Alice Kessler-Harris is the R. Gordon Hoxie Professor Emerita of American History at Columbia University. She is a former president of the Organization of American Historians and specializes in the history of American labor as well as the comparative and interdisciplinary exploration of women and gender.

Kessler-Harris received her B.A. from Goucher College in 1961 and her Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 1968. She contributed the piece "Pink Collar Ghetto, Blue Collar Token" to the 2003 anthology Sisterhood Is Forever: The Women's Anthology for a New Millennium, edited by Robin Morgan. Her newest book, A Difficult Woman: The Challenging Life and Times of Lillian Hellman, was published in June 2012. Her other works include Gendering Labor History.