Stephanie Coontz

Stephanie Coontz teaches history and family studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, and is Director of Research and Public Education for the Council on Contemporary Families.

Coontz is the author of the award-winning A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s and Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage. She also wrote The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms with America's Changing Families and The Social Origins of Private Life: A History of American Families. She is the editor of American Families: A Multicultural Reader. 

In 2004, she received the Council on Contemporary Families first-ever "Visionary Leadership" Award.  She also received the 1995 Dale Richmond Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics for her "outstanding contributions to the field of child development."  She served as a marriage consultant to The Ladies Home Journal, and consulted with the Pew Research Center as well as with Match.com. In 2013, Coontz received the Work-Life Legacy Award from the Families and Work Institute.

Coontz has testified about her research before the House Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families in Washington, D.C., and addressed audiences across America, Japan, and Europe. She has appeared on The Colbert Report, MSNBC "The Cycle," The Today Show, PBS News Hour with Ray Suarez, Oprah Winfrey, Crossfire, 20/20, NPR, and the O-Reilly Factor, as well as in several documentaries hosted by Walter Cronkite and Barbara Walters.

She has published numerous articles in the New York Times,The Observer/Guardian, The Times of London, Wall Street Journal, Salon, Washington Post, Newsweek, Harper's, and Vogue, as well as the professional journals Family Therapy Magazine, National Forum, and the Journal of Marriage and Family. She has contributed chapters to more than 25 academic books and frequently conducts media training workshops for academics.