Members' Recent Activities:
After 31 years at the San Francisco Public Library, Liz Thacker-Estrada (Institute president) retired on June 29th. “The Chief of Branches and the Chief of Programs and Partnerships arranged for me to receive the ‘Certificate of Honor’ from Mayor London Breed. This recognition was a welcome and wonderful surprise. I appreciate the list of achievements during my career at the Library, including being ‘an in-house expert on US women's history.’ This certificate is especially meaningful to me as it is signed by the first African American woman mayor of San Francisco!”
John Hyde Barnard’s The Creole Incident: The Beginning of the End of Slavery (Coldwell & Hyde Publishing LLC, 2024) has just been published.
“Democracy is being assailed by a domestic threat, that actively seeks the take-over of the government. The year is 1836 and the United States of America is on the verge of losing its democracy. The Creole Incident recounts how the Constitution of the United States was saved by select members of the House of Representatives, a small group of radical abolitionists, and nineteen individuals—all of whom were enslaved. Their goal was to arrest the increasing power of Southern representation in Congress.
“At the heart of the story is a remarkable young man from Old Dominion named Madison Washington. He escaped slavery, made his way to Canada and freedom, yet, returned to Virginia to rescue his wife from thralldom. In the attempt, he is caught, put in chains, auctioned to the highest bidder and shipped South onboard the brig Creole, bound for New Orleans and the lethal sugar cane fields of Louisiana. The journey ends, however, in Nassau, Bahamas, where Washington and others are imprisoned on charges of mutiny and murder. Washington’s actions onboard the Creole set in motion a sequence of events that would culminate in a series of floor fights in the House of Representatives as the balance of power precariously hangs between North and South, between freedom and slavery. The conclusion of The Creole Incident will enlighten, educate, and give pause to consider the fragility of democracy and the enduring strength of love. It is an American story, for all Americans.” The book is available online at Barnes & Noble and Amazon and John’s local book store, Sausalito Books By The Bay.
“Here is an update on my journey to Ticino to celebrate the translation of my book [Miners, Milkers and Merchants: from the Swiss-Italian Alps to the Golden Hills of Australia and California] into Italian,” writes Marilyn Geary. “The event is/was to be held on August 16th at the International Center of Sculpture in Peccia. Unfortunately, heavy storms and floods ravaged the area at the end of June. At least six people have died, and many have had their homes destroyed. The director of the local sponsoring organization has suggested that the event still will take place, but the International Center of Sculpture has been closed due to the disaster and the July events cancelled. I have told the director that I totally understand if the event in August needs to be cancelled. I am on hold waiting to hear.”
Anne Maclachlan, compiler and editor of the collection of documents created for 150 years’ history of women on the Berkeley campus, reports that it is now available in the California Digital Library. See the
Table of Contents .
From Alison Lingo: “I am giving papers for two panels at two different conferences to honor Natalie Zemon Davis who passed away last fall. I am giving more or less the same paper at both conferences: “‘Women on Top’:A Retrospective Perspective.” One of the conferences is specifically being convened to honor the historian at Princeton on November 15-16. The other is the Sixteenth Century Society Conference in Toronto, also in November, where several panels will be honoring Natalie. “I am working on a collaborative project with Professor Cathy McClive at Florida State University on the gendering of tools in the birthing room and the regulations that surrounded the use of tools in 17th- and 18th-century France.
“I am also at the very earliest stages of writing an essay on the Nobel Prize-winning author, Annie Ernaux. Her novellas, published diaries, and social commentaries as well as meditations on her own evolution and trajectory from a rural area of northern France to becoming a member of the Paris intelligentsia make her a good subject for a historian of sex and gender. During her career she shocked and scandalized some while being the darling of others due to her candid and graphic portrayal of her romantic and often transgressive liaisons. She also presents poignant portrayals of her mother and father that pay homage to the sacrifices and tough realities of the working classes from which she came. How does the personal become political in France and what does that process mean for the history of women in France and beyond? My thoughts on Ernaux are still inchoate but I feel that her oeuvre is well worth commentary by a historian.”
“Thank you to all,” Maria Sakovich writes. “The newsletter would not exist without member participation—summarizing monthly presentations, reviewing books, writing the Front Page article, sharing the latest news, and offering interesting pieces for publication. With each issue I wondered whether there would be enough material, but I’m grateful that I needn’t have worried. Despite my sometimes having to wrestle with words and wait for late articles, Institute members always came through. After 14 years I’m looking forward to spending a lot more time with my own writing, finally tackling a portrait of a Russian Orthodox priest in San Francisco, my grandfather, with his refugee emigrant parishioners who were trying to recreate new lives in California after the Bolshevik revolution and ensuing civil war turned their world upside down.”
Members’ New Books
Celeste MacLeod: After years of hard work and dedication, I am pleased to announce the release of my new book,
A Woman of Unbearable Opinions: Fanny Trollope, Dynamic Satirist, now
available on Amazon.*
Americans were furious in 1832 when English visitor Fanny Trollope’s satirical travel book Domestic Manners of the Americans made fun of their insistence that they lived in the most exceptional country in recorded human history. But when she went back to England and wrote novels advocating for social justice, British reviewers accused her of being a dangerous radical. And when she wrote novels about English women’s experiences in oppressive marriages, reviewers excoriated these books as crude and vulgar. By examining Trollope’s life and the controversies generated by her writing, A Woman of Unbearable Opinions invites readers to consider the enduring relevance of these issues and encourages reflection and discussion in the context of modern society. "Fanny Trollope’s writings remind us that many of the challenges and debates she confronted in the 19th century are still very much a part of our contemporary world. The book delves into the fascinating life of a dynamic woman whom I greatly admire, and I believe it will resonate with readers of varied backgrounds and interests. I would be honored if you would consider reading it and sharing your thoughts with me."
Bonnie Portnoy: My fully illustrated biography The Man Beneath the Paint: California Impressionist Tilden Daken has just been published. Institute member Rose Marie Cleese performed the final honing of my manuscript with great aplomb. About fifteen years ago, I joined the Institute and its Writers Group after launching my legacy project on artist Tilden Daken (1876-1935). Famous in his day, he was the grandfather I never knew. My 25-year research and writing journey began in 1999 while my mother was still living, the older of Daken’s two daughters, both born in Glen Ellen. I grew up hearing the stories from my mother of her father’s friendship with Jack London. Raised in Sacramento, Tilden Daken began to paint en plein air at the age of six, studied classical music, and mined for gold with his father in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Today he is considered one of the most prolific and adventurous painters in the American West. Historians claim he painted more than 4,000 works—landscapes in every California state park and national park in the West—from the redwood forests, to the High Sierra, to beneath the Pacific in a custom-built diving bell. The covers feature a beautiful tribute to Tilden’s legacy by Armando Quintero, director of California State Parks and a blurb by Nancy Dustin Wall Moure, the noted California art historian. The foreword is written by Matt Leffert, executive director of Jack London Park Partners. The book will be available in selected indie bookstores and museum shops, and online through the Nevada Museum of Art bookstore.
Mary Judith Robinson announced the publication of her Memoir of a Reluctant Debutante or When in Danger, Breathe. From the back cover: “She has had a career as a journalist, editorial writer, legislative assistant in the US Senate and House of Representatives. Adventures included exploring mind-expanding drugs that took her on unique journeys. Lessons learned were that ‘All things pass—a sunrise does not last all morning.’ She is the author of ten published biographies [five of which formed the basis of her Monthly Presentation in February–see page 4]. Her ancestors were colonial settlers of New England and New York, pioneers to the Midwest who settled Kansas City, Missouri, Lawrence and Wichita, Kansas, a founding professor of the University of Kansas, and the first Episcopal Bishop of California. The memoir can be ordered from Judith: Telegraph Hill Press, 562 B Lombard Street, San Francisco, CA 94133-7057.
Members: Please submit news of your history-related publications, lectures, awards, research finds, etc. to info@instituteforhistoricalstudy.org.
Posted in Slideshow
Writing and Revising Narrative History
Megan Kate Nelson is a historian and writer, with a BA from Harvard and a PhD in American Studies from the University of Iowa. She is the author of four books: Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America (Scribner 2022); The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West (Scribner 2020; a finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in History); Ruin Nation: Destruction and the American Civil War (Georgia, 2012); and Trembling Earth: A Cultural History of the Okefenokee Swamp (Georgia, 2005). She writes about the Civil War, the U.S. West, and American culture for The New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Smithsonian Magazine, and TIME. Before leaving academia to write full-time in 2014, she taught U.S. history and American Studies at Texas Tech University, Cal State Fullerton, Harvard, and Brown. She grew up in Colorado but now lives in Boston with her husband and two cats.
Jim Gasperini is the Institute's webmaster and a member of its Board. This presentation draws from his book, Fire in the Imagination—From the Burning Bush to Burning Man. See more about Jim’s background and this work in progress at jimgasperini.com.