Joyce Oldham Appleby (April 9, 1929 – December 23, 2016) was an American historian. She was a professor of history at UCLA. She was president of the Organization of American Historians (1991) and the American Historical Association (1997).

Appleby was born in Omaha, Nebraska. Her father was a businessman and she attended public schools in Omaha, Dallas, Kansas City, Evanston, Phoenix and Pasadena.^{[citation needed]}

Appleby received her B.A. degree from Stanford University in 1950 and became a magazine writer in New York. Returning to academia, she earned her Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate School in 1966.

Appleby was the widow of Andrew Bell Appleby, a professor of European history at San Diego State University. Her first marriage to Mark Lansburgh ended in divorce. She had three children: Ann Lansburgh Caylor, Mark Lansburgh and Frank Bell Appleby.

Appleby died on December 23, 2016, at the age of 87.

Appleby taught at San Diego State University from 1967 to 1981, then became a professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles. She was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1993, and a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1994. In 1990–1991, she was the Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth Professor of American History at Oxford University.

As the president of the Organization of American Historians, Appleby secured congressional support for an endowment to send American studies libraries to 60 universities around the world. A selection of 1,000 books was made by a group of scholars on American history, literature, political science, sociology and philosophy.

Appleby was a specialist in historiography and the political thought of the early American Republic, with special interests in Republicanism, liberalism and the history of ideas about capitalism. She served on the editorial boards of numerous scholarly journals and editorial projects, and received prominent national fellowships.