Today we celebrate the birthday of Lillian Wald (1867-1940), founder of Henry Street Settlement on New York’s Lower East Side as well as the Visiting Nurse Service of New York. Wald was a second-generation German Jewish immigrant who developed close associations with Jewish New York even as she consistently dismissed claims that her work emerged from a fundamentally Jewish calling.

In her book, Lillian Wald: A Biography, Marjorie Feld examines the crucial and complex significance of Wald’s ethnicity to her life’s work. In addition, by studying the Jewish community’s response to Wald throughout her public career from 1893 to 1933, Feld explores the changing landscape of identity politics in the first half of the twentieth century.

To mark Wald’s birthday, as well as her own, Feld writes about her study of Wald’s complex life, as well as the ways in which their lives have–and have not–become intertwined in the process of her academic study.

Below we link to Feld’s post at the blog of the Jewish Women’s Archive. Enjoy!–beth

I remember precisely where I was in the Glenn G. Bartle library—what part of the stacks, which corner, what bench—when I realized that Lillian Wald and I shared the same birthday, on March 10^th.   I was a junior at State University of New York at Binghamton, enrolled in a U.S. women’s history course that was gradually changing the direction of my life.  It was here that I discovered Lillian Wald, a Jewish woman who was deeply involved in American Progressives’ campaigns for immigrant, women’s, and civil rights, for public health and world peace.

Read the full post at Jewesses with Attitude, the blog of the Jewish Women’s Archive.

We love it when new UNC Press books seem to be in conversation with other books of the moment.  Take Patti Smith’s acclaimed new memoir, Just Kids (HarperCollins 2010), which offers an inside look at the punk pioneer’s artistic influences and collaborations, including Arthur Rimbaud, Robert Mapplethorpe, Bruce Springsteen, Sam Shepard, and Fred “Sonic” Smith–all men.

However, right there on page 10, Smith points to reading Little Women as a turning point in her development into the rocker, poet, and artist that she was to become.

“I drew comfort from my books. Oddly enough, it was Louisa May Alcott who provided me with a positive view of my female destiny. . . . [Jo March] gave me the courage of a new goal, and soon I was crafting little stories and spinning long yarns for my brother and sister. From that time on, I cherished the idea that one day I would write a book.”

We asked Barbara Sicherman, author of Well-Read Lives: How Books Inspired a Generation of American Women (UNC Press 2010), whose book takes a close look at Little Women’s Jo March and how she served as a youthful model of independence in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for her take on Smith’s quote.

“Patti Smith. I am surprised. But I shouldn’t be. Jo March has been inspiring girls since she first appeared on the literary landscape nearly a century and a half ago. I am convinced that a major reason for the novel’s staying power is Jo’s success as a published author. She was a new kind of heroine to Alcott’s first readers who were thrilled to encounter a feisty literary tomboy and bookworm in print; some of them even kept journals in Jo’s name.

But what is truly amazing, given how much the world has changed since then, is that Jo remained the exemplar of female ambition well into the twentieth century–for writers as different as Simone de Beauvoir, Ann Petry, and Cynthia Ozick. And now Patti Smith, whose account of crafting stories and spinning yarns for her siblings after reading Alcott’s classic is in the same tradition.”

So, without Jo March and Little Women there may not have been a Patti Smith Group, one of the few rock bands with a woman leader and lyricist. And without Louisa May Alcott, Smith might not have created the body of work for which she was named a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in 2005.

Read a full interview with Barbara Sicherman on the transformative power of reading in women’s lives see at the UNC Press website.

–Gina

Have you heard? Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) has sponsored a bill to replace U.S. Grant on the $50 bill with Ronald Reagan. In an op-ed for the LA Times, Grant biographer Joan Waugh offers a brief history lesson in defense of the Union general and 18th President of the United States and cautions against further erosion of Grant’s legacy. An excerpt:

There was a time when Republicans did celebrate Grant. In a speech delivered in 1900, for example, Theodore Roosevelt maintained that among the past presidents, the trio emerging as the “mightiest among the mighty [were] the three great figures of Washington, Lincoln and Grant.” Roosevelt’s deeply appreciative comments reflected the widespread respect of his generation for Grant, and for good reason.

Yes, Grant’s administration was marred by corruption and controversy. But Grant himself remained steadfast in his belief that the goals of the war — unity and freedom — should be preserved even as the country’s enthusiasm for biracial reconstruction of the South faded away.

He proudly signed off on the 15th Amendment to the Constitution in 1870, describing the law enabling black suffrage as “a measure of grander importance than any other one act of the kind from the foundation of our free government to the present day.”

Grant’s final task as president hearkened back to his first and perhaps most important achievement: to ensure a stable transition, this time in the disputed election of 1876. He succeeded, and the country reconciled for good.

Read the full text of Waugh’s full piece: Ulysses S. Grant earned his $50 bill.

Today brings us a guest post from Raúl Ramos, author of Beyond the Alamo: Forging Mexican Ethnicity in San Antonio, 1821-1861. In his book, Ramos introduces a new model for the transnational history of the United States as he focuses on Mexican-Texan, or Tejano, society in a period of political transition beginning with the year of Mexican independence. Ramos explores the factors that helped shape the ethnic identity of the Tejano population, including cross-cultural contacts between Bexareños, indigenous groups, and Anglo-Americans, as they negotiated the contingencies and pressures on the frontier of competing empires.

In this post Ramos marks the anniversary of the Battle of the Alamo,  addresses the decisions now being made about how this history will be taught to the state’s children, and explores both how these decisions arise from Texan culture and how they help shape it. –beth

This Saturday marks the anniversary of the Battle of the Alamo in 1836, the battle that ended the 13-day siege on the fort by the Mexican Army.  The date carries added meaning this year as the Texas State Board of Education decides on the social studies standards affecting the education of the state’s public school children.  Debates over the standards have garnered national attention especially since they impact how textbooks will be written for the nation’s largest market.  It was the subject of a recent New York Times Magazine cover story.  When it comes to Texas history, few if any events carry the emotional weight of the Alamo.  The governor even invokes the memory of Texas Independence to score political points with the anti-Washington crowd.

It seems like, 174 years later, battles over the Alamo’s meaning and significance rage on, reflecting contemporary debates as much as commenting on the past.  This has been the backdrop for writing my book, Beyond the Alamo: Forging Mexican Ethnicity in San Antonio, 1821-1861.  The book reframes events during the period from the perspective of Mexican people in San Antonio.  In a sense, the book serves as a narrative intervention into the immensely strong dominant narrative that places the Battle of the Alamo at the center of the region’s history.

The Alamo story itself shines so dominates the historical landscape that any broader context for understanding these events is practically wiped out.  I often use what I call the “postcard” image of the Alamo as a metaphor to illustrate this point.  The image of the Alamo is often presented without people or surrounding buildings.  The icon has become timeless in more than one sense.  Reinserting this context meant shifting the focus away from the battle and recasting events and people. Read more »

If you are familiar with the UNC Press Blog, you probably know that we know a thing or two about celebrating. If it has a national celebration day, week, or month, we probably have it marked on our calendars well in advance. Why else would we have a 1000-word post on the merits of National Chili Day, like we did a little over a week ago?

For March, we’re celebrating National Women’s History Month at the Press, and I’ll be highlighting some fantastic new books we’re publishing that focus on women in America. We have titles spanning this history of women in the United States, from before the Revolution through a book profiling women of the past decade.

Women at War

Today’s post centers on two new books from UNC Press that focus on women at war in America. Published in September, Judith Giesberg’s Army at Home: Women and the Civil War on the Northern Home Front explores how both black and white women assumed increased social and political roles in the Union while their husbands and fathers fought the Confederacy. Giesberg includes striking details about how even with the return of the soldiers, these new gender roles remained.

150 years after the stories found in Giesberg’s Army at Home, Laura Browder and Sascha Pflaeging have put together this arresting new collecting of images and oral histories of women returning from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, titled When Janey Comes Marching Home: Portraits of Women Combat Veterans. Along with 48 of Pflaeging’s portraits, Browder presents the oral histories that run across the emotional spectrum, providing the reader with a sense of just what it means to be a woman on the front lines of both a physical war and culture war.

Check back here for more posts in March about the great coverage of women’s history we have at UNC Press. Next week, I’ll provide a post on two new titles about the role of books in the lives of American women.

–matt

Elaine Maisner is a senior editor at UNC Press. Over a recent winter break, she asked her daughter, Zina—a wonderful baker—to make Cornmeal Vanilla Bean Shortbreads, from Sweet Stuff: Karen Barker’s American Desserts. Here’s their step-by-step guide to making these delicious cookies.–ellen

I thought it would be fun to take pictures of Zina making these cookies, especially to show people who want to bake–and aren’t sure they know how–that it really is easy. All the basic moves are here in this recipe: getting that sugar and butter together, using a real vanilla bean, adding the flour, rolling, baking. Just take your butter out an hour or two before you start–you’ll want it to be at room temperature for this recipe–and then you’ll see the easy magic that you and a wooden spoon can make. (You really don’t need an electric mixer.) These shortbreads are always welcome, munched with hot coffee or cold milk, or propped alongside a ball of ice cream. Karen gives some great serving tips at the end of the recipe, below. The cornmeal gives the shortbread a little southern touch. And remember: the more butter in a cookie, the shorter it is. Thanks, Zina and Karen.

Cornmeal Vanilla Bean Shortbreads

from Sweet Stuff: Karen Barker’s American Desserts

Makes 32 2-inch cutouts or 16 wedges

Every baker has a favorite recipe for shortbread cookies, and here is mine. The addition of fresh vanilla bean and the slight crunch of cornmeal make these buttery treats irresistible. You can customize their shape, depending upon your mood and the occasion. Try cutout stars for Christmas or the Fourth of July, hearts for Valentine’s Day, or Scottish-style wedges for tea.

INGREDIENTS

16 tablespoons (8 ounces) butter, at room temperature

seeds of 1 vanilla bean

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

½ cup + 1 tablespoon sugar

1 ½ cups flour

¼ cup cornstarch

½ cup stoneground yellow cornmeal

Here’s how to get those vanilla bean seeds:

Read more »

We welcome a guest post today from S. Scott Rohrer, author of Wandering Souls: Protestant Migrations in America, 1630-1865. Popular literature and frontier studies stress that Americans moved west to farm or to seek a new beginning. In Wandering Souls, Rohrer argues that Protestant migrants in early America relocated in search of salvation, Christian community, reform, or all three. In this post, he discusses how reception of his new book helped draw him back to his own family’s religious migration story.–ellen

In the corner of our living room sits a stately 213-year-old secretary made of walnut, complete with secret compartments, cubbyholes, and four drawers massive enough to store the contents of a modern office. As a child, the desk’s craftsmanship, solidity, and age fascinated me. But it also intrigued me for another reason: it is a tangible part of our family’s history. My grandfather Josiah Rohrer, who lived in Germantown, outside of Philadelphia, would gather us around the desk and, in reverential tones, tell us about the desk’s history. My brothers and I listened carefully, stroking the old wood as he spoke. A Mennonite craftsman by the name of John Rohrer, who was Josiah’s great-grandfather, built the desk in 1797 when he was 17 and coming of age in Lancaster County, Pa. Since then the desk has been passed down from father to son, until it ended up in my hands in the late 1980s while I was living in Salisbury, N.C. I learned the desk’s history from my grandfather and from the wrinkled old piece of paper squirreled away in a cubbyhole that lists the names of the desk’s owners and the year they were born.

Lure and lore—both are part of family history’s irresistible attractions. For profound and deep-seated reasons, humans have long wanted to discover who their ancestors were and where they came from. The lure of family history can easily be seen by glancing at the burgeoning number of websites and organizations devoted to genealogy. County libraries routinely hold seminars on researching family history. Indeed, the legions of genealogists are growing by the day, spurred on by the Internet and the ease with which one can now read courthouse records and family documents online. The lore involves family stories passed down from generation to generation. When friends and colleagues learn that I am a social historian whose first book was on the Moravians, and that I am a descendant of German Mennonites, they enjoy telling me about their family histories and their efforts to uncover their family’s past. These investigations are almost always journeys of love.

As a “professional” historian, however, I have always kept my research interests separate from family ones. The usual academic considerations led to my second book—Wandering Souls: Protestant Migrations in America, 1630-1865. I wanted to understand how Protestantism influenced the movements of ordinary Americans in an earlier age.

It took a chance encounter with a genealogy site to bring me back to my roots, so to speak. Read more »

So, it’s finally here, the day that comes only once a year. . . UNC Press’s Chili Night.  And this year it falls on a chilly night indeed.

But why should you care?  Well, I’d say, because what’s better on a cold, windy night than warm chili?  Isn’t that reason enough?  If you need another reason—if you’re like that—you need to know that today is also, by your great good fortune, National Chili Day.  Did we plan this?  No.  But it does seem that fortune smiles on us in this matter.

Chili Night:  Its beginnings are lost in the mists of time.  It just is.

What will be in store tonight?  There will be three, count em, three pots of chili: David’s (our Venerable Editor in Chief) famous chili, and Robbie’s (our Esteemed CFO) equally famous chili.  Not that this is a competition.  Of course it’s not, but still.  We’re just saying.  So David and Robbie cover the con carne options, and of course, we will also have veggie chili, made by Heidi (our Most Honorable Design and Production Manager).  And fixins, of course there will be all the fixins.

But enough about us.  How will you celebrate National Chili Day?  A cook-off?  A bowl and nice big hunk of cornbread at your favorite diner (and my choice would be Elmo’s chili and cornbread, if you’re near Durham or Carrboro).  Or, you can break out the pots and pans and try your hand at it.  I’d give you David’s or Robbie’s or Heidi’s recipes, but they’re not talking.

Since that’s the case, we’ve turned to our books to give you some recipes, in case you’d like to participate, along with us, and raise a glass at the same time we are, in Carrboro, NC.  Here are two recipes for you, one from Marion Brown’s Southern Cookbook, and the other from Cooking the Gullah Way Morning, Noon, & Night.

Read more »

The first few books from UNC Press’ Spring|Summer 2010 catalog made it to bookshelves this month, and many more will be debuting in the coming months. One of the books we’re excited to publish, in partnership with Publishing the Long Civil Rights Movement, is Robert R. Korstad and James L. Leloudis’ To Right These Wrongs: The North Carolina Fund and the Battle to End Poverty and Inequality in 1960s America.

Due out in mid-April, To Right These Wrongs tells the story of North Carolina Governor Terry Sanford and his quest to combat poverty and social inequality in the state. Along with the phenomenal writing of Korstad and Leloudis, the book will feature illustrations by celebrated photographer Billy E. Barnes.

While the North Carolina Fund Read more »

This is the question Susan Reverby considers in a post over at Wonders & Marvels. The author of, most recently, Examining Tuskegee: The Infamous Syphilis Study and Its Legacy writes:

In my most recent book, I had to explain: why did the doctors do it? Sometimes it is easy to answer this: all the men were black and poor, and almost all the doctors were white. Was this racism pure and simple? Or is this just scientific and governmental bureaucracy run amuck where having the power to do this just lets it go on and on?

Yes, of course, to these answers and then no.

Read Reverby’s full post here.

–ellen