State Historical Society of Iowa

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Table of Contents
Third Series, Vol. 83, No. 3, Summer 2024

“Roundtable on a New History of Iowa”

Lori Witt, Rebecca Conrad, Andrew Offenburger, Ashley Howard, and Jeff Bremer

ROUNDTABLE ON A NEW HISTORY OF IOWA brings together four scholars to reflect on the significance and impact of Jeff Bremer's new one-volume history of Iowa, A New History of Iowa (University of Kansas Press, 2023). Historians Rebecca Conard, Ashley Howard, Andrew Offenburger, and Lori Witt offer thought-provoking assessments of the new work and the future of Iowa history. Bremer concludes the roundtable with his response.

"I Felt if Things Didn't Change, the World Would Come to an End": Black Iowa Women's Activism During the Civil Rights Era, 1945-1965

Emily Bronswick

Bronswick examines the history of Black Iowa women's activism during the Civil Rights era, looking specifically at the diverse methods and approaches Black women employed to advocate for change. Bronswick connects diverse efforts ranging from sit-ins and legal cases to challenges to the development of the Des Moines metro's Interstate 235 to analyze the scope and impact of this wide-ranging activist movement.

Roundtable Essays

Inspiration for Future Historians: A Review of Jeff Bremer's A New History of Iowa
Lori Witt

A New History of Iowa Through an Environmental  History Lens
Rebecca Conard

Breaking New Ground and the Constraints of State History
Andrew Offenburger

The Power and Promise of New Iowa Histories
Ashley Howard

Response to Roundtable: The Many Possible Histories of Iowa
Jeff Bremer

Book Reviews

MARK WALCZYNSKI, Jolliet and Marquette: A New History of the 1673 Expedition,
by Raymond Haberski, Jr.

JOHN WILLIAM NELSON, Muddy Ground: Native Peoples, Chicago's Portage, and the Transformation of a Continent,
by John N. Lowe

JOHN J. Fry, A Prairie Faith: The Religious Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder,
by Sarah S. Uthoff

MARY CHRISTOPHER AND MIKE ROWLEY, Woodland Cemetery in Des Moines: A History,
by Kate Levasseur 

JENNIFER SDUNZIK, The Geography of Hate: The Great Migration through Small-Town America,
by Greg Wickenkamp

BRIAN M. INGRASSIA., Speed Capital: Indianapolis Auto Racing and the Making of Modern America,
by Edward O. Frantz

BART ELMORE, Country Capitalism: How Corporations from the American South Remade Our Economy and the Planet,
by Camden Burd