Young Bertie Canfield wrote in his diary that although he thought his new home in Kansas looked “very funnie” because the landscape had no fences, he was nonetheless enthusiastic about his family’s move west from New York state... Read More

In the first years of the last century, a physician writing about reproduction lamented, “By that damnable sin-the avoidance of offspring-our women are no longer compelled to stay at home. Now woman has weaned herself from the... Read More

During the middle of the nineteenth century, communication between eastern Russia and its claims in westernmost Siberia was slow; in fact, “the quickest way to get from Petersburg to Kamchatka was by taking a ship across the Atlantic... Read More

In the early winter of 1863, a young Union soldier in a letter home mentioned a comrade who had taken ill: “The other night the Corporal had a baby, for the Corporal turned out to be a woman!” The now-unidentified woman from New... Read More

“Go now, this minute, stand in the crossroads, bow down, and first kiss the earth you’ve defiled, then bow to the whole world, on all four sides, and say aloud to everyone: ‘I have killed!’ Then God will send you life again. Will... Read More

“Back in those days, we didn’t have the dime-store variety playthings. Sticks and boards would be carved into machine guns and used in war games. As usual, no one wanted to play the Indians.” In this book, a companion piece to a... Read More

Lori Neiwert lost her twin Mike in a car accident. She was traveling in the middle of Canada and “I felt him die. I didn’t want to know that was what I was feeling but in my heart I knew. I have always said that I had two hearts, his... Read More

“The land, our very lives, are parched and flooded by turns, perched at the bank of the river where the ground keeps crumbling away. And there we balance.“ The author is describing both her childhood and the current life she leads in... Read More