On “Stagecoach Mary” Fields

Stories of “Stagecoach” Mary Fields always note the gun she carried, the cigar she smoked, the fights she got into (and usually won). Born in Tennessee in 1832 or 1833, Fields would make her way to Montana where she became, at various times, a mission worker, a restaurant owner, a laundry owner, and the first Black woman to be a Star Route Carrier for the United States Post Office Department.

So begins Ashawnta Jackson’s concise overview of the life of Mary Fields. You may read the entire JSTOR Daily story here.

Church Ladies and Grassroots Political Religion

Following the excitement of the 2017 Women’s March, many white suburban women in swing districts revitalized the Democratic Party from the ground up. In their research in several swing states, historian Lara Putnam and political scientist Theda Skocpol looked past the massive one-day demonstration to find that college-educated and middle-aged women had returned home to invest in local Democratic politics. Motivated in part in opposition to the 52% of white women who voted for Trump, “middle America’s mothers and grandmothers,” some of whom had been Republicans and independents, formed local chapters of Indivisible, attended town halls, and volunteered for campaigns for the 2018 election. Many of these new activists invoked a shared gender identity, in this case informed by a distaste for Trump’s “brand of male authority.” Yet as critics of the Putnam and Skocpol report have noted, liberal white feminists have often advanced their causes by drawing on white supremacy instead of battling it. Many newly politicized white women have had to reckon with their racial privilege as they have worked alongside African American women and men and others who have been traditionally part of the Democratic base. In their relational organizing, and in their confrontation with their racial privilege, the experiences of today’s white women political activists resemble those of the United Council of Church Women (UCCW) in the mid-twentieth century.

So begins Gale Kenny’s concise essay on some of the recent history of white Protestant women’s political activism. You may read the rest of her OAH Process post here.

Rethinking Pocahontas

We all think we know Pocahontas, but her real story is very different from the popular image. Pocahontas was an extremely talented and lively 10-year-old girl when Jamestown was founded in 1607. She was the daughter of the Great Powhatan, who ruled over numerous client tribes in the Chesapeake, the region the Powhatans called Tsenacomaca, and he selected her for a special role because of her intelligence and personality. Captain John Smith said her “wit, and spirit” made her stand out.

So begins historian Karen Ordhahl Kupperman’s summation of her new biography of Pocahontas. You may read her entire Time piece here.

Omaha tribe works to save historic Walthill hospital built by first Native American doctor

Dolly A. Butz has a report in the Sioux City Journal about efforts to fundraise and restore a historical hospital on the Omaha Reservation in Walthill, NE. Dr. Susan LaFlesche Picotte, a Presbyterian, built it in 1912. You can read more about it all here.

Also, see my earlier post on Susan LaFlesche Picotte.

Being a Victorian Librarian Was Oh-So-Dangerous

Quick, think of a job that’s hard on your health. Librarian Rosalee McReynolds writes that in the late nineteenth century, a common response might have been: librarian.

So begins Livia Gershon’s concise historical piece at JSTOR on the health of women librarians in the late nineteenth century. You may read the entire post here.

The First Native American to Receive a Medical Degree

In case you’ve missed reading Joe Starita’s 2016 book A Warrior of the People, a concise introduction to Susan La Flesche Picotte of the Omaha Nation is here.

The strange cult of Emily Brontë and the ‘hot mess’ of Wuthering Heights

Over this ecstatic high summer, visitors to the Haworth parsonage museum will be able to watch a film that simulates the bird’s-eye view of Emily Brontë’s pet hawk, Nero, as he swoops over the moors to Top Withens, the ruined farmhouse that is the putative model for Wuthering Heights. You’ll be able to listen to the Unthanks, the quavery Northumbrian folk music sisters who have composed music in celebration of Emily’s 200th anniversary. If that’s not enough, you can watch a video installation by Lily Cole, the model-turned-actor-turned-Cambridge-double-first from Devon, which riffs on Heathcliff’s origins as a Liverpool foundling. Finally, Kate Bush, from Kent, has been busy on the moors unveiling a stone. In short, wherever you come from and whoever you are, you will find an Emily Brontë who is sufficiently formless yet endlessly adaptive to whatever you need her to be – a rock, a song, a bird in flight.

So begins Kathryn Hughes’ critical take on Wuthering Heights as we near Bronte’s 200th anniversary. You may read the rest of the essay at The Guardian here.

Romantic or racist? Perceptions shift on ‘Little House on the Prairie’

In Minnesota, Waziyatawin’s daughter came home from school one afternoon shaken and deeply disturbed by that day’s read-along.

The book? “Little House on the Prairie.” Her mom says the then-8-year-old was upset by hearing her teacher deliver the novel’s phrase, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” When Dr. Waziyatawin, a Dakota historian with a doctorate in American history from Cornell University, petitioned the Yellow Medicine East District in 1998 to stop teaching the book in third grade, her request was rejected.

In Kansas, Laura McLemore, who was named after the Little House series’ author Laura Ingalls Wilder, dedicates herself to preserving the legacy of the author, dressing up as the fictionalized Laura character to make the pioneer-era books come alive for school kids.

In Boston, when James Noonan, a research affiliate at Harvard Graduate School of Education, read the book to his 3-year-old daughter last year, he says he struggled to find a “middle path,” pointing out racism and talking about the perspectives of the Native characters not included in the series. “I’m not trying to censor it. I’m trying to ask important questions about it and not let Ma’s perspective speak for itself,” says Dr. Noonan.

These divergent responses reflect a still-unsettled struggle over how society should deal with books – especially ones long revered as classics – that contain racism. The “Little House on the Prairie” ​series, ​which follows the fictionalized Ingalls family as they settle in Kansas, ​has for decades been a third-grade reading staple, translated into more than 40 languages a​s well as adapted ​for TV.

So begins Rebecca Asoulin’s report on differing ways of dealing with how Native Americans are regarded in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s classic books. You may read the entire story at the Christian Science Monitor here.

Ice Cream Saloons?

On August 28, 1900, Rebecca Israel decided to treat herself to dinner at Cafe Boulevard, a fashionable restaurant in the heart of Manhattan’s Jewish theater district. Despite being polite and well-dressed, Rebecca was refused a table and asked to leave. The restaurant’s owner, Igantz Rosenfeld, had a strict policy against serving women who were unaccompanied by men. Rebecca sued him for discrimination, but the case was dismissed by the New York Supreme Court in 1903.

Throughout the 19th century, restaurants catered to a predominately male clientele. Much like taverns and gentlemen’s clubs, they were places where men went to socialize, discuss business, and otherwise escape the responsibilities of work and home. It was considered inappropriate for women to dine alone, and those who did were assumed to be prostitutes. Given this association, unescorted women were banned from most high-end restaurants and generally did not patronize taverns, chophouses, and other masculine haunts.

As American cities continued to expand, it became increasingly inconvenient for women to return home for midday meals. The growing demand for ladies’ lunch spots inspired the creation of an entirely new restaurant: the ice-cream saloon. At a time when respectable women were excluded from much of public life, these decadent eateries allowed women to dine alone without putting their bodies or reputations at risk.

You may read the rest of Jessica Gingrich’s fascinating historical piece at Atlas Obscura here.

The Woman Who Transformed How We Teach Geography

Northwest Iowa Center for Regional Studies

On the morning of October 30, 1916, Zonia Baber stood in front of four hundred government officials and leaders in the arts and sciences and told them to go to hell.

As a representative of the University of Chicago, where she taught geography, Baber was testifying in court on behalf of the Sand Dunes of Indiana, which she argued were deserving of National Park status. She concluded by saying: “I can truthfully say that I should like to believe in the old orthodox Hades for the people who will not save the dunes now for the people who are to come.” Today, the sand dunes are part of the protected Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.

So begins Leila McNeill’s concise account of Zonia Baber’s contributions to the field of geography. You may read the rest of her Smithsonian.com post here.

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