Midwestern Women Work, Community, and Leadership at the Crossroads [Paperback]

... an excellent introduction to a complex subject. Anyone interested in the Midwest or in womens history will find it a valuable resource. Agricultural History

... the volume as a whole invigorates the field of midwestern history. Wisconsin Magazine of History

... examines four centuries of Midwestern womens history, including urban and rural, frontier settlers and American Indians, Mexican and European migrants. The book mixes telling anecdotes with scholarly research. Indianapolis Star

Writing about four centuries of midwestern womens history, including urban, rural, and frontier women, Native Americans, African Americans, Mexicanas, as well as European migrants, essayists discuss ways midwestern womens lives resemble those women of other regions and ways in which their lives are distinctive. By addressing a broad range of questions about the lives of midwestern women this volume encourages further research of this neglected but important group. The volume also includes a lengthy bibliography.

Foreword by Glenda Riley

Introduction: The Strange Career of Madame Dubuque and Midwestern Womens History
Wendy Hamand Venet and Lucy Eldersveld Murphy

I. Four Lives

1. Leadership within the Womens Community: Susie Bonga Wright of the Leech Lake Ojibwe
Rebecca Kugel

2. Journeywoman Milliner: Emily Austin, Migration, and Womens Work in the Nineteenth Century Midwest
Lucy Eldersveld Murphy

3. Mary McDowell and Municipal Housekeeping: Womens Political Activism in Chicago, 1890
Karen M. Mason

4. The Limits of Community: Martha Friesen of Hamilton County, Kansas
Pamela Riney-Kehrberg

II. Community and Leadership

5. For the good of her people : Continuity and Change for Native Women of the Midwest, 1650-1850

6. Those with whom I feel most nearly connected : Kinship and Gender in Early Ohio
Tamara G. Miller

7. The Ethnic Female Public Sphere: German-American WomlÓi