The Girl in the Middle: A Recovered History of the American West by Martha A. Sandweiss ISBN 9780691238418, 0691238413 instant download

The Girl in the Middle: A Recovered History of the American West by Martha A. Sandweiss ISBN 9780691238418, 0691238413 instant download

A haunting image of an unnamed Native child and a recovered story of the American West
In 1868, celebrated Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner traveled to Fort Laramie to document the federal government's treaty negotiations with the Lakota and other tribes of the northern plains. Gardner, known for his iconic portrait of Abraham Lincoln and his visceral pictures of the Confederate dead at Antietam, posed six federal peace commissioners with a young Native girl wrapped in a blanket. The hand-labeled prints carefully name each of the men, but the girl is never identified. As The Girl in the Middle goes in search of her, it draws readers into the entangled lives of the photographer and his subjects.
Martha A. Sandweiss paints a riveting portrait of the turbulent age of Reconstruction and westward expansion. She follows Gardner from his birthplace in Scotland to the American frontier, as his dreams of a utopian future across the Atlantic fall to pieces....