Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy

Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy (December 3, 1939 – May 26, 2026) was an American historian and academic who co-wrote the book Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: A History of the Lesbian Community with Madeline Davis. She was one of the founding feminists of the field of the women's studies department at the University at Buffalo.

Early life and education Elizabeth Lapovsky was born in Brooklyn, New York, on December 3, 1939. She was the second of three children to neurologist Arthur Joseph Lapovsky and Martha Schulman Lapovsky. She attended public schools, including Erasmus Hall High School.

From 1956 to 1960, she attended Smith College, earning a BA in philosophy in 1960. Lapovsky enrolled in an anthropology MA program at the University of New Mexico. After working on archaeological sites in Seattle, Albuquerque, and Jerusalem under the mentorship of Harry Basehart, she changed her focus to social anthropology. Basehart encouraged Lapovsky to study at the University of Cambridge upon completing her MA. Before leaving for Cambridge, Lapovsky married Perry Kennedy, a beatnik writer. With her husband, she became involved with the anti-Vietnam war movement in England.

She received a PhD in social anthropology in 1972 from Cambridge University after research and fieldwork on the Wounaan people in Colombia. Fundraising efforts from the Plaza made it possible for the department to create a PhD program in the fall of 2008. Kennedy retired from the University of Arizona, but remained a professor emeritus in the Department of Gender and Women's Studies.

After a conference to reflect on the evolution of the field of women's studies after 25 years, Kennedy co-edited and published Women's Studies for the Future: Foundations, Interrogations, Politics with Agatha Beins in 2005. The book was awarded the 1995 Jessie Bernard Award the 1993 Ruth Benedict Prize, and the 1993 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Studies.

In her subsequent research, Kennedy undertook a case study that looked at upper-class lesbian life through the experiences of Julia Boyer Reinstein. Kennedy argued that class privilege and family acceptance allowed upper-class lesbians of the interwar period to explore their sexuality with privacy and confidence. From this perspective, the practice of hiding lesbian relationships, later known as being closeted, no longer looked simply like the result of oppression.

Death Kennedy died on May 26, 2026, at the age of 86.

Publications