Joan M. Jensen (born December 9, 1934 St. Paul, Minnesota) is an American historian.

She attended Pasadena City College, and earned a master's degree and a PhD at the University of California at Los Angeles.

From 1962 to 1971, she taught at U.S. International University, in San Diego, California. She left her job to join a farming commune in southern Colorado. From 1974 to 1975, she taught at Arizona State University, and from 1975 to 1976 she taught at UCLA.^{[citation needed]}

She taught history at New Mexico State University.^[1] 1976–1993 and holds the rank of professor emerita. Jensen is largely responsible for founding the university's Women's Studies program.^[2]

In 1990, the Coalition for Western Women's History honored Jensen by creating the Joan Jensen – Darlis Miller Prize for the best scholarly article published in the preceding year in the field of women and gender in the trans-Mississippi West.

• 2007 Merle Curti Award Honorable Mention for Calling This Place Home: Women on the Wisconsin Frontier, 1850–1925 (Minnesota Historical Society Press)
• 1993 New Mexico Endowment for the Humanities Award for Excellence in the Humanities.
• Western Association of Women Historians Sierra Prize, for Loosening the Bonds: Mid-Atlantic Farm Women, 1750–1850
• Old Sturbridge Village Research Library Society-E. Harold Hugo Memorial Book Prize, for Loosening the Bonds: Mid-Atlantic Farm Women, 1750–1850
• New Mexico Presswomen’s Zia Award and the Governor’s Award for Historic Preservation, for New Mexico Women: Intercultural Perspectives

• Jensen, Joan M. (1968). The Price of Vigilance. Chicago: Rand McNally.
• Jensen, Joan M. (1975). Military surveillance of civilians in America. General Learning Press. OCLC 15131007.
• Jensen, Joan M. (1980). The gentle tamers revisited: New approaches to the history of women in the American West. Pacific Historical Review. OCLC 711904746.
• Jensen, Joan M. (July 1980). "Cloth, butter and boarders: women's household production for the market". Review of Radical Political Economics. 12 (2): 14–24. doi:10.1177/048661348001200203. S2CID 154584305.
• Jensen, Joan M. (1981). With these hands: women working on the land. Feminist Press. ISBN 978-0912670904. Joan M. Jensen.
• Jensen, Joan M. (1981). Women's work along the Southwest border: A significant aspect of labor history. Tucson, Arizona: Southwest Institute for Research on Women. OCLC 8897362.
• Jensen, Joan M.; Scharf, Lois (1983). Decades of discontent: The women's movement, 1920–1940. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0313226946.
• Jensen, Joan M.; Davidson, Sue (1984). A needle, a bobbin, a strike: Women needleworkers in America. Temple University Press. ISBN 978-0877224075.
• Jensen, Joan M.; Miller, Darlis A., eds. (1986). New Mexico Women: Intercultural Perspectives. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 978-0826308269. OCLC 241487465.
• Jensen, Joan M.; Lothrop, Gloria Ricci (1987). California women: A history. San Francisco, California: Boyd & Fraser Publishing Co. ISBN 978-0878351565. OCLC 17017302.
• Jensen, Joan M. (1988). Passage from India: Asian Indian immigrants in North America. New Haven London: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0878351565.
• Jensen, Joan M. (1988). Loosening the Bonds: Mid-Atlantic Farm Women, 1750–1850. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300042658.
• Jensen, Joan M. (1991). Promise to the land: Essays on rural women. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 978-0826312471.
• Jensen, Joan M. (1991). Army Surveillance in America: 1775–1980. New Haven London: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300046687. Joan M. Jensen army surveillance.
• Jensen, Joan M. (1992). Naming a price, finding a space: The marketplace for western women's art. Tucson, Arizona: Southwest Institute for Research on Women. OCLC 28864925.
• Jensen, Joan M.; Osterud, Nancy Grey (1994). American rural and farm women in historical perspective. University of California Press. OCLC 33316596. Agricultural History Society: National Conference on American Rural and Farm Women in Historical Perspective.
• Jensen, Joan M. (1995). One Foot on the Rockies. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 978-0826315397. Joan M. Jensen one foot rockies.
• Jensen, Joan M. (2000). Native American Women Photographers as Storytellers. Las Cruces: New Mexico State University. OCLC 5254630.
• Jensen, Joan M. (2006). Calling This Place Home: Women on the Wisconsin Frontier, 1850–1925. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press. ISBN 978-0873515634.