Gayle Graham Yates

Yates was born on May 6, 1940, on a farm in Shubuta, Mississippi to Gleta and Robert Graham.^[1] She had an older brother.^[2] Members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, her mother was a teacher and her father a farmer.^[2] She earned a bachelor's degree from Millsaps College and a M.A. at Vanderbilt University.^[1] Yates completed studies at the Boston University School of Theology.^[1] Her first daughter was born in 1963 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.^[1] Yates and her husband Wilson moved to New Brighton, Minnesota where he worked at the United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities (United).^[1] Her second child was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota in the fall of 1967.^[1] She earned a Ph.D. in American studies at the University of Minnesota.^[1]

For two years, Yates worked half time at both her alma mater and United.^[1] She later worked full time at the University of Minnesota, helping to create its women studies program.^[1] She served as its first full time faculty director and later chair.^[1][3] Yates was a feminist scholar.^[3][2] In 1982, Yates began teaching American studies until she retired.^[1]

Yates died on April 27, 2023, at her home in Minneapolis.^[1]

• Yates, Gayle Graham (1975). What Women Want: The Ideas of the Movement. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-95077-1.^[4]
• Martineau, Harriet (1985). Yates, Gayle Grahm (ed.). Harriet Martineau on Women. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-1057-6.^[5]
• Yates, Gayle Graham (1990). Mississippi Mind: A Personal Cultural History of an American State. Univ. of Tennessee Press. ISBN 978-0-87049-643-1.^[6]
• Yates, Gayle Graham (2004). Life and Death in a Small Southern Town: Memories of Shubuta, Mississippi. LSU Press. ISBN 978-0-8071-2937-1.^[7]
• Yates, Gayle Graham (2010). Ethics for Jessica: Meditations on Living. Wipf & Stock Publishers. ISBN 978-1-4982-5482-3.