front cover of Hidden Worlds
Hidden Worlds
Revisiting the Mennonite Migrants of the 1870s
Royden Loewen
University of Manitoba Press, 2001
In the 1870s, approximately 18,000 Mennonites migrated from the southern steppes of Imperial Russia (present-day Ukraine) to the North American grasslands. They brought with them an array of cultural and institutional features that indicated they were a "transplanted" people. What is less frequently noted, however, is that they created in their everyday lives a world that ensured their cultural longevity and social cohesiveness in a new land.Their adaptation to the New World required new concepts of social boundary and community, new strategies of land ownership and legacy, new associations, and new ways of interacting with markets. In Hidden Worlds, historian Royden Loewen illuminates some of these adaptations, which have been largely overshadowed by an emphasis on institutional history, or whose sources have only recently been revealed. Through an analysis of diaries, wills, newspaper articles, census and tax records, and other literature, an examination of inheritance practices, household dynamics, and gender relations, and a comparison of several Mennonite communities in the United States and Canada, Loewen uncovers the multi-dimensional and highly resourceful character of the 1870s migrants.
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front cover of Women at Michigan
Women at Michigan
The "Dangerous Experiment," 1870s to the Present
Ruth Bordin
University of Michigan Press, 2001
Women at Michigan traces the fascinating history of women at at the University of Michigan, from the first reluctant admission of women students in the 1870s (which one male administrator referred to as "the dangerous experiment") to the tumultuous post-World War II period and from the radical changes of the 1960s and 1970s to the present. The hurdles that women who pursued higher education at Michigan and elsewhere faced may surprise those who observe the relative freedom of women on college campuses today.
Women at Michigan was written by well respected historian Ruth Bordin, whose own career was impeded by the gender inequality of the era and who unfortunately died before seeing this book in print. Her study is grounded in historical detail. While drawing upon the larger historiography of women's higher education to round out its story, the book shows Michigan to be one case among many. Women at Michigan is richly illustrated with archival photographs depicting women's experience at the University of Michigan--as students, faculty, administrators, and staff--through the years.
Historian Ruth Bordin was author of A Pictorial History of The University of Michigan; Frances Willard: A Biography; and Alice Freeman Palmer: The Evolution of a New Woman. Martha Vicinus is Professor of English and History, University of Michigan. Kathryn Kish Sklar is Distinguished Professor of History, Binghamton University. Lynn Weiner is a historian and Associate Dean, Roosevelt University.
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