“This is Herland: Gendered Activism in Oklahoma from the 1870s to the 2010s,” co-edited by Dr. Sarah Eppler Janda, professor of history at Cameron University, and Dr. Patricia Loughlin, is one of two selections chosen to represent Oklahoma at the National Book Festival in September. The Oklahoma Center for the Book selected Janda’s book as well as “Run Little Chaski! An Inka Trail Adventure” by Mariana Llanos to represent Oklahoma as part of the National Center for the Book’s “Great Reads from Great Places” program.
Published by the University of Oklahoma Press, “This is Herland: Gendered Activism in Oklahoma from the 1870s to the 2010s” is a compilation of essays that showcases 13 female activists and explores their varied experiences form the territorial period to the present. Organized chronologically, the essays discuss Progressive reformer Kate Barnard, educator and civil rights leader Clara Luper, and Comanche leader and activist LaDonna Harris, as well as lesser-known individuals such as Cherokee historian and educator Rachel Caroline Eaton, entrepreneur and NAACP organizer California M. Taylor, and Equal Rights Amendment champion Wanda Jo Peltier Stapleton.
Since well before the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 that secured their right to vote, women in Oklahoma sought to change and uplift their communities through political activism. The collection explores how race, ethnicity, social class, gender, and political power shaped and were shaped by the efforts of these women to improve their local, state, and national communities.
The 2022 National Book Festival will be held on Saturday, September 3, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.
The “Great Reads from Great Places” program features books and authors representing the literary heritage of all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and Northern Marianas. For more than 20 years, the program has included a children or young adult title from each affiliate center. In 2022, “Great Reads from Great Places” is including titles for adults for the first time. Janda, Loughlin and Llanos will sign their respective books at the Oklahoma booth in the Roadmap to Reading area.
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PR#22-107
