ince being appointed to the Department of History in 1968, June E. Hahner has established herself as a top researcher in women's history and a leading scholar in Brazilian studies. Honored in both fields, she has produced numerous published works in both these areas.
Hahner is known for her capacity to find the sources of history where others could not. Her first book, Civilian-Military Relations in Brazil, 1889–1898, published in 1969, explained how and why the military yielded authority to civilians and pointed to one of the major gaps in Brazilian historiography - i.e., the importance of state forces in national politics. This and several of her subsequent writings have been translated and published in Portuguese, the native language of Brazil.
Her work brings to light the interactions between rich and poor, and recognizes the great contributions of the history of modern Brazil, and especially the women of Brazil. She has won Fulbright, Rockefeller, NEH, and Gulbenkian Foundation grants, which have elevated her to editorships, commissions, and evaluation boards.
After coming to the University, Hahner entered the growing field of women's history. The first director of women's studies (1973–74) at the University, since that time she has worked to assemble documents on women's history in Latin America and Brazil, many of which have been published in both English and Portuguese. Last year, she was elected co-president of the Coordinating Council on Women in History.
Hahner's latest publication is Women Through Women's Eyes: Latin American Women in Nineteenth Century Travel Accounts. It opens another path into the past, taking information previously ignored by other historians and transforming it into insights into Latin American women's history. One critic noted that in her work she avoids the common pitfall of treating women as "one undifferentiated group with common problems." She is currently working on a large project on Brazil's women.
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