Women's history pioneer Gerda Lerner dies at 92 - WQOW TV: Eau Claire, WI NEWS18 News, Weather, and Sports

MADISON (WKOW) -- A pioneer in women's history, and former UW-Madison professor, Gerda Lerner, has died.

Lerner was born in Austria to a privileged Jewish family in 1920, and spent six weeks in a Nazi prison as a teenager.

She later wrote that the experience taught her how society manipulates people, a lesson she saw reinforced by academics who suggested history was only about men.

Lerner eventually came to the U.S. and established the nation's first graduate program in women's studies at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y.

She also founded a doctoral program in women's history at the UW, and was the founding member of the National Organization for Women.

Lerner was 92 years old.

Her son says she passed away peacefully Wednesday night at an assisted living facility in Madison.