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5 Must Read Books for Women's History Month

3/14/2022

A Warrior of the People: How Susan La Flesche Overcame Racial and Gender Equality to Become America's First Indian Doctor

By Joe Starita
Published November 2016

On March 14, 1889, Susan La Flesche received her medical degree—becoming the first Native American doctor in U.S. history. She earned her degree thirty-one years before women could vote and thirty-five years before Indians could become citizens in their own country.

By age twenty-six, this fragile but indomitable Indian woman became the doctor to her tribe. Overnight, she acquired 1,244 patients scattered across 1,350 square miles of rolling countryside with few roads. Her patients often were desperately poor and desperately sick—tuberculosis, small pox, measles, influenza—families scattered miles apart, whose last hope was a young woman who spoke their language and knew their customs.

This is the story of an Indian woman who effectively became the chief of an entrenched patriarchal tribe, the story of a woman who crashed through thick walls of ethnic, racial and gender prejudice, then spent the rest of her life using a unique bicultural identity to improve the lot of her people—physically, emotionally, politically, and spiritually.

A Warrior of the People is the moving biography of Susan La Flesche’s inspirational life, and it will finally shine a light on her numerous accomplishments.

The author will donate all royalties from this book to a college scholarship fund he has established for Native American high school graduates.

A Black Women's History of the United States

By Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross
Published February 2020

A vibrant and empowering history that emphasizes the perspectives and stories of African American women to show how they are -- and have always been -- instrumental in shaping our country.

In centering Black women's stories, two award-winning historians seek both to empower African American women and to show their allies that Black women's unique ability to make their own communities while combatting centuries of oppression is an essential component in our continued resistance to systemic racism and sexism. Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross offer an examination and celebration of Black womanhood, beginning with the first African women who arrived in what became the United States to African American women of today.

A Black Women's History of the United States reaches far beyond a single narrative to showcase Black women's lives in all their fraught complexities. Berry and Gross prioritize many voices: enslaved women, freedwomen, religious leaders, artists, queer women, activists, and women who lived outside the law. The result is a starting point for exploring Black women's history and a testament to the beauty, richness, rhythm, tragedy, heartbreak, rage, and enduring love that abounds in the spirit of Black women in communities throughout the nation.

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Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger

By Rebecca Traister
Published October 2018

From Rebecca Traister, the New York Times bestselling author of All the Single Ladies comes a vital, incisive exploration into the transformative power of female anger and its ability to transcend into a political movement.

In the year 2018, it seems as if women’s anger has suddenly erupted into the public conversation. But long before Pantsuit Nation, before the Women’s March, and before the #MeToo movement, women’s anger was not only politically catalytic—but politically problematic. The story of female fury and its cultural significance demonstrates the long history of bitter resentment that has enshrouded women’s slow rise to political power in America, as well as the ways that anger is received when it comes from women as opposed to when it comes from men.

With eloquence and fervor, Rebecca tracks the history of female anger as political fuel—from suffragettes marching on the White House to office workers vacating their buildings after Clarence Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court. Here Traister explores women’s anger at both men and other women; anger between ideological allies and foes; the varied ways anger is perceived based on its owner; as well as the history of caricaturing and delegitimizing female anger; and the way women’s collective fury has become transformative political fuel—as is most certainly occurring today. She deconstructs society’s (and the media’s) condemnation of female emotion (notably, rage) and the impact of their resulting repercussions.

Highlighting a double standard perpetuated against women by all sexes, and its disastrous, stultifying effect, Traister’s latest is timely and crucial. It offers a glimpse into the galvanizing force of women’s collective anger, which, when harnessed, can change history.

They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in American South

By Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers
Published February 2019

Bridging women’s history, the history of the South, and African American history, this book makes a bold argument about the role of white women in American slavery. Historian Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers draws on a variety of sources to show that slave-owning women were sophisticated economic actors who directly engaged in and benefited from the South’s slave market. Because women typically inherited more slaves than land, enslaved people were often their primary source of wealth. Not only did white women often refuse to cede ownership of their slaves to their husbands, they employed management techniques that were as effective and brutal as those used by slave-owning men. White women actively participated in the slave market, profited from it, and used it for economic and social empowerment. By examining the economically entangled lives of enslaved people and slave-owning women, Jones-Rogers presents a narrative that forces us to rethink the economics and social conventions of slaveholding America.

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Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine

By Olivia Campbell
Published March 2021

For fans of Hidden Figures and Radium Girls comes the remarkable story of three Victorian women who broke down barriers in the medical field to become the first women doctors, revolutionizing the way women receive healthcare.

In the early 1800s, women were dying in large numbers from treatable diseases because they avoided receiving medical care. Examinations performed by male doctors were often demeaning and even painful. In addition, women faced stigma from illness—a diagnosis could greatly limit their ability to find husbands, jobs or be received in polite society.

Motivated by personal loss and frustration over inadequate medical care, Elizabeth Blackwell, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Sophia Jex-Blake fought for a woman’s place in the male-dominated medical field. For the first time ever, Women in White Coats tells the complete history of these three pioneering women who, despite countless obstacles, earned medical degrees and paved the way for other women to do the same. Though very different in personality and circumstance, together these women built women-run hospitals and teaching colleges—creating for the first time medical care for women by women.

With gripping storytelling based on extensive research and access to archival documents, Women in White Coats tells the courageous history these women made by becoming doctors, detailing the boundaries they broke of gender and science to reshape how we receive medical care today.

Want to read these books for FREE? Sign up for a library card today! These books and many more are available to check out at both the Fargo and Moorhead Public Library (LARL).

Fargo Public Library Online Library Card Application: https://catalog.fargolibrary.org/cgi-bin/koha/opac-memberentry.pl

Lake Agassiz Regional Library Online Application: https://larl.org/get-a-library-card/

**Book cover images, descriptions, and other information was acquired from Goodreads**

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Book Review of the Month: March 2022

3/1/2022

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How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

Book by Clint Smith, published June 1, 2021
Book review by Emily Kulzer, HCSCC Director of Museum Operations

“I’ve come to realize that there is a difference between history and nostalgia, and somewhere between those two is memory.” – David Thornton, Tour Guide, Monticello Plantation, p. 41

The connection between history, memory, and the present day has always fascinated me. Why do we remember the events and people that we do? Who gets to decide what makes it into the history books? How do dominant narratives of the past shape the places that we live, the people around us, and who we are? Why do we often look back at the past with a feeling of nostalgia and think “those were the good ol’ days”?

I think most people like to believe that history is a factual account of what has happened in the past. But the more I learn about and study history, the more it becomes evident that history, and the memories tied to it, comes with a lot of emotional baggage.

Blandford Cemetery in Petersburg, Virginia contains a mass grave of 30,000 Confederates who were killed in the Siege of Petersburg during the American Civil War. The stone arch above the entrance road reads “Our Confederate Heroes.” In 1866, Blandford was the site of one of the earliest known Decoration Day ceremonies, which many believe to be the inspiration for the Memorial Day. Smith attended the annual Sons of Confederate Veterans Memorial Celebration at the site which still takes place every Memorial Day. Image Source: Noah_Loverbear, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

In How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America, author Clint Smith takes readers on a nation-wide tour of plantations, memorials, museums, cemeteries, and prisons and examines how each site memorializes and reckons with the legacy of slavery.

Smith’s accounts of each site are based on historical scholarship and brought to life by the story of the people who care for and interpret these historical sites today. Each site is a case study that reveals how historians are choosing to tackle difficult history. Some sites choose to face the past head on, they dig it up with the ugly truth and bring it to the surface. Other sites prefer to keep the ugly parts of the past buried.

The thing that I admire most about this book is the way that Smith combines historical scholarship and journalism. It reads like a history book, yet it’s more personal. During his investigations, Smith starts up conversations with visitors, tour guides, and administrators at each site and asks them thoughtful questions regarding their understanding of the legacy of slavery and how it is told at the site.

I think it’s easy to judge others who might not know about or who might choose to ignore the messy parts of the past. Especially when we live in an age where we have access to so much knowledge and the ability to connect with people from all over the world. How the Word is Passed offers a thorough and thought-provoking investigation of the differing understandings of the horrors of slavery and those who fought to keep it.

Louisiana State Penitentiary quarters, ca. 1901. Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as Angola, is a historic maximum-security prison farm that is still in operation today. It is named Angola after the former plantation that was at the same location, and for the African country from which came many of the people who were kidnapped and enslaved in Louisiana. In How the Word is Passed, Smith visits the prison’s on-site museum to discover how they confront their ties to slavery. Source: State Library of Louisiana Digital Repository

One of the goals that the staff and I here at HCSCC have is to have deeper conversations with our audiences and create more thought-provoking content. Learning about how other historical sites around the United States and the world is a great way to find out what is working for other museums. I found the case studies in this book helpful, not only as a public historian, but personally as well. I always strive to understand my fellow humans in the hopes that I can better understand myself and become a more compassionate and empathetic person. I recommend this book not only to my fellow historians but to anyone wanting to know more about impact that the legacy of slavery has had on our society.

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Now, this is the part where I make a shameless pitch for the new exhibit that we have coming up. I invite you all to join us on Tuesday, March 22 at 5:00 PM for the opening reception of one of the three (yes, I said THREE) new exhibits that we have opening in March. Stories of Local Black History examines the rich history of African-American and African people in Clay County and the surrounding areas. The exhibit travels through time, highlighting some of the most fascinating and influential people to live in our community, like Civil War veteran Felix Battles, professor and jazz musician James Condell, as well as Judge and former Mayor of Moorhead, Jonathan Judd.

We hope to see you there!

If you’re interested in what else I’m reading you can follow me on Goodreads by following the link below. https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/9503549-emily

Want to read How the Word is Passed for FREE? Sign up for a library card today! How the Word Is Passed is available to check out at both the Fargo and Moorhead Public Library (LARL).

Fargo Public Library Online Library Card Application: https://catalog.fargolibrary.org/cgi-bin/koha/opac-memberentry.pl

Lake Agassiz Regional Library Online Application: https://larl.org/get-a-library-card/

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Articles and Blogs

5 Must Read Books for Women's History Month

A Warrior of the People: How Susan La Flesche Overcame Racial and Gender Equality to Become America's First Indian Doctor

A Black Women's History of the United States

Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger

They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in American South

Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine

Book Review of the Month: March 2022

How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

Book by Clint Smith, published June 1, 2021
Book review by Emily Kulzer, HCSCC Director of Museum Operations

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Articles and Blogs

5 Must Read Books for Women's History Month

A Warrior of the People: How Susan La Flesche Overcame Racial and Gender Equality to Become America's First Indian Doctor

A Black Women's History of the United States

Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger

They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in American South

Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine

Book Review of the Month: March 2022

​How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

Book by Clint Smith, published June 1, 2021​Book review by Emily Kulzer, HCSCC Director of Museum Operations

Archives

Visit Us

Resources

Accessibility

Connect

How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

Book by Clint Smith, published June 1, 2021
Book review by Emily Kulzer, HCSCC Director of Museum Operations