Since well before ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 secured their right to vote, women in Oklahoma have sought to change and uplift their communities through political activism. This Land Is Herland brings together the stories of thirteen women activists and explores their varied experiences from the territorial period to the present. Organized chronologically, the essays discuss Progressive reformer Kate Barnard, educator and civil rights leader Clara Luper, and Comanche leader and activist LaDonna Harris, as well as lesser-known individuals such as Cherokee historian and educator Rachel Caroline Eaton, entrepreneur and NAACP organizer California M. Taylor, and Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) champion Wanda Jo Peltier Stapleton. Edited by Sarah Eppler Janda and Patricia Loughlin, the collection connects Oklahoma women’s individual and collective endeavors to the larger themes of intersectionality, suffrage, politics, motherhood, and civil rights in the American West and the United States. The historians explore how race, ethnicity, social class, gender, and political power shaped—and were shaped by—these women’s efforts to improve their local, state, and national communities. Underscoring the diversity of women’s experiences, the editors and contributors provide fresh and engaging perspectives on the western roots of gendered activism in Oklahoma. This volume expands and enhances our understanding of the complexities of western women’s history.

In its early years the United States Consular Service was a relatively amateurish organization, often staffed by unsuitable characters whose appointments had been obtained as political favours from victorious presidential candidates—a practice known as the Spoils System. Most personnel changed every four years when new administrations came in. This compared unfavourably with the consular services of the European nations, but gradually by the turn of the twentieth century things had improved considerably—appointment procedures were tightened up, inspections of consuls and how they managed their consulates were introduced, and the separate Consular Service and Diplomatic Service were merged to form the Foreign Service. The first appointments to Britain were made in 1790, with James Maury becoming the first operational consul in the country, at Liverpool. At one point, there was a network of up to ninety US consular offices throughout the UK, stretching from the Orkney Islands to the Channel Islands. Nowadays, there is only the consular section in the embassy and the consulates general in Edinburgh and Belfast.

In the borderland between freedom and slavery, Gettysburg remains among the most legendary Civil War landmarks. A century and a half after the great battle, Cemetery Hill, the Seminary and its ridge, and the Peach Orchard remain powerful memories for their embodiment of the small-town North and their ability to touch themes vital to nineteenth-century religion. During this period, three patterns became particularly prominent: refinement, diversity, and war. In Gettysburg Religion, author Steve Longenecker explores the religious history of antebellum and Civil War–era Gettysburg, shedding light on the remarkable diversity of American religion and the intricate ways it interacted with the broader culture. Longenecker argues that Gettysburg religion revealed much about larger American society and about how trends in the Border North mirrored national developments. In many ways, Gettysburg and its surrounding Border North religion belonged to the future and signaled a coming pattern for modern America.

Lauded for gallantry at Antietam and demoted for insubordination after Fredericksburg, Major General William "Baldy" Smith remains a controversial figure of the Civil War. His criticism of the Union high command made him unpopular with both peers and superiors. Yet his insight as an officer and an engineer enabled him to offer effective solutions to challenges faced by fellow generals. In this first comprehensive biography, Smith emerges as a field commander with deep concern for his men and a fearless critic of the failures of the Union generalship, who was recognized for a strategic perspective that helped save Federal armies.