About the Speaker: Laura R. Prieto (Simmons College) has a B.A. from Wellesley College and a Master’s. and Ph.D. in History from Brown University. She was a New England Board of Higher Education Compact for Faculty Diversity fellow in 1996-1997 hosted by Bridgewater State College. She then joined the faculty at Simmons College with a joint appointment in History and Women’s Studies (Assistant Professor, 1997-2003; Associate Professor 2003–present). She teaches a wide range of courses in American history, gender history, and methodology. Harvard University Press published her book, At Home in the Studio: The Professionalization of Women Artists in America, in 2001. Other recent scholarship includes an essay and edited group of documents on nineteenth-century women sculptors, abolition, and women’s rights for the online collection Women and Social Movements in the United States. She contributed a chapter on American women missionaries to the Philippines for the forthcoming anthology, Competing Kingdoms: Women, Nation, Mission and American Empire (Duke University Press). She has also reviewed many books and worked as a freelance editor and researcher. Her ongoing research concerns gender, race, and imperialism in the era of the Spanish-American War. From 1997-2003 and again from 2006-present, she directed the graduate program in History at Simmons. She is currently President of the New England Historical Association.