Anne M. Butler Collection on Catholic Sisters in the American West

Anne M. Butler was editor of the Western Historical Quarterly. She was also a Distinguished Trustee Professor Emerita of Utah State University.

Butler was born in Somerville, Massachusetts on December 4, 1938. As an infant she was placed in the foster care of Delbert and Charlotte Theall for fourteen years. In the 1950s she moved to Baltimore and graduated from Notre Dame of Maryland Preparatory School. She then graduated from Maryland's Towson State University and went on to recieve her doctorate in American history from the University of Maryland College Park in 1979.

She taught history at a number of universities including: Gallaudet University for the Deaf in Washington, D.C., University of Maryland, Towson State University, College of Notre Dame of Maryland, and Loyola College of Maryland. Butler moved to Utah in 1989 and was an associate editor at Utah State University. She became the first woman senior editor of the Western Historical Quarterly.

Dr. Butler was known for her scholarship concerning the history of the American West, specifically criminal women, cultural issues, and Roman Catholic nuns. She was the author of various articles and book, including, Daughters of Joy, Sisters of Misery: Prostitutes in the American West, Gendered Justice in the American West: Women Prisoners in Men's Penitnentiaries, and the multi-prize winning Across God's Frontiers: Catholic Sisters in the American West, 1850-1920.

Butler died on November 10, 2014.