Dr. Joanne Klein holds a Ph.D. in History from Rice University (1992) and an M.A. in Comparative History from Brandeis University (1988). After teaching at the University of South Carolina and Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, she joined the faculty at Boise State University in 2001. While most of her teaching focuses on European history, Dr. Klein also specializes in the Middle East and North Africa, and has taught a seminar and workshops on Women in Middle Eastern History. Much of Dr. Klein's research has explored the history of British police forces in the early 20th century. Her book, "Invisible Men: the Secret Lives of Police Constables in Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham, 1900-1939", was published by Liverpool University Press in 2010, and was featured at a book session at the European Social Science History Conference at the University of Glasgow in Scotland on April 11, 2012. She is active in the Criminal Justice/Legal History network of the Social Science History Association, where she has served as network chair for four years and manages the network’s web page. In addition to her work on policing, she is engaged in the project, “Inscribed in Stone: A Study of Grave Stones in God’s Acre, Winston-Salem, NC", with funding from an Idaho Humanities Council Research Fellowship grant. She has presented papers at SSHA conferences as well as at the European Social Science History Conference, the Carleton Conference on the History of the Family, the International Congress of Historical Sciences, the Social History Society of the United Kingdom, and various regional conferences.
Articles
Irregular Marriages: Unorthodox Working-Class Domestic Life in Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester, 1900-1939, Journal of Family History (2005)
English police personnel records provide a perspective on working-class marriages not available in standard sources....
"Moving On," Men and the Changing Character of Interwar Working-Class Neighborhoods: From the Files of the Manchester and Liverpool City Police, Journal of Social History (2004)
Investigations of complaints regarding police families made to the Manchester and Liverpool City Police provide...
Books
Invisible Men: The Secret Lives of Police Constables in Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham, 1900-1939, Faculty Authored Books (2010)
This book provides a comprehensive study of English police constables walking the beat in the...
Contributions to Books
Quiet and Determined Servants and Guardians: Creating Ideal English Police Officers, 1900-1945, A History of Police and Masculinities, 1700-2010 (2012)
Blue-Collar Job, Blue-Collar Career: English Policemen’s Perplexing Struggle for a Voice in the Early 20th Century, Police and Policing in the Twentieth Century (2011)
‘Leaving at His Own Request’: Les Démissions Volontaires d’Agents de Police Britanniques (1900-1939), Métiers de Police: Être Policier en Europe, XVIIIe-XXe Siècle (2008)
Traffic, Telephones and Police Boxes: The Deterioration of Beat Policing in Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester between the World Wars, Policing Interwar Europe: Continuity, Change and Crisis, 1918-1940 (2007)
Conference Papers
England’s Futile Efforts to Create a National Police Instruction Book, 1920s-1950s, Social Science History Association (2010)
By December 1962, the Home Office Instruction Book Committee was officially dead after four decades...
The Evolution of the Ideal English Constable: Portrayals in Police Instruction Books from the 19th Century to the Present, European Social History Conference (2010)
Dr. Klein's paper is based on an in-depth study of English police instruction books and...
Ideal Policemen - Real Policemen: The Contradictions of Training to Be an English Constable, 1900-1939, European Social History Conference (2006)
Men joining English borough police forces typically had no clear idea what kind of job...
‘God Needed One More Angel Child’: A Study of Children's Grave Stones in God's Acre, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 1770-2000, European Social Science History Conference (2004)
The Moravian Church established Salem, North Carolina, in the mid-1700s as a community for Moravians...