Historians Kristen Tegtmeier Oertel and Marilyn S. Blackwell discuss their new biography of Clarina Howard Nichols on Sunday, February 20, at 2 p.m. at the Central Library, 14 W. 10th St.

Oertel and Blackwell are the authors of Frontier Feminist: Clarina Howard Nichols and the Politics of Motherhood. They explain how Nichols forged a political role for women by using her stature as a lady and a mother to lobby vigorously for women’s rights and against slavery.

After joining the antislavery migration from Vermont to Kansas in the 1850s, Nichols championed freedom in the territory, assisted former slaves, and argued successfully for women’s school suffrage in the new state. 

Oertel is the Mary Frances Barnard associate professor of 19th-century American history at the University of Tulsa. She is a native of the Kansas City area and graduate of Shawnee Mission North High School.

Blackwell is an independent scholar and historian who has published several articles on women’s and Vermont history.

Copies of Frontier Feminist will be available for sale, and the authors will sign copies purchased during the event.

This presentation is part of the Missouri Valley Speakers Series, a program of the Missouri Valley Special Collections at the Central Library. The series is made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.