Register 60 Seats Remaining
Martha A. Sandweiss, joined in conversation by Esther Schor, presents her new book, "The Girl in the Middle: A Recovered History of the American West." Registration requested.
About the book (from the publisher):
In 1868, celebrated Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner traveled to Fort Laramie to document the federal government’s treaty negotiations with the Lakota and other tribes of the northern plains. Gardner, known for his iconic portrait of Abraham Lincoln and his visceral pictures of the Confederate dead at Antietam, posed six federal peace commissioners with a young Native girl wrapped in a blanket. The hand-labeled prints carefully name each of the men, but the girl is never identified. As "The Girl in the Middle" goes in search of her, it draws readers into the entangled lives of the photographer and his subjects.
Martha A. Sandweiss paints a riveting portrait of the turbulent age of Reconstruction and westward expansion. She follows Gardner from his birthplace in Scotland to the American frontier, as his dreams of a utopian future across the Atlantic fall to pieces. She recounts the lives of William S. Harney, a slave-owning Union general who earned the Lakota name “Woman Killer,” and Samuel F. Tappan, an abolitionist who led the investigation into the Sand Creek massacre. And she identifies Sophie Mousseau, the girl in Gardner’s photograph, whose life swerved in unexpected directions as American settlers pushed into Indian Country and the federal government confined Native peoples to reservations.
Spinning a spellbinding historical tale from a single enigmatic image, "The Girl in the Middle" reveals how the American nation grappled with what kind of country it would be as it expanded westward in the aftermath of the Civil War.
In conversation:
Martha A. Sandweiss is a historian of the United States, with particular interests in the history of the American West, visual culture, and public history. She is the author or editor of numerous books on American history and photography. Her publications include "Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception across the Color Line" (2009), a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History and the National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography, and "Print the Legend: Photography and the American West" (2002), winner of the Organization of American Historians’ Ray Allen Billington Award for the best book in American frontier history and the William P. Clements Award. Her other works include "Laura Gilpin: An Enduring Grace" (1986), winner of the George Wittenborn Award for outstanding art book, and the co-edited volume "The Oxford History of the American West" (1994), winner of the Western Heritage Award and the Caughey Western History Association prize for the outstanding book in western history.
Esther Schor, the John J. F. Sherrerd ’52 University Professor and Professor of English at Princeton, is a scholar, biographer, poet and essayist. Her 2006 biography Emma Lazarus won the National Jewish Book Award. She has published three books of poems, including "The Hills of Holland" and "Strange Nursery: New and Selected Poems;" with poets Meena Alexander and Rita Dove, she is also the co-author of "Poems for Sarra," a bilingual collection about the Venetian intellectual Sarra Copia Sullam. Her scholarship includes "Bearing the Dead: The British Culture of Mourning from the Enlightenment to Victoria" and "The Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley." A cultural historian of the Esperanto movement, her most recent book is "Bridge of Words: Esperanto and the Dream of a Universal Language." Recently she was awarded an NEH/Center for Jewish History Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship to support her research on a biography of the philosopher Horace M. Kallen. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey and London.
Presented with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this programming do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
AGE GROUP: | Adults |
EVENT TYPE: | Humanities | Author Talks | *Registration Requested |
TAGS: | NEH |
