Mary Ann Irwin is editor of the scholarly journal California History, published by University of California Press (Oakland).

Miss Irwin attended Mesa College in San Diego, received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of California at Berkeley (1980), and a Masters in History from San Francisco State University (1995). She teaches history at San Francisco Bay Area colleges, including Diablo Valley College, Chabot College, Laney College, and California State University, East Bay. Miss Irwin is also a professional copyeditor specializing in non-fiction, including scholarly books and articles.

In 2011 Miss Irwin won the National Coalition of Independent Scholars' Eisenstein-DeLacy Award for "Sex, War, and Community Service: The Battle for San Francisco's Jewish Community Center," Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Vol. 32, Issue 1 (May 2011). In 2003, she won one of six Fellowships presented by the Jewish Women's Archives "Jewish Women Building Community" project (funding provided by the Myra Reinhard Family Foundation of San Francisco). In 1999, Miss Irwin won the Coalition for Western Women's History's Jensen-Miller Best Article Prize for "'Going About and Doing Good': The Politics of Benevolence, Welfare, and Gender in San Francisco, 1850-1880," Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 68, Issue 3 (August 1999).  Miss Irwin is currently managing several writing projects, including a history of San Francisco's Emanu-El Sisterhood for Personal Service.

Published works so far :

•      “'Women with Hearts' and the Americanization of Jewish San Francisco, 1850-1880," Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 92, Issue 4 (Fall 2023).

•      "Ministers of the Poor: The St. Vincent de Paul Society of San Francisco, 1860-2010" (St. Vincent de Paul Society of San Francisco/forthcoming); 

•       Richard B. Rice, William A. Bullough, Richard J. Orsi, Mary Ann Irwin, Michael F. Magliari, and Cecilia M. Tsu, The Elusive Eden: A New History of California (5th ed.) (Waveland Press, 2020);   

•      Robert W. Cherny, Mary Ann Irwin, and Ann Marie Wilson, eds., Women and Politics: California from the Gold Rush to the Great Depression (University of Nebraska Press, 2011); 

•     "Sex, War, and Community Service: The Battle for San Francisco's Jewish Community Center," Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies special issue, "Gender and the City" Vol. 32, Issue 1 (May 2011);

•       "'The Air is Becoming Full of War:' Jewish San Francisco and World War I," Pacific Historical Review,  Vol. 74, Issue 3 (August 2005);

•       James F. Brooks and Mary Ann Irwin, eds., Women and Gender in the American West: Jensen-Miller Essays from the Coalition for Western Women's History (University of New Mexico Press, 2004); 

•       "'Going About and Doing Good' : The Politics of Benevolence, Welfare, and Gender in San Francisco, 1850-1880," Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 68, Issue 3 (August 1999) (Winner, Joan Jensen-Darlis Miller Prize, Best Article 1999); and 

•       "White Slavery as Metaphor: Anatomy of a Moral Panic," Ex Post Facto (Spring 1996).