New Reviews for American Women’s History on Film written by Dr. Rosanne Welch and Dr. Peg Lamphier

 

American Women’s History on Film, my newest book co-written with my colleague Dr. Peg Lamphier is out now and so some reviews are beginning to roll in. While this review in Booklist (March 2023) is mostly informational it’s always nice to hear that our writing style is “informative and engaging” and that this “makes the book a welcome addition to women’s and film-history collections.” That’s been our hope since being commissioned for the book a few years ago.

Yep, it takes a few years from being commissioned to do the research, do the writing, do the rewriting, do the editing, and then for the publishers to print and distribute the book. Our first book in the series covered Films of the Civil War – with that historical period being Peg’s academic specialty and film being mine. Covering women’s history and film this new book fits perfectly in each of our wheelhouses. 

The icing on the cake for me was the chance to celebrate films I adored in my childhood and that I now have on the viewing list for the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting like: Norma Rae, and Silkwood alongside films written and produced by friends of mine such as On the Basis of Sex (produced by Karen Loop) and Hidden Figures (written by Allison Schroeder).  

New Book: Helen Keller: A Life in American History (Women Making History) Series by Meredith Eliassen, Edited by Dr. Rosanne Welch and Dr. Peg Lamphier

New Book: Helen Keller: A Life in American History (Women Making History) Series by Meredith Eliassen, Edited by Dr. Rosanne Welch and Dr. Peg Lamphier

New Book: Helen Keller: A Life in American History (Women Making History) Series by Meredith Eliassen, Edited by Dr. Rosanne Welch and Dr. Peg Lamphier

On the heels of Book #3 I’m proud to present Book #4 of the Women Making History Series that I am co-editing with my colleague Peg Lamphier. 

We want to congratulate author Meredith Eliassen for all her hard work on bringing the life of Helen Keller to modern readers in a very modern way.  We can’t wait to see the rest of the books in our series come to publication. 

The Keller book is the last of this first batch while the others are still (as planned) in the writing stage. They include Sally Ride, Eleanor Roosevelt, Ida B. Wells, and Delores Huerta.

Talk about a wonderful line up of women who made history.  It was so, sooo, sooooo hard to find under 100 women worthy of this project – and then we had to find the authors to bring them to life.  That second part was easier since we had such a wealth of women writer friends to turn to.  Read on!

New Book: Helen Keller: A Life in American History (Women Making History) Series by Meredith Eliassen, Edited by Dr. Rosanne Welch and Dr. Peg Lamphier

Helen Keller: A Life in American History explores Keller’s life, career as a lobbyist, and experiences as a deaf-blind woman within the context of her relationship with teacher-guardian-promoter Anne Sullivan Macy and overarching social history. The book tells the dual story of a pair struggling with respective disabilities and financial hardship and the oppressive societal expectations set for women during Keller’s lifetime. This narrative is perhaps the most comprehensive study of Helen Keller’s role in the development of support services specifically related to the deaf-blind, as delineated as different from the blind.

Readers will learn about Keller’s challenges and choices as well as how her public image often eclipsed her personal desires to live independently. Keller’s deaf-blindness and hard-earned but limited speech did not define her as a human being as she explored the world of ideas and wove those ideas into her writing, lobbying for funds for the American Federation for the Blind and working with disabled activists and supporters to bring about practical help during times of tremendous societal change.

New Book: Hillary Clinton: A Life in American History (Women Making History) by Kathleen Gronnerud, Edited by Drs. Rosanne Welch and Peg Lamphier

Before you’ve even had time to finish reading the Gloria Steinem book it’s time to share the news about the publication of Book #3 in the Women Making History series that I’m co-editing with my colleague Dr. Peg Lamphier. 

In this one author Kathleen Gronnerud covers the life of Hillary Clinton – everything from her work on education at the First Lady of Arkansas to her work on  healthcare reform as First Lady to the country – to her own entrance into politics.  

New Book: Hillary Clinton: A Life in American History (Women Making History) by Kathleen Gronnerud, Edited by Drs. Rosanne Welch and Peg Lamphier

 

Or ask at your local bookstore.  It’s always time to learn more about the brilliant women we chose to cover in this series!

While numerous volumes have been written about Hillary Clinton, many authors have devoted entire books to just one aspect of Clinton’s public or private life. Yet few, if any, single volumes have provided a comprehensive look at her life in public service from an objective, scholarly viewpoint.

Designed both for students doing research and general readers wanting to know more about Clinton’s life and career, this book not only offers an overview of her education, family, career, and political views, but also provides historical context to her choices, accomplishments, and defeats. The volume’s chapters present a chronological telling of her life story thus far including key experiences, influences, and the development of her political views. The volume also includes photographs and short sidebars, which help to tie Clinton’s personal experiences to the contemporaneous culture of the nation. A lengthy bibliography provides assistance to readers interested in further research or reading.

Now Available: Gloria Steinem: A Life in American History by William H. Pruden III, Edited by Drs. Rosanne Welch and Peg Lamphier

Good Morning to all our dedicated authors in the Women Making History series for ABC-Clio.

Peg and I wanted to share the nice news that Book #2 has been published and congratulate author Bill Pruden for all his hard work on the life of Gloria Steinem.  We can’t wait to see the rest of the books in our series come to publication. 

Now Available: Gloria Steinem: A Life in American History by William H. Pruden III, Edited by Drs. Rosanne Welch and Peg Lamphier

We know (being meant for libraries) that the volumes are higher priced so we can’t ask you all to buy a copy  –  but you can alert your local public or school library to their existence and ask that they buy a copy for their stacks (or their Kindle offerings). (Download A PDF Flyer for the book

Stay safe and keep reading! — Rosanne and Peg

The Civil War On Film – Review

The Civil War On Film - Review

Because the Civil War ended less than 30 years before the first motion pictures, it became a favorite subject for the new medium and has remained so ever since. Unfortunately, many of these Civil War films are historically inaccurate. According to Lamphier (humanities, California State Polytechnic Univ.) and Welch (screenwriting, Stephens College), films of the Civil War “almost universally erase the past” in order to forget that it was so “painful, destructive, and unpleasant” (p. ix). To illustrate the varying approaches to Civil War history and memory, the authors selected ten significant films—ranging chronologically and thematically from Gone with the Wind (1939) to Free State of Jones (2016)—devoting a chapter to each. All the chapters present the historical background and cultural context for the film, contexts that include, among other things, combat, gender, immigration, leadership, pacifism, race, and slavery. Other works—e.g., Bruce Chadwick’s The Reel Civil War: Mythmaking in American Film (CH, Mar’02, 39-3875) and The American Civil War on Film and TV: Blue and Gray in Black and White and Color, ed. by Douglas Brode, Shea Brode, and Cynthia Miller (CH, May’18, 55-3151)—cover more films and themes; the present volume will be especially useful as a tool for teaching cinematic representations of the past. — J. I. Deutsch, George Washington University

Movies profiled in this book:

The Civil War On Film – 36 in a series – “Hattie McDaniel, who would not be allowed in the segregated theater where the film premiered.”

The Civil War On Film - 36 in a series -  

Local politicians and MGM publicists alike planned a gala three-day celebration that involved all the major cast members except Leslie Howard, who had returned to England when he heard his home country had declared war on Germany, and Hattie McDaniel, who would not be allowed in the segregated theater where the film premiered. Another African American was present, though his fame would not come until later in life. Martin Luther King Jr., then a ten-year-old member of his father’s church choir, sang four spirituals at the gala.

Movies profiled in this book:

The Civil War On Film – 35 in a series – “Lincoln wasn’t always popular.”

 Lincoln wasn’t always popular.

Lincoln wasn’t always popular. His presidency was contentious even in the North, as the contested 1864 presidential election suggests, and most white southerners reviled him. David H. Donald, one of Lincoln’s many biographers, contends that the sixteenth president did not take on heroic, even mythological status until the early twentieth century (Donald 1969).

Movies profiled in this book:

The Civil War On Film – 34 in a series – “…purports to be a history of the gangs of New York…”

The Civil War On Film - 34 in a series -

Judging the truth of the history portrayed on screen begins by judging the truth of the history portrayed in the original source material. While Asbury’s book is shelved with non-fiction and purports to be a history of the gangs of New York, the subtitle admits it is “An Informal History of the Underworld.” On top of that, unlike other films adapted from books, which work hard to remain loyal to the text, when Scorsese thought about making Gangs he admitted being more interested in being loyal to the town than its residents.

Movies profiled in this book:

The Civil War On Film – 33 in a series – “…the conflict that arose in Kansas in the seven years before the Civil War known as “Bleeding Kansas.”

The Civil War On Film - 33 in a series -

The roots of the Kansas-Missouri border war can be found in the conflict that arose in Kansas in the seven years before the Civil War known as “Bleeding Kansas.” In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act created the two territories and solved the “slavery problem” with the addition of a popular sovereignty clause. While the notion that Kansas settlers would vote on whether they wanted slavery or not sounded like a sensible solution to the nation’s increasingly anxious conversation about slavery, it inadvertently caused a kind of war between anti-slavery and pro-slavery settlers.

Movies profiled in this book:

The Civil War On Film – 32 in a series – “…because it was insufficiently sympathetic to the Confederate point of view.”

The Civil War On Film - 32 in a series -

Predictably, some Civil War movie fans didn’t like Andersonville because it was insufficiently sympathetic to the Confederate point of view. Neo-Confederate viewers, who surely expected a different film from Georgian Ted Turner, pointed out Confederate soldiers in Union prison camps suffered as greatly as Union soldiers in Andersonville. On the whole though, Andersonville fairs well with Civil War movie fans who enjoy (or at least tolerate) a Northern point of view.

Movies profiled in this book: