Baby Trouble In The Last Best West

Reproduction is the most emotionally complicated human activity. It transforms lives but it also creates fears and anxieties about women whose childbearing doesn’t conform to the norm. Baby Trouble in the Last Best West explores the ways that women’s childbearing became understood as a social problem in early twentieth-century Alberta. Kaler utilizes censuses, newspaper reports, social work case files, and personal letters to illuminate the ordeals that women, men, and babies were subjected to as Albertans debated childbearing. Through the lens of reproduction, Kaler offers a vivid and engaging analysis of how colonialism, racism, nationalism, medicalization, and evolving gender politics contributed to Alberta’s imaginative economy of reproduction. Kaler investigates five different episodes of "baby trouble": the emergence of obstetrics as a political issue, the drive for eugenic sterilization, unmarried childbearing and "rescue homes" for unmarried mothers, state-sponsored allowances for single mothers, and high infant mortality. Baby Trouble in the Last Best West will transport the reader to the turmoil of Alberta’s early years while examining the complexity of settler society-building and gender struggles.

It was the 1880's, a time of great excitement in the world: Canada had opened the west. The Last Best West transports us to the private world of the aristocrat Lady Adela Cochrane, daughter of the 2nd Earl of Stradbroke and her husband, Thomas Cochrane. She couldn’t be more different than Alice Bradley, British immigrant from the working class, and her husband eastern Canadian Billie Bradley, who were seeking relief from the economic downturn of their day. The Last Best West brings themes of upstairs, downstairs British life to western Canada. Lady Adela and Thomas were completely unprepared to build the town of Mitford and create businesses from the opportunities awaiting them. Alice and Billie suffered the extreme capriciousness of the harsh life offered to them as pioneers. Connect with the resiliency, courage and excitement lived by these two couples as they find out what life is like in The Last Best West.

Baby Trouble in the Last Best West explores the ways that women's childbearing became understood as a social problem in early twentieth-century Alberta.

"This collection of unusually powerful stories opens up a refreshing new chapter in Canadian history. Since there are so few written records of the lives of frontier women, Dr. Silverman collected 'memories'; the result has the hypnotic appeal of all genuine storytelling. It extends our understanding of Canadian heritage by weaving 'a collective autobiography' of the women who were the earliest settlers in Alberta, the site of the final North American land rush. The true story of how these women created a society from a harsh frontier is heartwarming and inspiring."--Publisher.

Jimmy Fallon, host of NBC's The Tonight Show and #1 New York Times bestselling author of Your Baby's First Word Will Be DADA and Everything Is Mama, returns with a book that teaches new babies the words for the various parts of their body--This is Baby. Let’s meet... Baby! From Baby’s HEAD to Baby’s TOES, there are so many parts of Baby you should know. But what’s the most important part of Baby? Jimmy Fallon, one of the most popular entertainers in the world gives you the facts.

A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK * INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * BELLETRIST BOOK CLUB PICK * INDIE NEXT SELECTION * LIBRARY READS SELECTION * AMAZON EDITORS' CHOICE * WASHINGTON POST BEST OF THE YEAR The "terrifying, wise, tender, and thrilling" (R.O. Kwon) adventure story of a fugitive girl, a mysterious gang of robbers, and their dangerous mission to transform the Wild West. In the year of our Lord 1894, I became an outlaw. The day of her wedding, 17 year old Ada's life looks good; she loves her husband, and she loves working as an apprentice to her mother, a respected midwife. But after a year of marriage and no pregnancy, in a town where barren women are routinely hanged as witches, her survival depends on leaving behind everything she knows. She joins up with the notorious Hole in the Wall Gang, a band of outlaws led by a preacher-turned-robber known to all as the Kid. Charismatic, grandiose, and mercurial, the Kid is determined to create a safe haven for outcast women. But to make this dream a reality, the Gang hatches a treacherous plan that may get them all killed. And Ada must decide whether she's willing to risk her life for the possibility of a new kind of future for them all. Featuring an irresistibly no-nonsense, courageous, and determined heroine, Outlawed dusts off the myth of the old West and reignites the glimmering promise of the frontier with an entirely new set of feminist stakes. Anna North has crafted a pulse-racing, page-turning saga about the search for hope in the wake of death, and for truth in a climate of small-mindedness and fear.