The devoutly Christian Marcus and Narcissa Whitman left home and family to establish a mission in the far west territories. In 1836, Narcissa was the first woman of European descent to cross the Rocky Mountains. Narcissa was but 39 years old when she, her husband, and nine others were murdered at their mission near Walla Walla, Washington in 1847. These letters constitute some of the last letters she wrote to family back in New York. Included is a letter to her sister by one of the massacre survivors and is one of the earliest accounts of that horrible day. For the first time, this long-out-of-print book is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers and smartphones. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE or download a sample.

Based on a wealth of family papers, period images, and popular literature, this is the first book devoted to the broad history of sibling relations in America. Illuminating the evolution of the modern family system, Siblings shows how brothers and sisters have helped each other in the face of the dramatic political, economic, and cultural changes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As Hemphill demonstrates, siblings function across all races as humanity's shock-absorbers as well as valued kin and keepers of memory.

Slavery and the University is the first edited collection of scholarly essays devoted solely to the histories and legacies of this subject on North American campuses and in their Atlantic contexts. Gathering together contributions from scholars, activists, and administrators, the volume combines two broad bodies of work: (1) historically based interdisciplinary research on the presence of slavery at higher education institutions in terms of the development of proslavery and antislavery thought and the use of slave labor; and (2) analysis on the ways in which the legacies of slavery in institutions of higher education continued in the post-Civil War era to the present day. The collection features broadly themed essays on issues of religion, economy, and the regional slave trade of the Caribbean. It also includes case studies of slavery's influence on specific institutions, such as Princeton University, Harvard University, Oberlin College, Emory University, and the University of Alabama. Though the roots of Slavery and the University stem from a 2011 conference at Emory University, the collection extends outward to incorporate recent findings. As such, it offers a roadmap to one of the most exciting developments in the field of U.S. slavery studies and to ways of thinking about racial diversity in the history and current practices of higher education.