Holly J. McCammon
Professor of Sociology
Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair of Sociology
Chair, Department of Sociology
Professor of Law (secondary appointment)
Professor of Human and Organizational Development (secondary appointment)
Editor, American Sociological Review, 2010-2015
Affiliated Faculty, American Studies and Women and Gender Studies
Collaborative Research Project: Research on Women, Protest, and Law
How do individuals who join together in social movements succeed in gaining the political and social changes they seek?
Citizens come together as social activists to fight for important social and political reforms. Social movement activism can be an important source of social change, such as the momentous achievements brought about by the civil rights, environmental, LGBTQ, and labor movements. My research centers on how social movement groups succeed in achieving their political and cultural goals.
I study the U.S. women’s movement and how it gained greater political and economic rights for women. I have investigated married women’s effort to obtain property rights in the nineteenth century, the woman suffrage movement, and women’s campaigns in the first part of the twentieth century to gain the right to sit on juries. Currently I am investigating recent feminist litigation strategies, as the women’s movement increasingly turned to the courts as an arena to press for greater legal rights. I am particularly interested in the strategies and discursive efforts feminist lawyers utilize to convince judges and Supreme Court justices to support greater equality for women.
Selected Publications
Forthcoming. Holly J. McCammon and Cathryn Beeson-Lynch. “Fighting Words” Pro-choice Cause Lawyering, Legal-Framing Innovations, and Hostile Political-Legal Contexts.” Law & Social Inquiry
2020. Holly J. McCammon, Minyoung Moon, Brittany N. Hearne, and Megan Robinson. “The Supreme Court as an Arena for Activism: Feminist Cause Lawyering’s Influence on Judicial Decision Making.” Mobilization: An International Quarterly 25(2):221-244.
2019. Holly J. McCammon and Amanda J. Brockman. “Feminist Institutional Activists: Venue Shifting, Strategic Adaptation, and Winning the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.” Sociological Forum 34:5-26.
McCammon, Holly J. and Lee Ann Banaszak, editors. 2018. 100 Years of the Nineteenth Amendment: An Appraisal of Women’s Political Activism. Oxford University Press.
McCammon, Holly J., Verta Taylor, Jo Reger, and Rachel Einwohner, editors. 2017. The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Women’s Social Movement Activism. Oxford University Press.
McCammon, Holly J., Allison R. McGrath, Ashley Dixon, and Megan Robinson. 2017. “Targeting Culture: Feminist Legal Activists and Critical Community Tactics.” Research in Social Movements, Conflict and Change 41:243-78.
McCammon, Holly J., Erin M. Bergner, and Sandra C. Arch. 2015. “’Are You One of Those Women?’: Within-Movement Conflict, Radical Flank Effects, and Social Movement Political Outcomes.” Mobilization 20:157-78.
McCammon, Holly J. 2012. The U.S. Women’s Jury Movements and Strategic Adaptation: A More Just Verdict. New York: Cambridge University Press.
McCammon, Holly J. 2012. “Explaining Frame Variation: Moderate and More Radical Demands for Women’s Citizenship in the U.S. Women’s Jury Movements.” Social Problems 59(1): 43-69.
McCammon, Holly J., Soma Chaudhuri, Lyndi N. Hewitt, Courtney Sanders Muse, Harmony D. Newman, Carrie Lee Smith, and Teresa M. Terrell. 2008. “Becoming Full Citizens: The U.S. Women’s Jury Rights Campaigns, the Pace of Reform, and Strategic Adaptation.” American Journal of Sociology 113(4): 1104-1147.
McCammon, Holly J., Karen E. Campbell, Ellen M. Granberg, and Christine Mowery. 2001. "How Movements Win: Gendered Opportunity Structures and the State Women’s Suffrage Movements, 1866-1919." American Sociological Review 66(1): 49-70.