The Women Who Built Omaha

During the 1930s the Federal Writers’ Project described Omaha as a “man’s town,” and histories of the city have all but ignored women. However, women have played major roles in education, health, culture, social services, and other fields since the city’s founding in 1854. In The Women Who Built Omaha Eileen Wirth tells the stories of groundbreaking women who built Omaha, including Susette “Bright Eyes” LaFlesche, who translated at the trial of Chief Standing Bear; Mildred Brown, an African American newspaper publisher; Sarah Joslyn, who personally paid for Joslyn Art Museum; Mrs. B of Nebraska Furniture Mart; and the Sisters of Mercy, who started Omaha’s Catholic schools. Omaha women have been champion athletes and suffragists as well as madams and bootleggers. They transformed the city’s parks, co-founded Creighton University, helped run Boys Town, and so much more, in ways that continue today.

Eileen Wirth explores the important contributions of women to Omaha’s history—from the work of local women in numerous fields from the 1850s to the modern women’s movement in the 1970s—bringing to life many who have been overlooked.

The landmarks of Omaha's past reveal a history of industry, innovation and change. The Hotel Fontenelle, the Omaha Athletic Club and the Medical Arts Building disappeared in the wake of changes remaking downtown after World War II. Jobbers Canyon, a vital part of the city's wholesale district, was sacrificed to ConAgra's headquarters. Peony Park closed as suburban sprawl prevented its expansion, and changing leisure patterns took residents farther away for their amusement park experience. The stockyards finally closed in 1999, ending a long chapter in Omaha's history. Author and historian Janet R. Daly Bednarek charts the legacy of Omaha's lost history through its landmarks.

This collection of twenty-four original essays by leading scholars in American women's history highlights the most recent important scholarship on the key debates and future directions of this popular and contemporary field. Covers the breadth of American Women's history, including the colonial family, marriage, health, sexuality, education, immigration, work, consumer culture, and feminism. Surveys and evaluates the best scholarship on every important era and topic. Includes expanded bibliography of titles to guide further research.

Throughout its history, the American West symbolized a place of hope and new beginnings, where anything was possible, especially for men. However, the history written until the 1970s and 1980s excluded women. Sigrid Schönfelder illustrates how the American West served as a catalytic gold mine for many transformations for women. It draws on the life narratives of three healthcare providers whose devotion within the social reform movements of the long nineteenth century contributed significantly to shaping healthcare policies. Their stories show how women contributed to place-making in the West and served as role models for other women to enter the field of medicine.

The movie ́Juno ́ is up for an academy award. It is the story of a pregrent teenager who choses adoption. Her chose is not the choice of the majority of teenagers who become pregnant. Most of these pregnancies are unintended, but the majority of these young women opt to give birth to and raise their own children. Women of Courage: The Rights of Single Mothers and Their Children Inspired by Crystal Chambers a New Rosa Parks is about the Constitutional rights of non-marital or "illegitimate" children and their parents, about the right to give birth and raise your own children regardless of race ethnicity and marital status. It was inspired by Chrystal Chambers and her lawsuit against the Omaha Girls Club for pregnancy and race-sex discrimination tried in l986. Ms. Chambers case was filed under the 1978 Civil Rights Act, Title VII of the l964 Civil Rights Act prohibiting race and sex discrimination in employment and under the federal statutes prohibiting race descrimination based on the 14th Amendment to the Constitution as well as the U.S. Supreme Court decisions under 9th Amendment, the reproductive rights amendment. Ms. Chambers’ case had a role in the passage of the l991 Civil Rights Act, Section 105 (a)(2) banning the use of the business necessity defense in cases where intentional discrimination is alleged. It literally took an act of Congress to get the Omaha Girls Club to abandon their single pregnancy negative role modeling discharge policy. Commission of a felony, racial discrimination and single pregnancies were grounds for discharge under their Negative Role Modeling Policy. The Club ended the policy in the early l990´s. The case has been covered in “The Loud Voice” of the national media. In June of 2003, Ms. Chambers and her case were featured by national black syndicated morning radio talk show host Tom Joyner Show in his segment “Little Known Black Heroes.” In the winter of l986, the case was featured in the New York Times, in Newsweek, in The New York Daily News, and the magazine In These Times as well as locally in Nebraska. The case was also featured twice on National Public Radio’s ‘All Things Considered,’ and Ms. Chambers and her lawyer Mary Kay Green and others were featured on Phil Donahue’s national talk show April 4th, l986. This case has inspired the writing and publication of nearly forty law review articles, most supporting Ms. Chambers and her rights. The book also covers the Magdalene asylums in Ireland for unwed mothers, and challenges the Constitutionality of provisions of the Welfare Reform Act and the Temporary Assistance Act. The book is unique in that both Crystal Chambers and her attorney Mary Kay Green,J.D. were single mothers. Ms. Chambers married the father of her daughter Ruth in l986. She finished college summa cum laude and has lived an exemplary life. She is an excellent role model for young mothers. The majority of these young mothers eventually marry.

Retold are the stories of eighteen women who helped shape the West, where they worked as doctors and reporters, started farms and families, wrote and rode, made their fortunes, and staked claims in the gold fields.