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Press Release

November 19, 2021

Contact: Kathy Dickson
Oklahoma Historical Society
Office: 405-522-5231
kdickson@okhistory.org
www.okhistory.org

“This Land is Herland” Discussion and Book Signing at the Oklahoma History Center

OKLAHOMA CITY — On Saturday, December 4, beginning at 2 p.m., the Oklahoma History Center in Oklahoma City will host a discussion and book signing with Sarah Eppler Janda and Patricia Loughlin, editors of the new book “This Land is Herland: Gendered Activism in Oklahoma from the 1870s to the 2010s,” published by University of Oklahoma Press this year. In addition to the editors, several of the contributors will be available to sign books and discuss their research on the remarkable Oklahoma women depicted in the volume.

Since well before ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920 secured their right to vote, women in Oklahoma have sought to change and uplift their communities through political activism. This Land Is Herland brings together the stories of 13 women activists and explores their varied experiences from the territorial period to the present. Organized chronologically, the essays discuss Progressive reformer Kate Barnard, educator and civil rights leader Clara Luper, and Comanche leader and activist LaDonna Harris, as well as lesser-known individuals such as Cherokee historian and educator Rachel Caroline Eaton, entrepreneur and NAACP organizer California M. Taylor and Equal Rights Amendment champion Wanda Jo Peltier Stapleton.

Edited by Sarah Eppler Janda and Patricia Loughlin, the collection connects Oklahoma women’s individual and collective endeavors to the larger themes of intersectionality, suffrage, politics, motherhood and civil rights in the American West and the United States. The historians explore how race, ethnicity, social class, gender and political power shaped—and were shaped by—these women’s efforts to improve their local, state, and national communities.

Underscoring the diversity of women’s experiences, the editors and contributors provide fresh and engaging perspectives on the western roots of gendered activism in Oklahoma. This volume expands and enhances our understanding of the complexities of western women’s history.

The Oklahoma History Center is located at 800 Nazih Zuhdi Drive in Oklahoma City. For more information, please call 405-522-5231 or visit www.okhistory.org/calendar/ohs.

The publication of this volume was made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Oklahoma Humanities. The publication and an associated lecture series were supported by the Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center, a facility of the Oklahoma Historical Society. For more information about the Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center visit www.csrhc.org.

The Oklahoma History Center is a division of the Oklahoma Historical Society. The mission of the Oklahoma Historical Society is to collect, preserve and share the history and culture of the state of Oklahoma and its people. Founded in 1893 by members of the Territorial Press Association, the OHS maintains museums, historic sites and affiliates across the state. Through its research archives, exhibits, educational programs and publications the OHS chronicles the rich history of Oklahoma. For more information about the OHS, please visit www.okhistory.org

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