The Girl Who Dared To Defy

In the wake of the violent labor disputes in Colorado’s two-year Coalfield War, a young woman and single mother resolved in 1916 to change the status quo for “girls,” as well-to-do women in Denver referred to their hired help. Her name was Jane Street, and this compelling biography is the first to chronicle her defiant efforts—and devastating misfortunes—as a leader of the so-called housemaid rebellion. A native of Indiana, Jane Street (1887–1966) began her activist endeavors as an organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). In riveting detail, author Jane Little Botkin recounts Street’s attempts to orchestrate a domestic mutiny against Denver’s elitist Capitol Hill women, including wives of the state’s national guard officers and Colorado Fuel and Iron operators. It did not take long for the housemaid rebellion to make local and national news. Despite the IWW’s initial support of the housemaids’ fight for fairness and better pay, Street soon found herself engaged in a gender war, the target of sexism within the very organization she worked so hard to support. The abuses she suffered ranged from sabotage and betrayal to arrests and abandonment. After the United States entered World War I and the first Red Scare arose, Street’s battle to balance motherhood and labor organizing began to take its toll. Legal troubles, broken relationships, and poverty threatened her very existence. In previous western labor and women’s studies accounts, Jane Street has figured only marginally, credited in passing as the founder of a housemaids’ union. To unearth the rich detail of her story, Botkin has combed through case histories, family archives, and—perhaps most significant—Street’s own writings, which express her greatest joys, her deepest sorrows, and her unfortunate dealings with systematic injustice. Setting Jane’s story within the wider context of early-twentieth-century class struggles and the women’s suffrage movement, The Girl Who Dared to Defy paints a fascinating—and ultimately heartbreaking—portrait of one woman’s courageous fight for equality.

This interdisciplinary collection addresses the location of women and their bequests within the single most important public and social space in pre-Reformation Europe: the Roman Catholic Church. This innovative focus brings attention to gender and space as experienced in the medieval parish as well as in monastic and cathedral space. Through provocative handling of historical content and theory, the contributors explore strategies of exclusion and of inclusion and note patterns of later writers who neglect or rewrite records of female presence. Essays on the York religious cycle, the chronicle of the monastery at Ely, and The Book of Margery Kempe explore how medieval writers used texts as fictive spaces on which to graft responses to the gendered uses of real church buildings. These text-based essays are juxtaposed with tightly focused archival research in art history and history on Florentine patronage and English parish seating, as well as with more broadly synthetic studies on access of women to shrines and on gendered left-right placement in ritual art.

New York Times bestselling author Catherine Anderson presents the first novel in her Comache series—a powerful historical romance about a man and a woman caught between two worlds… Orphaned seven years ago after witnessing the brutal murder of her parents at the hands of the Comanche people, golden-haired Loretta Simpson still lives in terror that the warriors will return—her fear so powerful, she is no longer able to speak a word. Called the U.S. Army’s most cunning adversary, Hunter of the Wolf believes that Loretta is the “honey-haired woman with no voice” of ancient prophecy—the one he must honor for all eternity. But Loretta can only see Hunter as the enemy who has stolen her, refusing to succumb to his control, or his touch. Despite the hatred intensifying between their peoples, Loretta and Hunter gradually find their prejudices giving way to respect, then flaring into feelings too dangerous to express. In the midst of such conflict, it will take all the force of their extraordinary love to find a safe place...

The sea-king's warrior bride Legendary shield maiden Sayrid Avildottar will marry no man unless he first defeats her in combat. And in powerful sea-king Hrolf Eymundsson she has finally met her match. Hrolf may have won her lands—and her body—but can Sayrid welcome a stranger to her bed? The world of fighting is all she knows! With a husband intent on seducing his new bride, perhaps, just this once, Sayrid will discover that surrender can bring the greatest pleasure of all… "Maintains the myth while adding sexual tension, nonstop action and spice." —RT Book Reviews on The Viking's Captive Princess

To unleash her dragon, she must confront her past. In the seven years since Amaleigh failed to assassinate her best friend, she’s been on the run. Jumping from world to world where she never quite fits in, all she truly wants is to stop running and find a place to call home. Unlocking her cold, dead heart might be a start to unleashing her inner dragon, but that would mean trusting another and there’s only one person she’s ever trusted—the same man she couldn’t kill. Prince Gwilym knows he shouldn’t risk Amaleigh’s life by asking for help, especially since he’s the reason she had to escape Eidyn. They grew up together as best friends, innocent of the knowledge it was Gwilym’s father who murdered her family and left her an orphan to live on the streets. Now his life is in peril and she’s the only person he trusts. Time’s running out for Gwilym and his father. Amaleigh’s future hangs in the balance. Forced to make a desperate choice, she must put aside her hatred for the man who murdered her family and sentenced her to a life of crime and loneliness. Dare she risk everything and return to the one place she tried desperately to forget? To save those she loves, she must become the Dragon Mage the king fears most.

Without the efforts of inspiring, brave women of the past, the progressive and individualistic Oregon we know today might not exist. From native tribes and Oregon Trail pioneers to Victorian suffragists and unlikely politicians, strong female leaders give profound meaning to the state motto, alis volat propriis--she flies with her own wings. Writer and activist Julia Ruuttila fought for the rights of the citizens of Vanport, the largely African American town lost to a disastrous flood in 1948. Others broke stereotypes to serve their communities, like women who helped build ships during World War II and the nation's first female police officer, Portland's own Lola Baldwin. Similarly, Laura Stockton Starcher unseated her husband as mayor of Umatilla. Author Jennifer Chambers tells these and many more stories of progressive, radical women who fought for change within their state.

In 1912, just over a year after returning from his studies at Columbia and Oxford, the thirty-year-old Pixley ka Isaka Seme succeeded where others had failed in forming a political organisation that represented all black South Africans. Seme also established a national newspaper, became one of the pioneering black lawyers in South Africa, bought land from white farmers for black settlement at the time when opposition to it was gaining momentum, became an adviser and confidant to African royalty, and was considered a leading visionary for black economic empowerment. And yet, when he became president general of the ANC in the 1930s, he brought it to its knees through sheer ineptitude and an authoritarian style of leadership. On more than one occasion he was found guilty for breaching the law, which partly led to him being struck off the roll of attorneys. This book discusses in detail Seme’s extraordinary life, tracing it back to his humble beginnings at Inanda Mission to his triumphs and disappointments across the continents, in his public and private life. When Seme died in 1951 he was bankrupt and his political standing had suffered greatly. And yet he was praised as one of the greatest South Africans ever to have lived. For all this, he has largely been forgotten. This biography brings the remarkable life of this extraordinary South Africa back to public consciousness.

When writer-for-hire Jaine Austen signs on to script vows for the ultimate Bridezilla, "I do's" soon become "I wish I hadn't's"--and curtains for the bride spell a veil of woes for Jaine. . . Jaine's accepted her share of lame gigs to pay the bills, but rewriting Shakespeare's got to be an all-time low. The fiasco begins with a call from Jaine's high-school nemesis, uber rich uber witch Patti Devane. It seems Patti will soon be sashaying down the aisle with another former classmate from Hermosa High, and she'd like the exchange of vows to evoke Romeo and Juliet. . .except without the "downer" of an ending. Even worse than the assignment itself is dealing with Patti as a client. At least Jaine's not alone, as nobody can stand the demanding, spoiled, and incredibly rude Bridezilla from Hell. Patti's managed to rack up an amazingly long list of enemies in a short time, not the least of whom include her prospective mother-in-law, the soon-to-be ex-wife of Patti's stolen soon-to-be groom, and just about everyone involved in the wedding preparations. So it isn't a complete surprise when the erstwhile Juliet plunges to her death during her balcony scene. The loosened bolts that brought down the bride were clearly an act of sabotage--what's not so obvious is whom, among Patti's numerous haters, committed this murder most foul. Was it the caterer she threatened to ruin? The bridesmaid tossed out of the wedding party for being too chubby? Jaine's determined to learn the truth--if only to end the hideous walk down memory lane kicked off by her association with Patti. Between fending off advances from the nerd of her high school nightmares and figuring out ways to stop Prozac the cat from corrupting the victim's pet Poodle, Jaine's involvement in this case keeps veering between comedy and tragedy. That is, until another body is discovered--and the killer starts laying plot for a final act--starring Jaine. . .