Memphis Tennessee Garrison was a schoolteacher and prominent early figure in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Bickley lets Garrison tell her story, offering a new view of Appalachia. “What has... Read More

After she was lost for ten hours on the snow-covered prairie, the author tells about finally making it home: “I fed the cattle close to the corral. It worried me. It seemed as though I always had worried as long as I had to be around... Read More

“I can see no business avocation, in which woman, in her present dress, can possibly earn equal wages with man—and [I] feel that it is folly for us to make the demand until we adapt our dress to our work.” That was the opinion of... Read More

“How useful is that two-legged stool in the corner of the living room? Do we really need those prescriptions that expired when Reagan was president?” Nelson is a harsh taskmaster. An acknowledged clutterer, this author of several... Read More

“Those magical first days, the air was already hot even though it was early spring. It was dry and very still, except in the afternoon, when the cicadas would start clicking their high-pitched castanets.” Allen, a filmmaker and... Read More

Legend has it that strawberry plants—which grew abundantly in Chile—were used four hundred and fifty years ago by the indigenous peoples as traps for infiltrating Spanish soldiers. “The Indians would place the plants in small, open... Read More

“The doctor told me one of my boys [a patient], aged twenty, would have to lose his right arm. He was running a high temp, so I tried to combine a few words of comfort with an alcohol rub. But if there is a formula that covers such... Read More

In 1870s England, male and female telegraph operators generally worked together. It was a positive arrangement, the postmaster general believed, because “it raises the tone of the male staff by confining them during many hours of the... Read More