A new history of Iowa
(Book)

A New History of Iowa features well-known individuals in its narrative, such as the Sauk leader Black Hawk, the artist Grant Wood, botanist George Washington Carver, suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt, and President Herbert Hoover. But it seeks to broaden the state's story, including the stories of previously unknown farmwomen, laborers, immigrants, and refugees. This narrative adds new voices: runaway slaves who joined Iowa's 60th Colored Regiment in the Civil War; young female pearl button factory workers in the late nineteenth century; Latino railroad workers who migrated to the state in the early twentieth century, and Edna Griffin, who helped desegregate Des Moines in the 1940s. Also missing are the histories of recent refugees from Sudan and the Balkans and other racial, cultural, and religious minorities.