Ellen NicKenzie Lawson (b. 1944) earned the B.A. degree from Swarthmore College (1966), the M.A.T. degree from Wesleyan University (1969), and the Ph.D. degree in American history from Case Western Reserve University (1977).

During the fall months of 1970 Lawson, along with four female students and one other math faculty wife, Cheryl Stevenson, lobbied senior administration for the first women's history course at Oberlin College. (Roberta Miller taught the first women's history course that spring semester.) At one point Lawson was a part-time instructor in the Oberlin College Department of History (1974-75), and taught a course that surveyed the history of 19th century American women. In the spring of 1974 Lawson was an interim special consultant to the Academic Dean responsible for the development of the Women's Studies program (between the departure of Associate Dean Zara Wilkenfeld and the arrival of Associate Dean Paula Goldsmid) in an effort to establish a more permanent women's studies program.

Ellen NicKenzie Lawson's interests in women's history, including African-American women, led her to establish, along with Marlene D. Merrill, the Women's History Project. In 1980, Lawson and Merrill spoke about their research on three women (later called The Three Sarahs) at Harvard University's Bunting Institute. Assisted by Merrill, Lawson wrote The Three Sarahs: Documents of Antebellum Black College Women (1984). In addition, Lawson's work with the Women's History Project led her to write an autobiography of Mary Elizabeth Johnston, educator and librarian (A.B. 1913, issued in 1937), titled Across the Stage: An Extra Clap (1983), which was distributed to 30,000 Oberlin Alumni.

In addition to her teaching and writing activities at Oberlin, Lawson served as Assistant Academic Dean (1978-80) under Robert Longsworth, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. In 1980, Ann Fuller (formerly wed to Oberlin College president Robert W. Fuller) and Ellen Lawson prepared a five-page questionnaire, which was sent to 120 Oberlin faculty wives who were involved at the College in the early 1970s. An interpretative summary of this report, “The faculty spouse and the women’s movement,” appeared in the faculty and staff newspaper, Observer, vol. 4:16 (28 April 1983), page 5. (The survey responses are in the Oberlin College Archives). In 1982 Lawson organized the first Midwest Regional Conference on Black Women's History for the Organization of American History (OAH). The conference was hosted by Oberlin College.

Lawson was also involved in the Oberlin community as a board member for the Oberlin Early Childhood Center and for the local chapter (Oberlin) of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Lawson served in other capacities outside of Oberlin. From 1980 to 1992, she worked as a free-lance writer, historian, and archivist in Northern Ohio. In 1987, she wrote an article titled “The Fathers of Photography: The Brothers Langenheim” that was published in Pennsylvania Heritage, vol. 13:4 (Fall 1987), pages 16-23, and donated slides of Langenheim daguerreotypes (1840-50) to the Oberlin College Archives. She also taught African-American history courses at Cuyahoga Community College and served as a Visiting Professor of African-American History at Cleveland State University. From 1992 to 1996, Ellen N. Lawson taught history at a number of institutions throughout Ohio, Washington, and Oregon.

At mid-life, Lawson switched from history to the visual arts and is now a painter. She studied art for two years, 1996-98, at Clatsop College in Astoria, Oregon. Later, she took courses at Plymouth State College in New Hampshire, and Corcoran School in Washington, D.C., and taught art at Corcoran Summer Camp and at Grymes Memorial School in Orange, Virginia. She also has held solo art shows. During the 2001-02 academic year she served as Adjunct Faculty at Germanna Community College, taught African-American history in Coffeewood Prison, and from 2002 to 2004 was a history and economics teacher at Liberty High School in Fauquier County, Virginia.

Michael G. Henle (Swarthmore '65; Professor of Math, Oberlin College, 1970- ) and Ellen N. Lawson are the parents of Alea Henle of Fort Collins, Colorado, and Josh Medley of Boulder, Colorado.

For additional biographical information researchers should consult the curriculum vitae of Ellen N. Lawson, 2004.

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Guide to the Women's History Sources in the Oberlin College Archives

Curriculum vitae of Ellen Lawson, 2004