Feminist and medieval historian Jo Ann McNamara (1931-2009) was instrumental in raising the visibility of women in medieval society in both secular and religious contexts, most notably in her A New Song: Celibate Women in the First Three Christian Centuries (1983) and Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns through Two Millennia (1994). After earning her doctorate from Columbia University in 1967, she joined the faculty at Hunter College full time where she helped to found the women's studies program in the 1970s. She was an early member of the New York area Coordinating Committee on Women in the Historical Profession and played an active role in the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, co-chairing the Conference on the History of Women in 1982. McNamara married Eldon Clingan in 1959; they divorced in 1973. They had a son, Edmund Clingan. She died of complications from shoulder surgery in New York City.
From the description of Papers of Jo Ann McNamara, 1966-2001. (Harvard University). WorldCat record id: 658206606
