Annelise Orleck

Annelise Orleck (born 22 January 1959) is an American historian and professor at Dartmouth College. Her work primarily focuses on the working class and Jewish-American experience, with notable publications including Common Sense and a Little Fire: Women and Working-Class Politics in the United States, 1900-1965 and Storming Caesar's Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty. In 2024, she was involved in pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses, leading to her arrest and temporary ban from Dartmouth College.

Life and career Annelise Orleck was born on January 22, 1959 in Brooklyn, the daughter of Norman and Thelma Orelick. She earned a BA from Evergreen State College in 1979 and a PhD from New York University in 1989. She has taught at Dartmouth College since 1990, where she has chaired both the women's and gender studies department and the Jewish studies department.

Much of her work has focused on the working class and Jewish-American experience. Her first book, Common Sense and a Little Fire: Women and Working-Class Politics in the United States, 1900-1965, focuses on four Jewish-American women activists, Rose Schneiderman, Fannia Cohn, Clara Lemlich Shavelson, and Pauline Newman. Her book Storming Caesar's Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty examined how African-American women on public assistance fought for their rights and against negative stereotypes. Orleck was banned from Dartmouth as a condition of bail, but Dartmouth later announced that it would not enforce the ban. Later that week, her bail conditions were "corrected" to temporarily banning her from only specific sites on campus instead of the entire campus.

In 2025, she was the president of the Dartmouth College chapter of the American Association of University Professors.