Weisenfeld was raised Catholic in Queens, NYC, and attended Barnard College,[2][3] where she graduated cum laude in 1986 with an A.
and Ph.D. (1992), with her dissertation focusing on the Black women's branch of the YWCA in New York in the first half of the 20th century.
[5] Her dissertation became the basis for her first book, African American Women and Christian Activism: New York's Black YWCA, 1905–1945.
[8][9][10][11][12] In 2017, Weisenfeld published her third book, New World A-Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity during the Great Migration.
[15] Weisenfeld taught at Barnard from 1991 until 2000,[5] then Vassar College, where she earned tenure and chaired the Religion Department and led the Pan-African Studies Program.