Joan M. Jensen (born December 9, 1934 St. Paul, Minnesota) is an American historian.
She attended Pasadena City College, and earned a master's degree and a Ph.D at the University of California at Los Angeles.
From 1962 to 1971, she taught at U.S. International University, in San Diego, California. She left her job to join a farming commune in southern Colorado. From 1974 to 1975, she taught at Arizona State University, and from 1975 to 1976 she taught at UCLA.
She taught history at New Mexico State University. 1976-1993 and holds the rank of Professor Emerita. Jensen is largely responsible for founding the University's Women's Studies Program.
In 1990 the Coalition for Western Women's History honored Jensen by creating the Joan Jensen - Darlis Miller Prize for the best scholarly article published in the preceding year in the field of women and gender in the trans-Mississippi West.
2007 Merle Curti Award Honorable Mention for Calling This Place Home: Women on the Wisconsin Frontier, 1850-1925 (Minnesota Historical Society Press)
1993 New Mexico Endowment for the Humanities Award for Excellence in the Humanities.
Western Association of Women Historians Sierra Prize, for Loosening the Bonds: Mid-Atlantic Farm Women, 1750–1850
Old Sturbridge Village Research Library Society-E. Harold Hugo Memorial Book Prize, for Loosening the Bonds: Mid-Atlantic Farm Women, 1750–1850
New Mexico Presswomen’s Zia Award and the Governor’s Award for Historic Preservation, for New Mexico Women: Intercultural Perspectives
Jensen, Joan M. (1968). The Price of Vigilance. Chicago: Rand McNally.
Jensen, Joan M. (1975). Military surveillance of civilians in America. General Learning Press. OCLC 15131007.
Jensen, Joan M. (1980). The gentle tamers revisited: New approaches to the history of women in the American West. Pacific Historical Review. OCLC 711904746.
Jensen, Joan M. (July 1980). "Cloth, butter and boarders: women's household production for the market". Review of Radical Political Economics. Sage. 12 (2): 14–24. doi:10.1177/048661348001200203.
Jensen, Joan M. (1981). With these hands: women working on the land. Feminist Press. ISBN 9780912670904.
Jensen, Joan M. (1981). Women's work along the Southwest border: A significant aspect of labor history. Tucson, Arizona: Southwest Institute for Research on Women. OCLC 8897362.
Jensen, Joan M.; Scharf, Lois (1983). Decades of discontent: The women's movement, 1920-1940. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 9780313226946.
Jensen, Joan M.; Davidson, Sue (1984). A needle, a bobbin, a strike: Women needleworkers in America. Temple University Press. ISBN 9780877224075.
Jensen, Joan M.; Miller, Darlis A., eds. (1986). New Mexico Women: Intercultural Perspectives. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 9780826308269. OCLC 241487465.
Jensen, Joan M.; Lothrop, Gloria Ricci (1987). California women: A history. San Francisco, California: Boyd & Fraser Publishing Co. OCLC 17017302.
Jensen, Joan M. (1988). Passage from India: Asian Indian immigrants in North America. New Haven London: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780878351565.
Jensen, Joan M. (1988). Loosening the Bonds: Mid-Atlantic Farm Women, 1750–1850. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300042658.
Jensen, Joan M. (1991). Promise to the land: Essays on rural women. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 9780826312471.
Jensen, Joan M. (1991). Army Surveillance in America: 1775 - 1980. New Haven London: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300046687.
Jensen, Joan M. (1992). Naming a price, finding a space: The marketplace for western women's art. Tucson, Arizona: Southwest Institute for Research on Women. OCLC 28864925.
Jensen, Joan M.; Osterud, Nancy Grey (1994). American rural and farm women in historical perspective. University of California Press. OCLC 33316596. Agricultural History Society: National Conference on American Rural and Farm Women in Historical Perspective.
Jensen, Joan M. (1995). One Foot on the Rockies. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 9780826315397.
Jensen, Joan M. (2006). Calling This Place Home: Women on the Wisconsin Frontier, 1850-1925. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press. ISBN 9780873515634.
