A well-researched, engagingly written story of a national treasure.
Owen celebrates the legacy of the Justice Bell in this history of the women’s suffrage movement.
The idea to create a replica of the Liberty Bell to represent the hopes and frustrations of early-20th-century women was first developed by Katharine Wentworth Ruschenberger, an active member in Pennsylvania’s suffrage movement. The one-ton bronze Justice Bell has a symbolically chained and muted clapper “to symbolize the silencing of women’s voices” in denying them the right to vote. The bell traveled thousands of miles across the Keystone State and was seen by more than one million people between 1915 and 1920 and emerged as one of the most powerful symbols of the Progressive Era. Following the ratification of the 19th Amendment, the bell’s clapper was released for the first time, and it rang in Philadelphia’s Independence Square before a large crowd that included Susan B. Anthony’s nieces. This concise but comprehensive history of the Justice Bell chronicles its prominence within the suffrage movement as well as its eventual abandonment in the 1930s; not until the 1990s was the bell found in the woods on private land within Valley Forge National Historical Park. After a series of restorations (including one after the bell had suffered significant damage from falling off a truck in 2020 during a centennial celebration), the Justice Bell now rests inside the rotunda of Valley Forge’s Washington Memorial Chapel. Owen became fascinated by the bell while conducting research on the suffrage movement; her subsequent investigations led her to establish the Justice Bell Foundation and to direct the 2020 documentary Finding Justice: The Untold Story of Women’s Fight for the Vote, which premiered at the National Women’s History Museum and later aired on PBS affiliates. Offering additional details not included in the film, this book draws on the author’s impressive archival research and solid grasp of the history of women’s suffrage. Owen’s text is accessible and supplemented by visual elements that include newspaper clippings, maps, and photographs.
A well-researched, engagingly written story of a national treasure.Pub Date: Dec. 20, 2025
ISBN: 9780984820917
Page Count: 240
Publisher: The Justice Bell Foundation
Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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