Mad River, Marjorie Rowland, and the Quest for LGBTQ Teachers’ Rights

"Margaret Nash and Karen Graves have produced the first full history of a true American heroine. Thanks to brave educators like Marjorie Rowland, LGBTQ teachers now enjoy vastly more freedoms than they did in earlier eras. But the fight is hardly over, as this brilliant little book reminds us. We have indeed come a long way, in the struggle for real human equality in our schools. And we also have much farther to go."

 

~Jonathan Zimmerman, author of The Amateur Hour: A History of College Teaching in America

"In this superb combination of narrative and analytical history, Nash and Graves engage us first with the dramatic, arduous story of Marjorie Rowland and her fight for equitable treatment.  They then analyze how principles drawn from Rowland’s case have informed litigation surrounding LGBTQ educators over time, concluding with potent reflections on current prospects.  Covering vast legal ground in accessible language, this book will stand as an important marker of the history of rights for LGBTQ school professionals."

 

 

~Linda Eisenmann, author of Higher Education for Women in Postwar America, 1945-1965