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"In The Small and the Mighty, Sharon McMahon proves that the most remarkable Americans are often ordinary people who didn't make it into the textbooks. Not the presidents, but the telephone operators. Not the aristocrats, but the schoolteachers. Through meticulous research, she discovers history's unsung characters and brings their rich, riveting stories to light for the first time."--Provided by publisher.
List of contents
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION New York, 1804
Angel of the Rockies
ONE Clara Brown, Kentucky, 1830s
TWO Bleeding Kansas, 1850s
THREE Clara Brown, Colorado, 1870s
The Next Needed Thing
FOUR Virginia Randolph, Virginia, 1890
FIVE Henrico County, Virginia, 1907
America the Beautiful
SIX Katharine Lee Bates, Cape Cod, 1859
SEVEN Katharine Lee Bates, England, 1880s
EIGHT Katharine Lee Bates, Chicago, 1890s
Forward Out of Darkness
NINE Inez Milholland, New York, 1910
TEN Maria de Lopez, California, 1911
ELEVEN Rebecca Brown Mitchell, Idaho, 1856
TWELVE Inez Milholland, the West, 1916
THIRTEEN France, 1916
An Orientation of the Spirit
FOURTEEN Anna Thomas Jeanes, Philadelphia, 1822
FIFTEEN William James Edwards, Alabama, 1869
SIXTEEN Julius Rosenwald, Illinois, 1862
SEVENTEEN Booker T. Washington, Virginia, 1856
Go for Broke
EIGHTEEN The Inouyes, Hawaii, 1924
NINETEEN The Minetas, California, 1942
TWENTY Daniel Inouye, Europe, 1943
TWENTY-ONE Norman Mineta, 1950s
Momentum
TWENTY-TWO Claudette Colvin, Alabama, 1950s
TWENTY-THREE Septima Clark, Charleston,South Carolina, 1898
TWENTY-FOUR America, 1950s
TWENTY-FIVE Teenagers in the American South, 1950s
TWENTY-SIX Montgomery, Alabama, 1955
CONCLUSION
Acknowledgments
Notes
About the author
Sharon McMahon
Summary
A #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
From America’s favorite government teacher, a “fascinating and fun” (Adam Grant) portrait of twelve ordinary Americans whose courage formed the character of our country.
In The Small and the Mighty, Sharon McMahon proves that the most remarkable Americans are often ordinary people who didn’t make it into the textbooks. Not the presidents, but the telephone operators. Not the aristocrats, but the schoolteachers. Through meticulous research, she discovers history’s unsung characters and brings their rich, riveting stories to light for the first time.
You’ll meet a woman astride a white horse riding down Pennsylvania Ave, a young boy detained at a Japanese incarceration camp, a formerly enslaved woman on a mission to reunite with her daughter, a poet on a train, and a teacher who learns to work with her enemies. More than one thing is bombed, and multiple people surprisingly become rich. Some rich with money, and some wealthy with things that matter more.
This is a book about what really made America – and Americans – great. McMahon’s cast of improbable champions will become familiar friends, lighting the path we journey in our quest to make the world more just, peaceful, good, and free.
