SUNY New Paltz professor’s dissertation has prominent finding, wins award

NEW PALTZ — Susan Lewis, associate professor of history at the State University of New York at New Paltz, recently won the Distinguished Dissertation Award from the State University of New York at Binghamton. She won the award in the category “Social Sciences, Management and Education” for her dissertation titled “Women in the Marketplace: Female Entrepreneurs, Business Patterns and Working Families in Mid-Nineteenth Century Albany, New York 1830-1885.”

Lewis’ project was chosen for its “originality and interest,” said David G. Payne, vice-provost and dean of the Graduate School at SUNY Binghamton. The most prominent finding in her dissertation was that in Albany, in the mid-19th century, it was twice as common for a woman to run her own business as it was for a woman to be a schoolteacher.

“We are delighted that Associate Professor Lewis, who recently joined our faculty, has been honored in this way by SUNY Binghamton,” said Gerald Benjamin, dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences at SUNY New Paltz.

Lewis taught at New Paltz as an adjunct for three years before becoming a full-time faculty member last fall. Before coming to New Paltz, she taught as an adjunct in the history department at the University at Albany.