About Lillian Estelle Fisher
Lillian Estelle Fisher (May 1, 1891 – May 4, 1988) was one of the first women to earn a doctorate in Latin American history in the U.S. She published important works on Spanish colonial administration; a biography of Manuel Abad y Queipo, reform bishop-elect of Michoacan; and a monograph on the Tupac Amaru rebellion in Peru. As distinguished colonial Latin American historian John J. TePaske put it in 1968, "At least three generations of graduate students have studied the works of Lillian Estelle Fisher." Fisher is included as an example of sexual/gender discrimination in the historical profession. == Early life == Fisher was born in Pennsylvania to farmers George P. Fisher and Etta R. Fisher in 1891. She attended Susquehanna University for her B.A., earning highest honors in 1912. She briefly taught at a Methodist normal school (teacher-education training school) in Puebla, Mexico (1913–1916). Fisher moved to California and earned her M.A. at the University of Southern California in 1918, then attended the University of California, Berkeley for her doctorate, which she completed in 1924 under Herbert I. Priestley. She remained for a time in California, teaching at Whittier College. She taught for 15 years at the Oklahoma College for Women (1926–1942), and returned to Berkeley, where she taught for a time at the extension of the University of California. As Fisher was one a very small number of women earning doctorates in history, her mentor was concerned that as a woman she would face discrimination in the field; however, Priestley did not support the entrance of women in major history departments. == Academic career == In keeping with the intellectual trends in Latin American history at the time, Fisher pursued institutional history, with one work on the viceregal administration and the other on the eighteenth-century Bourbon reforms establishing the intendancy system.
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