Associate Professor
Department of History
St. John Hall, Room 244-M
Queens Campus
8000 Utopia Parkway
Queens, NY 11439
Phone: (718) 990-5230
Fax: (718) 990-2644
vapnekl@stjohns.edu
Educational Background
Ph.D., History Department, Columbia University, 2000
M.Phil., History Department, Columbia University, 1994
M.A., History Department, Columbia University, 1992
B.A., Barnard College, magna cum laude, with Honors in History,
1990
Profile
Lara Vapnek specializes in the history of gender and labor in the
nineteenth- and twentieth-century United States. Her recent book,
Breadwinners: Working Women and Economic Independence,
1865-1920 (University of Illinois Press, 2009) shows how
female wage earners pursued equality by claiming new identities as
citizens and as workers. Vapnek’s current research examines
the intersections between motherhood, social class, and state
formation, arguing that debates about infant feeding set the
parameters of state responsibility for public health and redefined
human rights. Vapnek is also working on a short biography of
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (1890-1964), a labor leader and free speech
activist. Prior to her appointment at St. John's University
in 2006, Vapnek taught at Columbia University, Rutgers University,
and Barnard College.