Nineteenth-century newspaper editor Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815-1884) was an unconventionally ambitious woman. While she struggled in private to be a dutiful daughter, wife, and mother, she publicly critiqued and successfully challenged gender conventions that restricted her personal behavior, limited her political and economic opportunities, and attempted to silence her voice. As the owner and editor of newspapers in Pittsburgh; St. Cloud, Minnesota; and Washington, D.C.; and as one of the founders of the Minnesota Republican Party, Swisshelm negotiated a significant place for herself in the male-dominated world of commerce, journalism, and politics. How she accomplished this feat; what expressive devices she used; what social, economic, and political tensions resulted from her efforts; and how those tensions were resolved are the central questions examined in this biography. Sylvia Hoffert arranges the book topically, rather than chronologically, to include Swisshelm in the broader issues of the day, such as women's involvement in politics and religion, their role in the workplace, and marriage. Rescuing this prominent feminist from obscurity, Hoffert shows how Swisshelm laid the groundwork for the "New Woman" of the turn of the century.
Antislavery crusader and dauntless champion of women's rights Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815-84) was a famed newspaper editor and popular speaker known for her spirited audacity and stinging denunciations. In this collection of letters written for the St. Cloud Democrat, Swisshelm provides vivid glimpses into life in mid-nineteenth century Minnesota through rich descriptions of places, characterizations of people, accounts of frontier travel, thoughts on pioneer journalism, reflections of public opinion, and just plain gossip. After the devastation of the Dakota War of 1862, Swisshelm set out on a national lecture tour [query--did she lecture about the war? If yes, add a bit about this]. On the road, she found wartime conditions so stirring, and the need for nurses so pressing, that she moved to Washington, D.C., for several years, working first in a military hospital and later at the war department. Her accounts of these days contain poignant scenes from her hospital service and inimitably spirited descriptions of life in the nation's capital. The letter entitled "Women Workers"--in which she savages certain fellow employees in government service--is but one of many fascinating entries. Facsimile pages of Swisshelm's newspaper articles, a handy index, and a biographical sketch of Swisshelm provide background and context to this pioneering woman's letters. Crusader and Feminist offers readers an intimate window into the world of a remarkable editor, lecturer, war nurse, and feminist. Historian Arthur J. Larsen was superintendent of the Minnesota Historical Society and curator of its newspaper department.
Each of the 18 women whose stories unfold in this unique work made heroic, profession-changing contributions to journalism. Covering nearly 300years, Schilpp and Murphy have elevated these women either from the obscurity of historical footnotes (Elizabeth Timothy, 1700--1757) or from the frozen stuff of legend (Nellie Bly, Anne Newport Royall, Margaret Fuller); they have made their subjects working journalists whose careers and accomplishments were indeed heroic and inspiring, but human. Aside from Timothy, Royall, Fuller, and Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman (Nellie Bly), the authors have included Mary Katherine Goddard, colonial publisher; Sarah Josepha Hale, first women's magazine editor; Cornelia Walter, editor of the Boston Transcript; and Jane Grey Swisshelm, abolitionist, feminist, and journalist. Others include Jane Cunningham Croly ("Jennie June"); Eliza Nicholson (Pearl Rivers), publisher of the Picayune; Ida Minerva Tarbell, muckraker; Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer (Dorothy Dix); Ida B. Wells-Barnett, crusader; Winifred Black Bonfils (Annie Laurie), reformer; Rheta Child Dorr, freedom fighter; Dorothy Thompson, political columnist; Margaret Bourke-White, early photojournalist; and Marguerite Higgins, war correspondent.
This book provides rare and candid insights by those who experienced the reality of meeting a deadline and the pressures of space limitations and access to information. Knudson has crafted a seamless narrative of journalism in America by tying together his own keen commentary on the evolution of news reporting with brief excerpts from those who actually did the reporting, from colonial times through the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Students will hear what the following notable journalists had to say about their craft and the coverage of contemporary events: Benjamin Franklin's ambivalence about the colonial press: extolling the 'watchdog' concept of newspapers, while abhorring the rough-and-tumble personal journalism of his day; Frederick Douglass's vivid and literary description of his 1847 interview with John Brown; Ida B. Wells' account of how her small newspaper, a beacon for many African Ameri-cans, was destroyed by an angry mob in 1892; Ida Tarbell's description of her meeting with John D. Rockefeller; Richard Harding Davis's 1911 Collier's excerpt, in which he laments the shift from the resourceful and ingenious traditional correspondent to the thundering mob of reporters who descended on any event of significance; Martha Gellhorn's experiences as a journalist who covered World War II for Collier's; Ernie Pyle's portrait of what it was like to be a correspondent slogging with the troops through the Italian campaign in World War II; David Brinkley recounting what it was like to be a veteran reporter during the JFK assassination and funeral; The Washington Post's Vice President and Executive Editor Ben Bradlee discussing the impact of Watergate on news reporting; Molly Ivins, a Texas journalist whose first collection of columns remained on The New York Times bestseller list for over 12 months, writes about media critici
Lady Jane Grey, is one of the most elusive and tragic characters in English history. In July 1553 the death of the childless Edward VI threw the Tudor dynasty into crisis. On Edward's instructions his cousin Jane Grey was proclaimed queen, only to be ousted 13 days later by his illegitimate half sister Mary and later beheaded. In this radical reassessment, Eric Ives rejects traditional portraits of Jane both as hapless victim of political intrigue or Protestant martyr. Instead he presents her as an accomplished young woman with a fierce personal integrity. The result is a compelling dissection by a master historian and storyteller of one of history’s most shocking injustices.
"Thomas Nast (1840-1902), the founding father of American political cartooning, is perhaps best known for his cartoons portraying political parties as the Democratic donkey and the Republican elephant. Nast's legacy also includes a trove of other political cartoons, his successful attack on the machine politics of Tammany Hall in 1871, and his wildly popular illustrations of Santa Claus for Harper's Weekly magazine. In this thoroughgoing and lively biography, Fiona Deans Halloran interprets his work, explores his motivations and ideals, and illuminates the lasting legacy of Nast's work on American political culture"--
The American MidwestEssays on Regional History Edited by Andrew R. L. Cayton and Susan E. Gray Is there a Midwest regional identity? Read this lively exploration of the Midwestern identity crisis and find out. "Many would say that ordinariness is the Midwest's 'historic burden.' A writer living in Dayton, Ohio recently suggested that dullness is a Midwestern trait. The Midwest lacks grand scenery: 'Just cornfields, silos, prairies, and the occasional hill. Dull.' He tries to put a nice face on Midwestern dullness by saying that Midwesterners '[l]ike Shaker furniture... are plain in the best sense: unadorned.' Others have found Midwestern ordinariness stultifying. Neil LaBute, who makes films about mean and nasty people, said he was negative because he came from Indiana: 'We're brutally honest in Indiana. We realize we're in the middle of nowhere, and we're very sore about it.'" -- from Chapter Five, "Barbecued Kentuckians and Six-Foot Texas Rangers," by Nicole Etcheson. In a series of often highly personal essays, the authors of The American Midwest -- all of whom are experts on various aspects of Midwestern history -- consider the question of regional identity as a useful way of thinking about the history of the American Midwest. They begin with the assumption that Midwesterners have never been as consciously regional as Western or Southern Americans. They note the peculiar absence of the Midwest from the recent revival of interest in American regionalism among both scholars and journalists. These lively and well-written chapters draw on personal experiences as well as a wide variety of scholarship. This book will stimulate readers into thinking more concretely about what it has meant to be from the Midwest -- and why Midwesterners have traditionally been less assertive about their regional identity than other Americans. It suggests that the best place to find Midwesternness is in the stories the residents of the region have told about themselves and each other. Being Midwestern is mostly a state of mind. It is always fluid, always contested, always being renegotiated. Even the most frequent objection to the existence of Midwestern identity, the fact that no one can agree on its borders, is part of a larger regional conversation about the ways in which Midwesterners imagine themselves and their relationships with other Americans. Andrew R. L. Cayton, Distinguished Professor of History at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, is author of numerous books and articles dealing with the history of the Midwest, including Frontier Indiana (Indiana University Press) and (with Peter S. Onuf) The Midwest and the Nation. Susan E. Gray, Associate Professor of History at Arizona State University, is author of Yankee West: Community Life on the Michigan Frontier as well as numerous articles about Midwest history. Midwestern History and CultureJames H. Madison and Andrew R. L. Cayton, editors July 2001256 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4, index, append.cloth 0-253-33941-3 $35.00 s / £26.50 Contents The Story of the Midwest: An Introduction Seeing the Midwest with Peripheral Vision: Identities, Narratives, and Region Liberating Contrivances: Narrative and Identity in Ohio Valley Histories Pigs in Space, or What Shapes American Regional Cultures? Barbecued Kentuckians and Six-Foot Texas Rangers: The Construction of Midwestern Identity Pi-ing the Type: Jane Grey Swisshelm and the Contest of Midwestern Regionality "The Great Body of the Republic": Abraham Lincoln and the Idea of a Middle West Stories Written in the Blood: Race, Identity, and the Middle West The Anti-region: Place and Identity in the History of the American Middle West Midwestern Distinctiveness Middleness and the Middle West
Saints are not born. Saints are made. Told against the fourth-century backdrop of the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of Christianity, The Saint’s Mistress breathes life into the previously untold story of Saint Augustine and his beloved mistress. Defying social norms and traditions, the love between the Roman aristocrat Aurelius Augustinus and Leona, a North African peasant, creates a rift with Aurelius’ mother Monnica, his powerful patron Urbanus, and the marital laws of the Roman Empire. When Monnica and Urbanus succeed in separating Leona from her son and securing a more suitable fiancée for Aurelius, Leona commits herself to the Church. Feeling the ever stronger pull of the evolving Christian church, Leona and Aurelius walk separate paths in service of their faith. When many years later Leona and Aurelius, now Bishop Augustine, meet again, old passions re-ignite, perennial feuds smolder, and the fate of the Roman Empire in North Africa hangs in the balance. A love story for the ages, The Saint’s Mistress brings to life the monumental struggle between love, faith and religious office.
