Jeannette Howard Foster (November 3, 1895 – July 26, 1981) was an American librarian, professor, poet, and researcher in the field of lesbian literature.

Foster started a new position at the University of Missouri- Kansas City (UMKC) as a reference and interlibrary loan librarian.

[2] It was while working at UMKC, in 1957, that Foster published her book Sex Variant Women in Literature: A Historical and Quantitative Survey.

Foster had spent over two decades researching and writing the work, the first of its kind, which chronicled approximately 2600 years of female 'sex variants' (lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals) in literature.

She was friends with Valerie Taylor and Marie Kuda, who founded the first national lesbian writers' conference in the United States.

[6] In October 1974, after Foster was awarded the Stonewall Book Award, Valerie Taylor published a tribute to her in the Chicago Gay Crusader, underlining the importance of Sex Variant Women in Literature and describing it as a sourcebook not just for homophile researchers but also for literature lovers, social trends students, and those who fight for human liberation.