About the Editor
Stephanie Coontz teaches history and family studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, and is Director of Research and Public Education for the Council on Contemporary Families, which she chaired from 2001-04. She is the author of Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage, The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap, The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms with America's Changing Families, and The Social Origins of Private Life: A History of American Families. Her work has been translated into French, Spanish, German, Norwegian, Turkish, Chinese, and Japanese.
Coontz has testified about her research before the House Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families in Washington, DC, and addressed audiences across America, Japan, Australia, and Europe. She has appeared on the Today Show, Oprah Winfrey, Crossfire, 20/20, NPR, CNN's Talk Back Live, CBS This Morning, Leeza, the O-Reilly Factor and MSNBC with Brian Williams, as well as in several prime-time television documentaries, including ones hosted by Walter Cronkite and Barbara Walters. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, The Observer/Guardian, The Times of London, Wall Street Journal, Salon, Washington Post, Newsweek, Harper's, Vogue, LIFE, Time-LIFE Books, and Mirabella, as well as in such academic and professional journals as Family Therapy Magazine, Chronicle of Higher Education, National Forum, and Journal of Marriage and Family.
A former Woodrow Wilson Fellow, Coontz has also taught at Kobe University in Japan and the University of Hawaii at Hilo. In 2004, she received the Council on Contemporary Families first-ever "Visionary Leadership" Award. In 1995 she received the Dale Richmond Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics for her "outstanding contributions to the field of child development." She also received the 2001-02 "Friend of the Family" award from the Illinois Council on Family Relations. She serves as a marriage consultant to The Ladies Home Journal.