Wendy L. Rouse

Wendy L. Rouse is a historian specializing in recovering the stories of women and children living in the US during the Progressive Era. Her most recent book, Public Faces, Secret Lives: A Queer History of the Women's Suffrage Movement (NYU Press, 2022), reveals the role of queer suffragists and queerness in the fight for the vote. In 2017, Rouse is also the author of Her Own Hero: The Origins of the Women's Self-Defense Movement (NYU Press) which examines the emergence of women's self-defense alongside the first-wave of feminism during the Progressive Era. Her first book, Children of Chinatown: Growing up Chinese American in San Francisco (UNC Press 2009) explored the lives of Chinese American children during the era of Chinese exclusion. Rouse is a Professor of History at San Jose State University.