"Students pursue history because people and their choices are fascinating and because studying people in history ideally enables the student to become a person of good judgement and compassion. The student of history comes to understand the meaning of 'shared humanity' and the complexity of causation."
Professor Farnsworth specializes in Russian history with areas of interest in Russian peasant and Russian women's history. Her ideal women's class is one in which every student contributes - whether with questions or comments - creating an interactive classroom with informal lectures and considerable discussion. She strives to ensure that Wells students graduate with excellent communication skills, the ability to think critically, and consider several different points of view before reaching a conclusion.
1955 B.A. Indiana University
1956 M.A. Yale University
1959 Ph.D. Yale University
Farnsworth, Beatrice. Russian Peasant Women. Oxford University Press: 1992.
Farnsworth, Beatrice. Aleksandra Kollontai. Stanford University Press: 1980.
- Old Russia
- Modern Russia
- Women in Modern China
- Voices of African-American Women
- Russia Since Stalin
- Bourgeois Century: 1815-1914
- History of American Feminism
- Women as Revolutionaries