Joyce Appleby


Joyce Oldham Appleby was an American historian. She was a professor of history at UCLA. She served as president of the Organization of American Historians and the American Historical Association.

Life

Appleby was born in Omaha, Nebraska. Her father was a businessman. She attended public schools in Omaha, Dallas, Kansas City, Evanston, Phoenix, and Pasadena.
Appleby received her B.A. degree from Stanford University in 1950 and then became a magazine writer in New York. Returning to academia, she earned her Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate School in 1966.
Appleby was the widow of Andrew Bell Appleby, a professor of European history at San Diego State University. Her first marriage to Mark Lansburgh ended in divorce. She had three children: Ann Lansburgh Caylor, Mark Lansburgh, and Frank Bell Appleby.
Appleby died on December 23, 2016 at the age of 87.

Career

Appleby taught at San Diego State University from 1967 to 81, then became a professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles. She was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1993. In 1990–1991 she was the Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth Professor of American History at Oxford University.
When she was the president of the Organization of American Historians, Appleby secured congressional support for an endowment to send American Studies libraries to 60 universities around the world; a selection of 1,000 books were made by a group of scholars on American history, literature, political science, sociology, and philosophy.
Appleby was a specialist in historiography and the political thought of the early American Republic, with special interests in Republicanism, liberalism, and the history of ideas about capitalism. She served on the editorial boards of numerous scholarly journals and editorial projects, and received prominent national fellowships.

Works

Articles