This is the story of the Rankins, a family that embodied the risk and ambition that transformed America. John Rankin arrived in the West chasing the adventure of gold mining but soon turned to ranching and building in the new town of Missoula. There he met Olive Pickering, who had left New Hampshire in 1878 to become a teacher and seek a husband on the American frontier. John and Olive's children continued to demonstrate their parent's ambition and nerve. Their son became one of the biggest landowners in the country, one of the first personal injury lawyers, and a crusader against railroads and mining. Jeannette became the first woman in a national legislature, voted against two world wars and led marches protesting the Vietnam War. As a dean, Harriet helped develop the modern co-educational university. Edna traveled the world advocating for birth control. The Rankins faced both national adulation and condemnation for the choices they made. Their family story concerns independence and education, activism, the boundaries created by gender, religious choices, and the changing meaning of the West.

Wellington Rankin was argueably one of the most powerful Montana figures in the first half of the 20th century. Without him, it might be argued that the name of Jeannette Rankin, his older sister, might not be known to us today. He was instrumental in both her elections to congress. At one time he was the largest landowner in the United States with over one million acres under his ownership, though his stewardship of the many ranches he owned was often contraversial. A brilliant, flamboyant attorney, Rankin was a champion of the underdog. Had he lived in the later part of the century, he would have been a nationally known attorney in the pattern of F. Lee Bailey and Gerry Spence. Though serving as the Montana State Attorney General, the U.S. Attorney for the state of Montana, and for years the powerful head of the Montana Republican Party, he was unable to get elected to the office he coveted most, the U.S. Senate.Dave Walter, Research Historian for the Montana Historical Society states in his forward to the book, "To say that Wellington Rankin presents an enigman is to belabor the obvious. Possessing perhaps Montana's most adept political mind?ever?them man failed to be elected time and time again. Awash in property and wealth, he reached his peak as a courtroom attorney who defended the downtrodden. A horseman of real repute, he proved unable or unwilling to sustain a quality ranching operation.""Is there a home-grown Montanan who alive who does not have a 'Wellington Rankin story'? This volume sorts through the stories, sifts fact from fiction, and launches the unraveling of a persistent enigma."Because Rankin kept few records, little has been written of him. Volney Steele spent more than ten years researching through what little information was available and interviewing family and friends. He has done an outstanding job of piecing together the life of this remarkable figure in Montana history.

 The fall of 2018 saw an unprecedented number of women elected to Congress, changing estimates of how long it might take to achieve equal representation. For the first time, women candidates used techniques honed by America's political families, which have helped women enter politics since 1916. Drawing on extensive research and conversations with successful women politicians, this book offers a history of the political opportunities provided through familial connections. Family networks have a long history of enabling women to run for political office. There is much for the latest group of candidates to emulate.

This edited collection, first published in 1989, provides a detailed analysis of rural land-use policies on a country-specific basis. Case studies include analyses of planning and legislation in Britain, The Netherlands, Japan, the U.S.A. and Australia. Alongside a comprehensive overview of the concept and application of rural land use from Paul Cloke, environment issues, resource management and the role of central governments are topics under discussion throughout. At an international level, this title will of particular interest to students of rural geography and environmental planning.

THIS FOURTH AND FINAL BOOK in the Montana Courthouse Tales series carries readers to altogether new and different destinations. Join the author in a midnight poker game in Sweet Grass County’s Grand Hotel. Watch a chess match between two legendary courtroom adversaries in a Broadwater County saloon. Climb aboard the ghostly Jawbone Railroad to hear tales from Wheatland County. Travel to an old theater, to local museums, and to the courthouses themselves, to hear the truth as only the ghosts themselves can tell it. Part travelogue, part cultural commentary, part primer on the American legal system, Courting Law - like the other books in the series - is much more than a just a historical chronicle. It’s what justice looks like at the grassroots level. And just as he did before, Olson proves yet again that, when it comes to the history of Justice in Montana, the ghosts have the last word on the Truth.