Lola Van Wagenen is an American historian, environmental advocate, educator, documentary producer, and nonprofit leader whose public work stretches back to the 1970s. Although many people first discover her through her former marriage to actor and filmmaker Robert Redford, her independent career is significant. Lola Van Wagenen co-founded Consumer Action Now, pursued graduate study in American history, and became a founder and president of Clio Visualizing History. Her professional interests have included consumer education, renewable energy, women’s history, historical scholarship, and documentary storytelling. Across these fields, she has repeatedly focused on making complicated social and historical subjects understandable to the wider public.
Lola Van Wagenen’s Early Life and Education
Lola Jean Van Wagenen was born on December 19, 1938, in Provo, Utah, according to widely cited biographical records. Her connection with Utah later became especially relevant to her scholarly research into nineteenth-century Mormon history and the woman-suffrage movement. Rather than following a conventional path directly from school into academia, Lola Van Wagenen returned to formal higher education as an adult. She received her B.A. from Vermont College in 1982, completed a master’s degree in Liberal Studies/Public History at New York University in 1984, and earned a Ph.D. in American History from NYU in 1994. Her educational journey transformed years of civic activism into a foundation for professional historical research.
Founding Consumer Action Now and Environmental Advocacy
A defining chapter in Lola Van Wagenen’s career began in 1970, when she helped establish Consumer Action Now (CAN) in New York. The nonprofit educational organization sought to explain how consumer decisions could influence environmental quality and other public issues. Historical records show Van Wagenen, then publicly known as Lola Redford, serving as a leader of the organization and speaking about issues ranging from pollution and toxic substances to energy conservation. In 1976 congressional testimony, she described CAN as having been created because of concern about environmental quality and the effect of consumer behavior on the environment. Her work increasingly emphasized renewable energy and the importance of finding cleaner alternatives to fossil fuels.
Lola Van Wagenen’s environmental work was unusually practical for its time. Rather than treating energy policy solely as a subject for scientists or politicians, CAN encouraged ordinary households to understand conservation, solar technology, insulation, building codes, and other everyday issues. A 1982 Christian Science Monitor report described the organization’s nationwide energy-education efforts and its particular interest in giving women greater confidence with technical energy subjects. Van Wagenen was also publicly associated with the promotion of solar power during the 1970s, when alternative energy occupied a much smaller part of mainstream discussion than it does today. Her approach linked individual choices with larger environmental consequences, a theme that remained central to her work as an educator.
Public Service for Women, Children, and Conservation
Lola Van Wagenen’s public service eventually extended far beyond Consumer Action Now. Her official Clio biography records involvement with organizations working on behalf of women, children, history, and the environment. She served with the U.S. Committee for UNICEF, the National Audubon Society, the Vermont Historical Society, and other civic and educational organizations. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter appointed Lola Redford as one of the members of the National Commission on the International Year of the Child, with the appointment notice identifying her as president of Consumer Action Now’s board. These activities demonstrate that Lola Van Wagenen’s professional life combined advocacy with institution-building rather than focusing on a single campaign or political issue.
From Activist to American Historian
The move into academic history did not represent a complete change of direction for Lola Van Wagenen. Instead, it gave scholarly structure to themes that had already occupied much of her public work: political participation, social reform, environmental change, education, and the role of women in American life. She began her academic career around 1980, completed graduate work at NYU, and received her doctorate in American history in 1994. Her research developed a particular focus on the American West, woman suffrage, Mormon history, and nineteenth-century political debates. That combination of activism and formal historical training helped Van Wagenen approach history as something with contemporary significance rather than simply a record of events from the distant past.
Her major scholarly work, Sister-Wives and Suffragists: Polygamy and the Politics of Woman Suffrage, 1870–1896, grew from her doctoral research and was published in 2003. The study examines the complicated connections between Mormon women, plural marriage, national suffrage leaders, federal politics, and the campaign for female voting rights in territorial Utah. Lola Van Wagenen presents the suffrage struggle as a landscape of shifting alliances and political tensions rather than a simple unified movement. The work is particularly valuable to readers studying the intersection of religion, gender, western history, and political reform. BYU Studies continues to make the book available through its historical publications.
Creating Clio Visualizing History
After completing her doctorate, Lola Van Wagenen helped establish Clio Inc., Visualizing History during the mid-1990s. Its purpose was to bring carefully researched American history to audiences outside traditional academic settings. Clio later changed its organizational structure to become a nonprofit devoted to developing its own educational projects through documentary films, online exhibits, archival materials, and digital media. That strategy reflected Van Wagenen’s longstanding belief in public education: scholarship could maintain academic standards while becoming easier for students, teachers, and general readers to explore. As of 2026, Clio’s official leadership page continues to identify Lola Van Wagenen, Ph.D., as President, providing the clearest current institutional description of her professional role.
Lola Van Wagenen’s Film and Digital History Work
Lola Van Wagenen expanded her work into documentary production and digital history, helping historical subjects reach audiences through visual media. For Clio, she served as an executive producer of Miss America: A Documentary Film, which aired as part of PBS’s American Experience in 2002 and was later rebroadcast. Clio also developed historical projects about early women photographers and other aspects of American culture. Instead of seeing film, photography, archives, and scholarship as separate areas, Lola Van Wagenen treated them as complementary tools. This approach placed her within the growth of public history and digital humanities, where primary sources and scholarly interpretation are presented in formats designed to encourage exploration by non-specialist audiences.
Click! The Ongoing Feminist Revolution and The State of Marriage
One of Lola Van Wagenen’s most ambitious digital projects is Click! The Ongoing Feminist Revolution. Produced with historians including Susan Ware, Melanie Gustafson, Marilyn Blackwell, and Amy Feely Morsman, the online exhibition examines feminist activism from the post-World War II period into the twenty-first century. Clio describes the project as combining film clips, interactive timelines, historical essays, photographs, and primary materials covering politics, employment, family, health, and social movements. Lola Van Wagenen served as director and producer. She was also an executive producer of The State of Marriage, the 2015 documentary examining Vermont’s marriage-equality campaign and its wider national significance. Both projects illustrate her continuing interest in documenting social change.
Awards, Scholarships, and Educational Contributions
Lola Van Wagenen has received recognition for both public advocacy and scholarship. According to her official biography, Pratt Institute awarded her an honorary Doctorate of Science in recognition of her work involving environmental and women’s issues. In 2012, the Graduate School of Arts and Science at New York University presented her with its Distinguished Alumni/Alumnae Achievement Award. Education has also formed part of her philanthropic work. Champlain College records that the George Burrill and Lola Van Wagenen Scholarship Fund was established in 2012 to support students receiving assistance through the New American Scholarship program, with additional provisions benefiting eligible first-generation Vermont students. These initiatives continue the educational emphasis that runs throughout Van Wagenen’s public career.
Lola Van Wagenen’s Marriage to Robert Redford and Family
Much of the popular interest surrounding Lola Van Wagenen comes from her marriage to Robert Redford, whom she married in 1958, years before he became one of Hollywood’s most prominent actors and directors. They had four children: Scott, Shauna, James, and Amy. Their son Scott died in infancy, while James Redford later became a documentary filmmaker and environmental advocate before his death from cancer in 2020. Lola Van Wagenen and Robert Redford’s marriage ended in divorce in the mid-1980s after more than two decades together. Robert Redford subsequently remarried and died on September 16, 2025, at age 89.
After her marriage to Redford ended, Van Wagenen largely avoided the celebrity-centered public life often associated with former spouses of major Hollywood stars. In 2002, she married George Burrill, an international-development professional associated with the firm ARD. Public records concerning the couple focus mostly on education, philanthropy, and community projects rather than private family matters. Their names appear together on the scholarship established at Champlain College. This comparatively private lifestyle is important when evaluating online biographies of Lola Van Wagenen because many celebrity-oriented websites fill gaps with unsupported estimates and personal claims. Reliable sources provide extensive documentation of her professional achievements but much less information about her day-to-day private life.
Lola Van Wagenen Today and Her Lasting Legacy
As of 2026, reliable public information about Lola Van Wagenen’s everyday activities remains limited, but the official Clio Visualizing History website still lists her as the organization’s president. Her broader legacy rests on an unusual combination of consumer activism, environmental education, academic research, women’s history, documentary filmmaking, nonprofit leadership, and digital historical interpretation. Lola Van Wagenen is therefore much more than simply Robert Redford’s former wife, despite that association continuing to drive considerable online interest. For more than five decades, she has worked to connect information with public understanding, first through consumer campaigns and later through historical scholarship and visual education. Her career demonstrates how activism can develop into sustained educational and scholarly work.
Why Lola Van Wagenen Matters in Public History
What distinguishes Lola Van Wagenen is the consistency of her educational philosophy across very different projects. In the 1970s, she attempted to help consumers understand how personal decisions affected the environment. As a historian, she explored how political alliances shaped women’s voting rights. Through Clio, she used documentary film and digital technology to make scholarly research accessible to audiences outside universities. These activities share a common purpose: giving people enough historical or practical information to understand complicated public issues. That makes Lola Van Wagenen’s biography especially relevant to the development of modern public history, where historians increasingly use websites, interactive media, archival images, video, and other tools to reach audiences beyond traditional books and classrooms.
Conclusion
Lola Van Wagenen has built a long and multifaceted career around education and civic engagement. Beginning with the co-founding of Consumer Action Now in 1970, she became involved in environmental awareness, renewable energy, consumer education, and public service before completing advanced academic training in American history. Her scholarship on women’s suffrage and Mormon history, leadership at Clio Visualizing History, documentary production, digital exhibitions, and educational philanthropy demonstrate an identity independent of her former marriage to Robert Redford. For readers researching Lola Van Wagenen today, the strongest documented portrait is that of a historian, educator, and public-interest advocate who has spent decades finding new ways to connect serious research with ordinary audiences.
Frequently Asked Questions About Lola Van Wagenen
Who Is Lola Van Wagenen?
Lola Van Wagenen is an American historian, environmental advocate, educator, producer, and nonprofit leader. She initially became publicly recognizable as the wife of actor Robert Redford, but she later established a substantial professional identity of her own. Van Wagenen co-founded Consumer Action Now in 1970, pursued graduate study in public and American history, and helped create Clio Visualizing History. Her projects have addressed environmental responsibility, energy conservation, women’s history, social movements, historical interpretation, and digital education. She has also served as an executive producer on documentary projects. Clio’s current leadership information continues to list Lola Van Wagenen as its president.
How Old Is Lola Van Wagenen?
Lola Van Wagenen was born on December 19, 1938, in Provo, Utah, according to published biographical records. She is therefore 87 years old as of September 2026 and will turn 88 in December 2026. Her professional timeline is particularly notable because much of her formal academic education took place after she had already spent years working in consumer and environmental advocacy. Lola Van Wagenen earned her undergraduate degree in 1982, her master’s degree from New York University in 1984, and her doctorate in American history in 1994. Her later career shows that significant academic and professional development can continue well beyond the traditional college-age years.
What Is Lola Van Wagenen Best Known For?
Professionally, Lola Van Wagenen is best known for her work in consumer advocacy, environmental education, women’s history, and public history. She helped establish Consumer Action Now, promoted public understanding of renewable energy and conservation, and later earned a doctorate in American history. Her scholarly work includes Sister-Wives and Suffragists, while her media projects include Miss America: A Documentary Film and Click! The Ongoing Feminist Revolution. Popular searches often associate Lola Van Wagenen primarily with Robert Redford, but her documented career extends across more than five decades and includes nonprofit management, scholarship, documentary production, historical interpretation, education, and service with several civic organizations.
Was Lola Van Wagenen Married to Robert Redford?
Yes. Lola Van Wagenen and Robert Redford married in 1958 and remained married for more than two decades before divorcing in the mid-1980s. They had four children together: Scott, Shauna, James, and Amy. Their first child, Scott, died during infancy. James Redford later became a filmmaker and environmental activist and died in 2020. Shauna and Amy survived their father, who died in September 2025. Although the marriage made Lola Van Wagenen visible to a wider public, her later academic and nonprofit career developed independently. She became particularly associated with American historical research, environmental education, and Clio Visualizing History.
Who Did Lola Van Wagenen Marry After Robert Redford?
Lola Van Wagenen married George Burrill in 2002, years after the end of her marriage to Robert Redford. Burrill has worked in the field of international development and was associated with the Vermont-based development company ARD. Compared with Van Wagenen’s earlier marriage, their personal life has attracted considerably less media coverage. Publicly documented information instead highlights educational and philanthropic work associated with the couple. In 2012, the George Burrill and Lola Van Wagenen Scholarship Fund was created at Champlain College, where it supports students through specified scholarship programs. The limited amount of reliable personal reporting makes it sensible to avoid speculative details commonly repeated on celebrity biography websites.
What Is Lola Van Wagenen Doing Now?
Current information about Lola Van Wagenen’s private daily life is limited. However, as of 2026, the official Clio Visualizing History leadership page continues to name Lola Van Wagenen, Ph.D., as President. Clio’s digital history projects also remain publicly accessible, including resources devoted to women’s history and American cultural history. There is no reliable basis for repeating unsupported claims regarding her health, retirement status, personal wealth, or private activities. For an accurate biography, the strongest current evidence is her continuing institutional association with Clio. Her public legacy remains centered on historical education, documentary and digital media, environmental advocacy, women’s history, and decades of nonprofit and community service.
