Professor Judy Barrett Litoff

Judy Barrett Litoff, Professor of History at Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island, is the author of 13 books and more than 100 articles, book chapters, and reviews in American women's history.

She is the author of two pioneering books on the history of American midwifery, American Midwives, 1860 to the Present (1978,1985) and The American Midwife Debate: A Sourcebook on its Modern Origins(1986).

Over the last two decades, Litoff has focused her research and writing on American women and the Second World War. Her research has included a nationwide search for women’s correspondence that has resulted in the assembling of an archive of 30,000 wartime letters written by American women. These 30,000 letters provide clear and unequivocal evidence of the many important ways that women actively participated in the war effort, and they vividly illustrate women s growing sense of self and their place in the world. In short, they offer perceptive insights into heretofore unexplored, but fundamental, aspects of the war. For additional information about the U.S. Women and Letter Writing Project, go to http://digitalcommons.bryant.edu/ww2letters/

Litoff’s books on World War II include Miss You (1990), Since You Went Away: World War II Letters from American Women on the Home Front(1991,1995), Dear Boys(1991), We’re In This War Too: World War II Letters from American Women in Uniform(1994), Dear Poppa (1997), American Women in a World at War(1997), What Kind of World Do We Want? American Women Planning for Peace (2000), Fighting Fascism in Europe (2003), and An American Heroine in the French Resistance (2006, 2008).

Litoff’s innovative research on American women and World War II has been the subject of numerous newspaper and magazine articles, and she frequently appears on television and radio. She has lectured widely in the United States, as well as in England, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine, the Republic of Georgia, Russia, and China. Most recently, she served as an historical consultant for the highly-acclaimed and Emmy nominated PBS documentary, “The Perilous Fight: America s World War II in Color.” She is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award in the Humanities. Litoff was also the Project Director of a three-year U.S. Department of State grant between Bryant University and the European Humanities University in Minsk, Belarus.

She has served on the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities and the Board of Overseers of the Moses Brown School and the Lincoln School, and the Board of Trustees of the Rhode Island Historical Society. She also served as the Chair of the Goff Institute for Ingenuity and Enterprise Studies. She is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Humanities Forum of Rhode Island, the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society, and Festival Ballet Providence.

The mother of two adult daughters and two granddaughters, Litoff lives in Providence, Rhode Island. She is an avid downhill skier and yoga enthusiast.