01). "The Changing Meanings of the Progressive Era". OAH Magazine of History. 13 (3): 3–4. doi:10.1093/maghis/13.3.3. ISSN 0882-228X.
  26. 1 2 Perry, Elisabeth Israels (January 2002). "Men Are from the Gilded Age, Women Are from the Progressive Era". The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. 1 (1): 25–48. doi:10.1017/S1537781400000086. ISSN 1943-3557.
  27. ↑ Perry, Elisabeth Israels (2012-12-06). From Theology to History: French Religious Controversy and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes: French Religious Controversy and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 978-94-010-2009-1.
  28. ↑ Perry, Elisabeth Israels (2018). Belle Moskowitz: Feminine Politics and the Exercise of Power in the Age of Alfred E. Smith. Routledge Library Editions: Women and Politics Ser. Milton: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-38663-1.
  29. ↑ Alpern, Sara, ed. (1992). The Challenge of feminist biography: writing the lives of modern American women. Women in American history. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-01926-5.
  30. ↑ Perry, Elisabeth Israels. Women in Action: Rebels and Reformers 1920-1980. League of Women Voters (Pub.# 1019), 1995.
  31. ↑ Smith, Claiborne (2003-11-20). "Textbook Treatment". Newsday (Suffolk Edition). p. 91. Retrieved 2026-03-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  32. ↑ Frahm, Robert A. (1995-07-09). "Textbook explores history from women's perspectives". Hartford Courant. pp. 254, 256. Retrieved 2026-03-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  33. ↑ Perry, Elisabeth Israels (2019-03-06). After the Vote: Feminist Politics in La Guardia's New York. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-934185-6.
  34. ↑ Henri Lazarof's Petition for Naturalization, dated February 6, 1962; via Ancestry.