"Until now, no biography has explored Rankin's inconsistencies. The authors consulted the correspondence of her family members and contemporaries, uncovering ties between her politics and her familial and personal relationships. They reveal how she succeeded through her wealthy brother's influence as well as her own extraordinary efforts; how she drew inspiration not from her rural roots but from the radical hotbed of Greenwich Village; and how she championed an independent, woman-centered life while deferring to family."--Back cover.
This is the story of the Rankins, a family that embodied the risk and ambition that transformed America. John Rankin arrived in the West chasing the adventure of gold mining but soon turned to ranching and building in the new town of Missoula. There he met Olive Pickering, who had left New Hampshire in 1878 to become a teacher and seek a husband on the American frontier. John and Olive's children continued to demonstrate their parent's ambition and nerve. Their son became one of the biggest landowners in the country, one of the first personal injury lawyers, and a crusader against railroads and mining. Jeannette became the first woman in a national legislature, voted against two world wars and led marches protesting the Vietnam War. As a dean, Harriet helped develop the modern co-educational university. Edna traveled the world advocating for birth control. The Rankins faced both national adulation and condemnation for the choices they made. Their family story concerns independence and education, activism, the boundaries created by gender, religious choices, and the changing meaning of the West.
Social worker, suffragist, first woman elected to the United States Congress, and a lifelong peace activist, Jeannette Rankin is often remembered as the woman who voted "No" to United States involvement in both world wars. Rankin's determined voice for change shines in this biography, written by her friend, Norma Smith.
Wellington Rankin was argueably one of the most powerful Montana figures in the first half of the 20th century. Without him, it might be argued that the name of Jeannette Rankin, his older sister, might not be known to us today. He was instrumental in both her elections to congress. At one time he was the largest landowner in the United States with over one million acres under his ownership, though his stewardship of the many ranches he owned was often contraversial. A brilliant, flamboyant attorney, Rankin was a champion of the underdog. Had he lived in the later part of the century, he would have been a nationally known attorney in the pattern of F. Lee Bailey and Gerry Spence. Though serving as the Montana State Attorney General, the U.S. Attorney for the state of Montana, and for years the powerful head of the Montana Republican Party, he was unable to get elected to the office he coveted most, the U.S. Senate.Dave Walter, Research Historian for the Montana Historical Society states in his forward to the book, "To say that Wellington Rankin presents an enigman is to belabor the obvious. Possessing perhaps Montana's most adept political mind?ever?them man failed to be elected time and time again. Awash in property and wealth, he reached his peak as a courtroom attorney who defended the downtrodden. A horseman of real repute, he proved unable or unwilling to sustain a quality ranching operation.""Is there a home-grown Montanan who alive who does not have a 'Wellington Rankin story'? This volume sorts through the stories, sifts fact from fiction, and launches the unraveling of a persistent enigma."Because Rankin kept few records, little has been written of him. Volney Steele spent more than ten years researching through what little information was available and interviewing family and friends. He has done an outstanding job of piecing together the life of this remarkable figure in Montana history.
She was the lonely dissenter, committed to pacifism no matter the consequences. Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress, crusaded for peace her entire life. The Montanan was an icon of political extremes, applauded as a beacon of hope by many people and vilified as a traitor by others.
Paul Morrison launches his first teenage summer at a school dance, longing for girls and the smack of baseballs. His innocence ends quickly that night when a roaring black Chevy chases him into the dark, but it's the mysterious stranger driving it who scares him more. It's 1965 in Deer Lodge, Montana, far from the busy faraway world that Paul and his girlfriend Marcy read about in books...
Details the clash between a former Alcatraz inmate, Jerry Myles, and a reform warden. This inside look at a prison riot chronicles the lives of the men involved in it and the consequences that followed.
A photographic celebration of the women of the 116th—the most diverse Congress in American history. The first woman Speaker of the House. The first female combat veteran. The first Native American women. The first Muslim women. The first openly gay member of the Senate. These are just some of the remarkable firsts represented by the women of the 116th Congress, the most diverse and inclusive in American history. Just over a century ago, Jeannette Rankin of Montana was the first and only woman in the House of Representatives. By the time of the 116th Congress, a total of 131 were seated in both chambers. The 2018 midterm elections brought a seismic change—and this book, a collaboration between New York Times photo editors Beth Flynn and Marisa Schwartz Taylor and photographers Elizabeth D. Herman and Celeste Sloman—documents the women of the 116th Congress, photographed in the style of historical portrait paintings commonly seen in the halls of power to highlight the stark difference between how we’ve historically viewed governance and how it has evolved. Also featured are an illustrated timeline and list of firsts for women in Congress; “Her Vote, Her Voice” sections throughout that highlight historical moments in female politics; and an extended introduction and foreword by Roxane Gay. The Women of the 116th Congress is a testament to what representation in the United States looks like in the twenty-first century—and an inspiration for what it may look like in the years to come.
Lori, the heroine of this rousing narrative, is attempting to flee the hectic East Coast for a better life in the West. She is a child of the Seventies who feels misled by the rebellious "boomer" generation and disappointed with life in 1980s New Jersey. Spurred by the tale of her pioneering grandparents, who immigrated to Montana, and following her friend Madeleine, who has all the answers, Lori quits her job, loosens her ties, and sets off into a wild frontier. Lori's story is one of love for people and for places that are more mythic than real. Her pursuit is as painfully familiar as it is impossible: she seeks meaning in life while working dead-end jobs, falls in love with uninterested partners, and plans a future that seems doomed from the start. Somehow, though, she persists and ultimately finds her place as a twenty-first-century pioneer.
