Personal Statement

Professor Daphne Spain is James M. Page Professor in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning. In 2013 she won the Cavalier's Distinguished Teaching Professorship.  Ms. Spain's scholarship addresses the relationship between the built environment and social structure, with an emphasis on gender. A long-term research interest is the way in which groups of women change the urban environment. She has just finished  a book project titled "Constructive Feminism: Building Women's Rights into the City" in which she explores how the 1970s Women's Movement established new places in the city in pursuit of women's rights. Ms. Spain has published articles in the leading journals in the planning and urban fields. Her books include Gendered Spaces (UNC Press, 1992) and Balancing Act: Motherhood, Marriage and Employment among American Women (with Suzanne Bianchi, Russell Sage Foundation, 1996). Her most recent book, How Women Saved the City (University of Minnesota Press, 2001), explores the importance of redemptive places built by women volunteers at the turn of the 20th century. Professor Spain has received research grants from the Russell Sage Foundation and The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. Her work has been featured on the PBS documentary "The First Measured Century", and on the Jim Lehrer NewsHour.