Name Gloria Lothrop Role Writer | Died February 2, 2015 Books Pomona | |
Gloria Ricci Lothrop (December 30, 1934 – February 2, 2015) was a California historian who taught at Cal Poly Pomona and Cal State Northridge. A long-time resident of Pasadena, California, she became the first woman to join the history department at Cal Poly, and the first W.P. Whitsett Professor of California History at Cal State Northridge.
Born in Los Angeles, she attended Immaculate Heart College, receiving a B.A. in 1956, and an M.A. in 1963. In 1970, she received a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California.
Lothrop was a co-writer of "one of the first books to survey the contributions of women to the westward movement." She began researching the history of women in the Old West in the 1970s, using cultural artifacts. Her efforts turned up previously unknown historical sources about women, sometimes written or indexed under the names of men. Lothrop was also known for her work on Italian-Americans in the West, and on the history of Los Angeles. She was active in historic preservation efforts for the Italian Hall on Olvera Street, and also worked to preserve a shrine built by Mother Francis Xavier Cabrini. She died at the age of 80 in 2015 at Arcadia, California.