Category Archives: Biography and Memoir

The University of Wisconsin Press Celebrates Women’s History Month

The University of Wisconsin Press is proud to publish books and journals that engage with women’s history and experiences. In celebration of Women’s History Month, the following titles will be offered at a discount all month long, with discount code WHM2024UWISC. We invite you to click on the hyperlinks below to browse titles across genres—from history to political science to memoir as well as fiction and poetry by and/or about women. You can also follow along on social media as we highlight some of the must-read books included here.

Nonfiction

Holding the World Together: African Women in Changing Perspective, edited by Nwando Achebe and Claire C. Robertson

Muslim Women in Postcolonial Kenya: Leadership, Representation, and Social Change, by Ousseina D. Alidou

Silenced Resistance: Women, Dictatorships, and Genderwashing in Western Sahara and Equatorial Guinea, by Joanna Allan

I Am Evelyn Amony: Reclaiming My Life from the Lord’s Resistance Army, by Evelyn Amony, edited with an introduction by Erin Baines

Words of Witness: Black Women’s Autobiography in the Post-Brown Era, by Angela A. Ards

A Brave and Lovely Woman: Mamah Borthwick and Frank Lloyd Wright, by Mark Borthwick

Congo’s Dancers: Women and Work in Kinshasa, by Lesley Nicole Braun

Women’s Work: Making Dance in Europe before 1800, edited by Lynn Matluck Brooks

African Women Writing Resistance: An Anthology of Contemporary Voices, edited by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez, Pauline Dongala, Omotayo Jolaosho, and Anne Serafin

Genocide Lives in Us: Women, Memory, and Silence in Rwanda, by Jennie E. Burnet

Such Anxious Hours: Wisconsin Women’s Voices from the Civil War, edited by Jo Ann Daly Carr

A Quiet Corner of the War: The Civil War Letters of Gilbert and Esther Claflin, Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, 1862–1863, by Gilbert Claflin and Esther Claflin, edited by Judy Cook, with a foreword by Keith S. Bohannon

To Offer Compassion: A History of the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion, by Doris Andrea Dirks and Patricia A. Relf

Women in Roman Republican Drama, edited by Dorota Dutsch, Sharon L. James, and David Konstan

Conjoined Twins in Black and White: The Lives of Millie-Christine McKoy and Daisy and Violet Hilton, edited by Linda Frost

Innocence and Victimhood: Gender, Nation, and Women’s Activism in Postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina, by Elissa Helms

Harriet Tubman: The Life and the Life Stories, by Jean M. Humez

Shaping Tradition: Women’s Roles in Ceremonial Rituals of the Agwagune, by David Uru Iyam

​​Practical Audacity: Black Women and International Human Rights, by Stanlie M. James

From the Womb to the Body Politic: Raising the Nation in Enlightenment Russia, by Anna Kuxhausen

Romaine Brooks: A Life, by Cassandra Langer

Amazons of the Huk Rebellion: Gender, Sex, and Revolution in the Philippines, by Vina A. Lanzona

A Cinema of Obsession: The Life and Work of Mai Zetterling, by Mariah Larsson

Gender Nonconformity, Race, and Sexuality: Charting the Connections, edited by Toni Lester

Citizen Countess: Sofia Panina and the Fate of Revolutionary Russia, by Adele Lindenmeyr

Equals in Learning and Piety: Muslim Women Scholars in Nigeria and North America, by Beverly Mack

Whispers of Cruel Wrongs: The Correspondence of Louisa Jacobs and Her Circle, 18791911, by Edited by Mary Maillard

​​As Told by Herself: Women’s Childhood Autobiography, 1845–1969, by Lorna Martens

Systemic Silencing: Activism, Memory, and Sexual Violence in Indonesia, by Katharine E. McGregor

Elusive Justice: Women, Land Rights, and Colombia’s Transition to Peace, by Donny Meertens

The Best Weapon for Peace: Maria Montessori, Education, and Children’s Rights, by Erica Moretti

Slave Trade and Abolition: Gender, Commerce, and Economic Transition in Luanda, by Vanessa S. Oliveira

Lorine Niedecker: A Poet’s Life, by Margot Peters

Beyond the Flesh: Alexander Blok, Zinaida Gippius, and the Symbolist Sublimation of Sex, by Jenifer Presto

A Mysterious Life and Calling: From Slavery to Ministry in South Carolina, by Reverend Mrs. Charlotte S. Riley, edited and with an introduction by Crystal J. Lucky, with a foreword by Joycelyn K. Moody

Strong-Minded Woman: The Story of Lavinia Goodell, Wisconsin’s First Female Lawyer, by Mary Lahr Schier

Spirit Wives and Church Mothers: Marriage, Survival, and Healing in Central Mozambique, by Christy Schuetze

Sister: An African American Life in Search of Justice, by Sylvia Bell White and Jody LePage

Laughter and Civility: The Theater of Emma Gad, by Lynn R. Wilkinson

Memoir

The Toni Morrison Book Club, by Juda Bennett, Winnifred Brown-Glaude, Cassandra Jackson, and Piper Kendrix Williams

Daytime Stars: A Poet’s Memoir of the Revolution, the Siege of Leningrad, and the Thaw, by Olga Berggolts, translated and edited by Lisa A. Kirschenbaum, with a foreword by Katharine Hodgson

Farm Girl: A Wisconsin Memoir, by Beuna Coburn Carlson

With the Lapps in the High Mountains: A Woman among the Sami, 1907–1908, by Emilie Demant Hatt, edited and translated by Barbara Sjoholm, with a foreword by Hugh Beach

Self-Made Woman: A Memoir, by Denise Chanterelle DuBois

Coming Out Swiss: In Search of Heidi, Chocolate, and My Other Life, by Anne Hermann

Across America by Bicycle: Alice and Bobbi’s Summer on Wheels, by Alice Honeywell and Bobbi Montgomery

Plain: A Memoir of Mennonite Girlhood, by Mary Alice Hostetter

The Blind Masseuse: A Traveler’s Memoir from Costa Rica to Cambodia, by Alden Jones

Space: A Memoir, by Jesse Lee Kercheval

Daughter in Retrograde: A Memoir, by Courtney Kersten

Loving before Loving: A Marriage in Black and White, by Joan Steinau Lester

The Only Way Through Is Out, by Suzette Mullen

Fiction

Women Lovers, or The Third Woman, by Natalie Clifford Barney, edited and translated by Chelsea Ray, with an introduction by Melanie C. Hawthorne

A Thin Bright Line, by Lucy Jane Bledsoe

Lava Falls, by Lucy Jane Bledsoe

Catina’s Haircut: A Novel in Stories, by Paola Corso

The Dead of Achill Island, by Betsy Draine and Michael Hinden (and the rest of their Nora Barnes and Toby Sandler Mystery series)

Still True, by Maggie Ginsberg

Half, by Sharon Harrigan

Dot & Ralfie, by Amy Hoffman

The Off Season, by Amy Hoffman

Minus One, by Doris Iarovici

Underground Women, by Jesse Lee Kercheval

Cravings, by Garnett Kilberg Cohen

Imagine Your Life Like This, by Sarah Layden

The Lost Archive, by Lynn C. Miller

The Book of Joshua, by Jennifer Anne Moses

All about Skin: Short Fiction by Women of Color, edited by Jina Ortiz and Rochelle Spencer, with a foreword by Helena María Viramontes

The Summers, by Ronya Othmann, translated by Gary Schmidt

Unswerving, by Barbara Ridley

Death Casts a Shadow, by Patricia Skalka (and the seven previous volumes in her Door County mystery series)

Starvation Shore, by Laura Waterman

The Art of the Break, by Mary Wimmer

Across the Great Lake, by Lee Zacharias

Poetry

How the End First Showed, by D. M. Aderibigbe

(At) Wrist, by Tacey M. Atsitty

Shopping, or The End of Time, by Emily Bludworth de Barrios

Thunderhead, by Emily Rose Cole

Host, by Lisa Fay Coutley

Dear Terror, Dear Splendor, by Melissa Crowe

My Favorite Tyrants, by Joanne Diaz

Alien Miss, by Carlina Duan

Psalms, by Julia Fiedorczuk, translated by Bill Johnston

Gloss, by Rebecca Hazelton

Queen in Blue, by Ambalila Hemsell

Perigee, by Diane Kerr

Conditions of the Wounded, by Anna Leigh Knowles

Ganbatte, by Sarah Kortemeier

The Explosive Expert’s Wife, by Shara Lessley 

Radium Girl, by Celeste Lipkes

Season of the Second Thought, by Lynn Powell

The Book of Hulga, by Rita Mae Reese, with illustrations by Julie Franki

Why Can’t It Be Tenderness, by Michelle Brittan Rosado

As If a Song Could Save You, by Betsy Sholl

House of Sparrows, by Betsy Sholl

Otherwise Unseeable, by Betsy Sholl

The Sleeve Waves, by Angela Sorby 

If the House, by Molly Spencer

Hive, by Christina Stoddard

Girl’s Guide to Leaving, by Laura Villareal

The Apollonia Poems, by Judith Vollmer

The Sound Boat, by Judith Vollmer

The Blue Hour, by Jennifer Whitaker

American Sex Tape™, by Jameka Williams

The University of Wisconsin Press celebrates Black History Month

The University of Wisconsin Press is proud to publish books and journals that engage with Black history, culture, and experiences. In celebration of Black History Month, the following titles will be offered at a discount all month long, with discount code BHM2024UWISC. We invite you to click on the hyperlinks below to browse our titles across genres, from narratives by enslaved Americans to works of anthropology, from history to poetry and fiction. You can also follow along on social media as we highlight some of the must-read books included here. 

How the End First Showed by D. M. Aderibigbe

Words of Witness: Black Womens Autobiography in the Post-Brown Era by Angela A. Ards

Afro-American Poetics: Revisions of Harlem and the Black Aesthetic by Houston A. Baker Jr.

The Toni Morrison Book Club by Juda Bennett, Winnifred Brown-Glaude, Cassandra Jackson, and Piper Kendrix Williams

The Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb: An American Slave by Henry Bibb, with a new introduction by Charles J. Heglar

The Blind African Slave: Or Memoirs of Boyrereau Brinch, Nicknamed Jeffrey Brace by Jeffrey Brace, as told to Benjamin F. Prentiss, Esq., edited and with an introduction by Kari J. Winter

Grace Engine by Joshua Burton

Kaiso! Writings by and about Katherine Dunham edited  by VèVè A. Clark and Sara E. Johnson

Confronting Historical Paradigms: Peasants, Labor, and the Capitalist World System in Africa and Latin America by Frederick Cooper, Allen F. Isaacman, Florencia C. Mallon, William Roseberry, and Steve J. Stern

Black Moses: The Story of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association by E. David Cronon, foreword by John Hope Franklin

The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census by Philip D. Curtin

Livin the Blues: Memoirs of a Black Journalist and Poet by Frank Marshall Davis, edited and with an introduction by John Edgar Tidwell

Dancing Many Drums: Excavations in African American Dance edited by Thomas F. DeFrantz

Neither Black Nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States by Carl Degler

Against a Sharp White Background: Infrastructures of African American Print edited by Brigitte Fielder and Jonathan Senchyne

Living Black: Social Life in an African American Neighborhood by Mark S. Fleisher

Witnessing Slavery: The Development of Ante-bellum Slave Narratives by Frances Smith Foster

Conjoined Twins in Black and White: The Lives of Millie-Christine McKoy and Daisy and Violet Hilton edited by Linda Frost

Transforming Ethnographic Knowledge edited by Rebecca Hardin and Kamari Maxine Clarke

Cubans in Angola: South-South Cooperation and Transfer of Knowledge, 1976–1991 by Christine Hatzky

Race in America: The Struggle for Equality edited by Herbert Hill and James E. Jones Jr.

Black Labor and the American Legal System: Race, Work, and the Law by Herbert Hill

Harriet Tubman: The Life and the Life Stories by Jean M. Humez

Practical Audacity: Black Women and International Human Rights by Stanlie James

Understanding and Teaching American Slavery edited by Bethany Jay and Cynthia Lynn Lyerly, foreword by Ira Berlin

Understanding and Teaching the Civil Rights Movement edited by Hasan Kwame Jeffries

Last Seen by Jacqueline Jones LaMon

Reading African American Autobiography: Twenty-First-Century Contexts and Criticism edited by Eric D. Lamore

Gender Nonconformity, Race, and Sexuality: Charting the Connections edited by Toni Lester

Early African Entertainments Abroad: From the Hottentot Venus to Africas First Olympians by Bernth Lindfors

Equals in Learning and Piety: Muslim Women Scholars in Nigeria and North America by Beverly Mack

Whispers of Cruel Wrongs: The Correspondence of Louisa Jacobs and Her Circle, 18791911 edited by Mary Maillard

Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730–1830 by Joseph C. Miller

Meet Me Halfway by Jennifer Morales

Fagen: An African American Renegade in the Philippine-American War by Michael Morey

For Labor, Race, and Liberty: George Edwin Taylor, His Historic Run for the White House, and the Making of Independent Black Politics by Bruce L. Mouser

A Black Gambler’s World of Liquor, Vice, and Presidential Politics: William Thomas Scott of Illinois, 1839–1917 by Bruce L. Mouser

Òrìṣà Devotion as World Religion: The Globalization of Yorùbá Religious Culture by Jacob K. Olupona and Terry Rey

All about Skin: Short Fiction by Women of Color edited by Jina Ortiz and Rochelle Spencer

A Summer Up North: Henry Aaron and the Legend of Eau Claire Baseball by Jerry Poling

Caribbean Autobiography: Cultural Identity and Self-Representation by Sandra Pouchet Paquet

After Freedom: A Cultural Study in the Deep South by Hortense Powdermaker, with a new introduction by Brackette P. Williams and Drexel Woodson

Ulysses in Black: Ralph Ellison, Classicism, and African American Literature by Patrice D. Rankine

A Mysterious Life and Calling: From Slavery to Ministry in South Carolina by Reverend Mrs. Charlotte S. Riley, edited and with an introduction by Crystal J. Lucky, foreword by Joycelyn K. Moody

Fugitive Texts: Slave Narratives in Antebellum Print Culture, by Michaël Roy, translated by Susan Pickford

A Muslim American Slave: The Life of Omar Ibn Said by Omar Ibn Said, translated by Ala Alryyes

When Whites Riot: Writing Race and Violence in American and South African Cultures by Sheila Smith McKoy

Speculators and Slaves: Masters, Traders, and Slaves in the Old South by Michael Tadman

Slavery and Race in American Popular Culture by William L. Van Deburg

Sister: An African American Life in Search of Justice by Sylvia Bell White and Jody LePage

American Sex TapeTM by Jameka Williams

Guest Post: Breathing the Dust of History

Today we’re pleased to share a guest post from Sara DeLuca, editor of Heavy Marching. During the Civil War, Lute Moseley, a member of Wisconsin’s 22nd Volunteer Infantry, wrote detailed missives to his family in Beloit about his wartime experiences. These 125 letters, published for the first time in Heavy Marching, provide a uniquely candid and vivid view of this tumultuous period in US history. In the early 2000s, Esther Moseley enlisted the help of Sara DeLuca, a Wisconsin-based writer, to transcribe, annotate, and edit the letters written by her husband’s grandfather. Over the past few years, Sara has worked on the book, with the permission of Moseley’s descendants; the resulting volume was published June 27, 2023, with a foreword by Robert Lucius Moseley. Today, Sara shares an essay and poem she wrote about this experience. 

The pandemic that altered so many lives around the globe, beginning in 2020 and continuing for longer than we ever expected, held me close to home, searching for creative work that would fill my days. I remembered the box of Civil War letters that had been shared with me by a friend named Esther Moseley, when we were both living near Atlanta, Georgia. The letters had been written by her husband’s grandfather, Lucius Moseley, during his service with the 22nd Wisconsin Volunteer Regiment, 1862–65. Esther had asked me to help her transcribe and edit the letters for possible publication. Unfortunately, she died soon after we began our collaboration and I abandoned the project for nearly fifteen years. When I moved back to Wisconsin, the letters moved with me.

Early in 2021, after I had cleaned out all my closets and run out of productive household tasks, I contacted Esther Moseley’s family and received permission to continue working with their ancestor’s writings. Transcribing, curating, researching, annotating, editing, editing, editing, absorbed my time for more than two years. Early in the process I submitted a proposal and sample pages to the University of Wisconsin Press; an encouraging response helped keep me motivated.

My working title for the book was Ever Dear Home, a salutation that Lucius (“Lute”) Moseley often used when addressing his beloved family in Beloit, Wisconsin. Ultimately, the title was changed to Heavy Marching: The Civil War Letters of Lute Moseley, 22nd Wisconsin. The 22nd Wisconsin certainly did some heavy marching—2,400 miles on foot, much of that through extremely difficult terrain and challenging conditions, described in startling detail by the young soldier.

As editor of this remarkable first-person history, I did some heavy marching too, though most of that was accomplished in the safety and comfort of my own dear home. This poem describes my journey, which has been more rewarding than words can express. 

Ever Dear Home . . .						
		
That is how my young soldier begins so many Civil War letters
to his father, mother, brother, grandmother, back home in Beloit, Wisconsin.
I have become that grandmother, loving, hoping, 
praying for Lucius Moseley to survive the long exhausting marches,
battles at Thompson’s Station, Stones River, Peach Tree Creek, 
the Siege of Atlanta, fighting and foraging across Georgia and the Carolinas,
near starvation in Richmond’s Libby Prison, torments from dysentery, scurvy,
from rats and flies and fleas, snipers and bushwhackers.
From the stench of death.

Should God allow me to live, he writes, I will come home
and do my best to make your old age happy.
I want to know this battle-hardened boy who is marching into manhood, 
who can shoot rebel soldiers, so like himself, take their weapons, bury the bodies
and celebrate, yet burn with remorse for stealing hay from an emaciated mule
so he can make himself a bed. I need to bring him back, unscarred. I will listen
intently, learn what he has to teach me. This is kinship with another soul,
across time and space.

I suffer from exquisite maladies. I am choking on the dust of history, 
burning with archive fever.  I am tossing sleeplessly, dreaming fitfully, 
excavating, reanimating a long-dead body, searching for a pulse, finding
only a portion of his life, while feeling like a thief, knowing
that too much belongs to time
and I can never make him whole.

Book Club Discussion Guide – Heavy Marching: The Civil War Letters of Lute Moseley, 22nd Wisconsin

During the Civil War, Lute Moseley, a member of Wisconsin’s 22nd Volunteer Infantry, wrote detailed missives to his family in Beloit about his wartime experiences. Frank and forthright, he was remarkably articulate, insightful, and thoughtful, whether describing mundane activities or the nearly unfathomable death of President Lincoln. These 125 letters, published for the first time in the forthcoming book Heavy Marching, provide a uniquely candid and vivid view of this tumultuous period in US history.

In the early 2000s, Esther Moseley enlisted the help of Sara DeLuca, a Wisconsin-based writer, to transcribe, annotate, and edit the letters written by her husband’s grandfather. Over the past few years, Sara has worked on the book, with the permission of Moseley’s descendants; the resulting volume will be published June 27, 2023, with a foreword by Robert Lucius Moseley. Sara has developed the following discussion guide for book clubs who wish to read and discuss the collection.

  • What were the primary motivations for Lute Moseley and fellow soldiers to enlist in military service during the Civil War? How do these motivations compare and contrast with military enlistments today?
  • What do the tone and content of Lute’s letters reveal about his relationship with his mother and father? And with his younger brother?
  • How do the letters reveal Lute’s ethics and values? Religious beliefs?
  • Lute’s feelings about the African Americans he encounters are candidly expressed in several letters. How do these attitudes evolve throughout his three years of experience in the war? What signs do you see that might illustrate a growing understanding and compassion?
  • In many letters, Lute describes strong bonds and camaraderie among fellow soldiers, as well as feelings of irritation and petty jealousies. He also judges the behavior of his comrades and superior officers, sometimes with high praise, sometimes with harsh criticism. What do these judgments say about Lute’s own character and personality?
  • How did the incompetence and bitter conflicts between officers of the Wisconsin 22nd Volunteer Regiment impact the enlisted men? Can you think of examples from your own experience in the workplace or other situations where inadequate leadership affected morale and performance of the entire organization?
  • How might the letters of a Civil War soldier writing to his mother and father differ from those that were written to wives? Or letters written for the purpose of publication? How do you think they might differ from reports by military officers and public officials?
  • Despite being only nineteen at the time of his enlistment, Lute displays an ability for keen observation, vivid description, and honest reflection in his letters. What aspects of his education and background might contribute to such expressive writing?
  • Lute describes a scene of fraternization—even friendliness—with the “Johnny Rebs.” Yet in most accounts they are evil enemies to be destroyed, and he celebrates that destruction. How would a soldier learn to manage such contradictory experiences and emotions?
  • When Lute describes stealing hay from a horse to make himself a bed, he describes deep guilt. Yet he has witnessed and participated in so much human suffering. Does this seem like a strange reaction? Can you recall a time when a lesser incident—the “last straw”—has been the one to bring you down?
  • In April 1963 Lute writes, “I have written twice since I got back to America.” The Confederate states have become a foreign country. Lute’s impressions of “Dixie” range from harsh to amusing. What are some of the stereotypes about the North and South that still exist today?
  • What did you learn from Lute Moseley’s letters that you found most surprising? Revealing? Disturbing?
  • Can you draw comparisons or contrasts between the deep divisions that led to the Civil War with the current political environment? Do you feel optimistic about the prospects of healing these divisions and of finding common ground that will enable us to solve the economic, social, and environmental challenges facing our nation today?

UW Press book receives NEH Open Book Award

Cover image shows a portrait of Sofia wearing a brown fur hat, green jacket, yellow collared shirt, and maroon tiee.

We are pleased to share that Citizen Countess: Sofia Panina and the Fate of Revolutionary Russia by Adele Lindenmeyr is the recipient of a National Endowment of the Humanities Open Book Award, a special initiative for scholarly presses to make recent monographs freely available online.

“I am very grateful to both the University of Wisconsin Press and the NEH. This grant ensures that my story of one of the 20th century’s most remarkable women will reach a wider readership,” says Lindenmeyr.

Books on a wide range of topics, written with previous support from one of many NEH fellowship programs, will be made available through this award. Per the organization, “During a time when so many of us are doing research remotely, the value of digital editions like these that can be freely accessed from anywhere in the world is more apparent than ever. All awardees will receive $5,500 per book to support digitization, marketing, and a stipend for the author.”

Our warmest congratulations to Adele, and all involved!

Butternuts and Maple Sugar Candy

In the Midwest, unmistakably crisp mornings and golden leaves herald the arrival of a new season. Today we share a charming excerpt about the autumnal butternut harvest from Farm Girl by Beuna Coburn Carlson.

Butternut trees grew in several areas in the woodlot and pasture on our farm. We watched the nuts develop during summer and waited for them to ripen in fall. While they were still green, they were soft enough to cut with a knife; when ripe, a hammer or a special nutcracker was necessary to crack the hard shell and extract the meat. Dad used his jackknife to slice through a green nut to show us the complex structure of the nut, and allowed us to taste the bitter, unripe nutmeat. How different they would be after the nuts had ripened and dried, their rich, creamy, buttery taste a perfect flavor in maple sugar candy!

Our farm in west central Wisconsin was at the western and northern limits of the range of the butternut tree. Sometimes called white walnut, it produces nuts that are extremely hard shelled, much like black walnuts. Butternut trees grow to sixty feet in height, rarely higher. The wood was prized for carving and, before metal items were readily available, for maple sap spiles. Dad was skillful also in making wonderful wooden whistles for the kids in spring before the new growth in the tree hardened.

We knew which of the trees produced the most and the best nuts. One special tree on a sunny knoll in the pasture bore a great crop. Whereas butternuts generally are oval in shape, the nuts from this tree were nearly round, more like walnuts. It was easy to fill a bucket with these gems! Another tree, growing in the woodlot near the edge of the pasture, produced long, oval nuts, huge and choice. It was important to gather them as quickly as possible before the butternut poachers found them. The tree was near the road, with only a two-strand barbed-wire fence between the woodlot and road. People from as far away as St. Paul and Minneapolis combed the countryside and took butternuts wherever they found them.

Black and white photo of a farm with trees in the background showing four children: Neva sitting on the left with short curled hair and a gingham dress, nest to her Beuna sits with short parted hair and a checkered dress with a bow on the neckline, Burr is seated wearing a shirt and trousers, and Add is seated on the right wearing overalls.
Coburn kids. L to R: Neva, Beuna, Burr, Add.

Gathering the nuts on a sunny day in fall after the butternut shells had hardened and the outer husks had dried involved the whole family. Little kids could pick up nuts from the ground where they had fallen while Mother and Dad harvested the ones still on the tree. They carried buckets filled with nuts to the granary and spread them on the floor to finish drying.

On cold, dark winter days when no outdoor work was possible, Dad often got a pail of butternuts, now dried and ready to use, from the granary. He took them to a warm spot in the cellar near the furnace, sat down with a hammer in hand, placed a butternut upright on a special piece of wood, and cracked it. If he hit it just right, it would split into two pieces and the nutmeat would come out easily. That was a rarity. Most often it required several blows of the hammer to shatter the shell and expose the meat. When Dad had cracked a goodly amount, he brought them upstairs to the kitchen, where anyone willing to do so attacked them with a nutpick.

Very rarely, a perfectly cracked nut would yield a perfect nutmeat—two halves shaped like fat pantaloons. Finding a “pair of pants” among the butternuts was comparable to finding a four-leaf clover in the grass and gave the finder special bragging rights.

Helping pick out the pieces of meat from the shells with a nutpick entitled one to snack on them too, but wise children waited until Mother made a batch of maple sugar candy. She made it by boiling a saucepan of maple syrup, beating in cream, adding a handful of butternut meats, and pouring the thick, smooth mass into a buttered pan. When Mother decided it was cool enough, she cut it into squares and we tasted the wonderful candy. I believe we could taste in every bite the sap from the trees gathered on a frosty spring morning, the steaming syrup from the big, black kettle, the sunny afternoon of gathering the nuts, and the triumph of getting pieces of nuts from the rough shells. We knew where it came from and what effort it took to produce it. It was our candy and we loved it.

Beuna Coburn Carlson is a writer based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

From Farm Girl by Beuna Carlson Coburn. © 2020 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. All rights reserved.

Biography and Economics in African History

The most recent issue of African Economic History, a special issue entitled “Biography and Economics,” is now available. The lead editor for this issue, Paul Lovejoy, explains his choice of theme:

The inspiration for this special issue on Biography and Economics was the realization that economic history often does not focus on individuals and what their personal testimonies can tell us about economics and economic relationships. The issue brings together five articles that address this theme in different ways; the first through the lens of Philip Quaque on the Gold Coast in the eighteenth century; the second the case of the Ologoudou family on the coast of the Bight of Benin; third through biographical perspectives on enslavement in the upper Guinea coast; fourth, through the memories of indentured women in Natal; and lastly through the autobiographical details found in the wills of freed Africans in Brazil.

This was the final issue for Lovejoy, who is now retired after more than 30 years of editing African Economic History. Browse the table of contents on Project MUSE.

30th Annual Midwest Book Award win for Dairylandia

We are thrilled to announce a Midwest Book Award winner from the University of Wisconsin Press! These awards from the Midwest Independent Publishing Association (MIPA) recognize quality in independent publishing in the Midwest (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin).

Book cover showing Mona Lisa in Wisconsin Rose Bowl shirt painted on side of barn with cows in front.

Dairylandia: Dispatches from a State of Mind by Steve Hannah won the travel category. This book recounts Hannah’s love for his adopted state through his long-lived column, “State of Mind.” He profiles the lives of the seemingly ordinary yet quite (and quietly) extraordinary folks he met and befriended as he traveled the main streets and back roads of Wisconsin. From Norwegian farmers to a CIA-trained Laotian fighter to a woman who kept her favorite dead bird in the freezer, Hannah was charmed and fascinated by the kind and authentic folks he met. These captivating vignettes are by turns humorous, touching, and inspiring.

Congratulations again to the author and all involved! 

What Changes Us

This month marks the publication of The Change: My Great American, Postindustrial, Midlife Crisis Tour by Lori Soderlind. In this week’s guest post, Lori reflects on journeys, crisis, and connection.

My mission for the road trip that became my book The Change was to visit the most depressing, god-forsaken, ruined little places I could find on a loop through this country and try to get to know them. It couldn’t get hard enough for me: guns, drug addiction, unemployment, mean dogs, religious zealotry, isolation, family tragedy, untreated mental illness, fouled drinking water, industrial waste, unresolved race wars, labor wars, civil war, merciless tornados, abandonment, crop failure, deindustrialization: bring it.

Cover showing a grey building with a blue sign and yellow letters next to a red building with a sign reading Croatia Club with a blue sky full of clouds

All of it.

I wanted to look it in the face and take it in.

Everywhere on the map, there it was: cities large and small and innumerable towns that had lost the energy they’d grown up from, and that now presented an inventory of pain in a country that had changed and did not understand why, and was suffering for these changes. I lived in New York City, where the view of the other 320 million people in this country can be very narrow, sadly. But I have traveled through the country with curiosity all my life and I loved exploring it, and I had become aware in the past decade of a real gloom out where I’d always wandered carelessly, and I wanted to know what had changed. Much of the visible evidence of the change was its ruins. All the old factories that cities grew up around, gutted; all the downtowns that had given places their identities now swallowed by sprawl or just plain abandoned. I wondered why all that could have happened and how it felt to see that pain, if you lived there, every day.

Much of the change had to do with a huge shift out of the American industrial age, and the loss of manufacturing. One example: Gloversville, New York, had been a great, bustling place back when it made gloves for the world; now, go there and you’ll find all the social ills you can name without encountering a single scrap of leather or a sewing machine. Change has come to American places through countless other evolutions: the rise of the interstate highway system, the decline of family farms, the advent of malls, the new cyber economy. What the changed places had in common was the grief they felt for what they’d lost. Once, each place existed for some reason that was an established reality, just like, once, newspapers were an established reality or train travel was an established reality or my cousin’s first marriage was an established reality. Change had come and so much established reality had been upended and people and places were grieving what was lost, as if it were all meant to last.   

The Change has been released, now, in the midst of the global Covid-19 pandemic that has us aghast at how helpless we humans are, truly. We like reality to be a manageable and predictable thing, but we are reminded always—and now profoundly—that the living world is not so easily tamed. We of the country long regarded as exceptional, who felt all through the past century so breezily powerful: we hit full stop and faced daily the feeling of powerlessness. Nine weeks of quarantine as I write this, and we are, many of us, on our knees in a new posture that feels permanent, though this too will change. My city—New York City—has been hit worst of all, and is suffering. Our fear is much deeper than a fear of getting sick, of death by virus. We fear the collapse of systems we are utterly dependent on. We fear, in the midst of this unparalleled helplessness, that nothing of what we once knew and counted on will ever be the same. We see how vulnerable these structures we have built may truly be, and we are grieving before our house is even gone—because we are shocked to believe that all we have built really could fall down around us. That is how shaken we are, in New York City, in May of the year of Covid-19.

As I write this, a storm has taken the power out and I am alone in the dark in my house; lately, any respite from this sense of plunging into darkness is brief. We are shaken, but only as shaken as others in our country have been for a long, long time now. We are as shaken as a small steel-making town south of Pittsburgh where none of the kids pass standardized tests, and all of the storefronts are empty. We are as shaken as a broken mining town, or a rural desert. We know the country is divided, but to really know the sides is to measure their pain: Some have not worked in years, some lost their homes long ago, and then, too, some are simply Black in America. Others, meanwhile, have felt oddly invulnerable, and believed their fortune to be the norm. From where I sit today, it seems we are all, at once, saying foxhole prayers and hoping simply to survive.  

It could be really good for us. It’s good to know this fear deeply, and to understand that our longing to survive is what, at core, connects us. It is basic, and human. If we can know that connection to each other, and see all of ourselves as beings trying to survive, we will have changed.

Not all of us, but enough of us will change. We’ll know what it is to watch the promises we’d built our lives on collapse, or to fear that they will and to hate this fear. We will know that really, such promises don’t exist. We have only ourselves, which is to say, each other. The same. The one thing we should learn to count on.

Photo of Lori Soderlind

Lori Soderlind is an award-winning essayist and journalist, and author of the memoir Chasing Montana: A Love Story.

“Part group memoir, part something more magical”: Intern Book Club (February)

This month we read The Toni Morrison Book Club, a group memoir by Juda Bennett, Winnifred Brown-Glaude, Cassandra Jackson, and Piper Kendrix-Williams. Our book club consists of Alexis Paperman, Publicity Assistant and grad student studying library information science; and Morgan Reardon, Marketing Assistant studying English literature and American Indian studies.

Morgan’s Thoughts

Before reading this book, I already knew it was special. The cover was the first thing I noticed, its brilliant colors and gorgeous silhouette catching my eye. It is certainly different than what we’ve read for this club before, part group memoir and part something more magical. As a reader and admirer of Toni Morrison, I was very excited to dive into this. At first, I was a bit concerned about how all four authors would have their voices heard in the book, but the way it was structured was actually very compelling, and each person’s voice shone throughout. Each author got their own section that started out with a secret, a small introduction to their chapter that often featured the group’s memories of the writing process, which was really interesting to see. Through these secrets and the following chapters, I felt like I really got to know these authors, like they were sitting right beside me and telling me their stories. These authors shared some of their darkest times with me, and some of their best. I felt like and still feel like I know them, and that if I met them, we could just pick up our conversation. These stories were full of vulnerability and love, and I could feel the heartbreak and hope as it was spread across the pages. The way the authors’ memories and the words of Toni Morrison were woven together will stay with me for a long time. I have already recommended this book to many of my close friends, and it will definitely be sitting on my shelf among my favorites.

Alexis’s Thoughts

I’ve been looking forward to this book for nearly a year. By the time the book was actually in my hands I began to question myself. Could a book really live up to a yearlong anticipation period? Surprisingly, to me, this book surpassed this year of build-up. It’s shocking that such a small book, 196 pages, can be doing so many things. This book acts as memoir, literary criticism, and a continuation of conversations both old and new. As I read each of the authors’ sections, I felt as if I were beginning to make new friends. The secrets that are shared, the memories and emotions, allow you to begin to know each of the authors—glimpses into their lives, into the ways Toni Morrison speaks to each of them. There is an anticipation about the relevance of Morrison in each separate occasion of the authors’ journeys in life. No matter who you are or what stage of life you’re in, I truly believe you will take something from this book. I’m reading it now as a grad student and seeing reflections between this book and my studies on race. I’m making connections to theories and readings that I’d been struggling with. Already, I plan on rereading this book in the future.

Our Conclusion

When Morgan and Alexis discussed the book before writing this post, we decided that this is one of our top-tier books. It is a book we would place next to Don’t Call Us Dead by Danez Smith and Citizen by Claudia Rankine.