A book that is non-fiction about a black family trials and tribulations and triumphs in the south and a black womans traditional calling of midwifery to help her community and women who otherwise would be unable to pay the fee of the white doctor in town to deliver their babies. A story of a family that overcame the odds and made a way out of no way while farming, picking cotton and being treated unfairly but continued to have love and kindness in their community and befriended a white family that the midwife my grandmother would deliver their children as well and they would coexist on the same land amicably. A resurgence of midwifery is taking place in the twenty-first century this tradition of old has never completely vanished especially in third world countries where 75% of babies are delivered by midwives.

A remarkable, one-of-a-kind collection. Filled with insight, anecdotes, and fascinating snapshots from the past, ONE WOMAN'S CENTURY is a celebration of the life and work of iconic Saskatchewan author Kay Parley, covering the full scope of her work from 1938 all the way to 2024. That’s 86 years of her writing! At the age of 101, Kay is still going strong, with a regular column in Folklore Magazine and the Wolseley Bulletin. She is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Inside the Mental: Silence, Stigma, Psychiatry, and LSD about her time at the Weyburn Mental Institute in the 1950s, first as a patient, and then as a psychiatric nurse, and of the magical novel The Grass People about a world tucked out of sight beneath the leafy plants and tall grass we walk by every day, as well as the dark mystery The Monkey Vault. In 2019, Kay Parley was the subject of an award winning documentary, A Mind of Her Own, by filmmaker Judith Silverthorne. A talented painter, educator, and author, Kay worked with Lorne Greene at CBC Radio and taught sociology for many years at the Kelsey Institute in Saskatoon. ONE WOMAN’S CENTURY is the first comprehensive collection of her work, spanning the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression to the climate change of today. Timely, heart-felt and endlessly fascinating.

It is broadly recognized that black style had a clear and profound influence on the history of dress in the twentieth century, with black culture and fashion having long been defined as 'cool'. Yet despite this high profile, in-depth explorations of the culture and history of style and dress in the African diaspora are a relatively recent area of enquiry. The Birth of Cool asserts that 'cool' is seen as an arbiter of presence, and relates how both iconic and 'ordinary' black individuals and groups have marked out their lives through the styling of their bodies. Focusing on counter- and sub-cultural contexts, this book investigates the role of dress in the creation and assertion of black identity. From the gardenia corsage worn by Billie Holiday to the work-wear of female African-Jamaican market traders, through to the home-dressmaking of black Britons in the 1960s, and the meaning of a polo-neck jumper as depicted in a 1934 self-portrait by African-American artist Malvin Gray Johnson, this study looks at the ways in which the diaspora experience is expressed through self-image. Spanning the late nineteenth century to the modern day, the book draws on ready-made and homemade fashion, photographs, paintings and films, published and unpublished biographies and letters from Britain, Jamaica, South Africa, and the United States to consider how personal style statements reflect issues of racial and cultural difference. The Birth of Cool is a powerful exploration of how style and dress both initiate and confirm change, and the ways in which they expresses identity and resistance in black culture.