Autobiography of an extremist leader of Indian National Congress and leader of Brahmo Samaj.

A nostalgic journey back to a time of Model-T Fords, stay-at-home-moms, vinyl long-playing records, telegrams, radio days, strict rules of etiquette and manual typewriters. Here are the personal memories of the enormous changes that occurred in the twentieth century; a trip down memory lane for the older generation and, perhaps some surprising insights into the way life was, for those who are younger.

Rediscovered by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, this unique account of life before, during, and after the Civil War was written by the wife of Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan, who played a central role in some of the most significant civil rights decisions of his era. “Remarkable . . . a chronicle of the times, as seen by a brave woman of the era.”—Ruth Bader Ginsburg, from the foreword When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg began researching the history of the women associated with the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress sent her Malvina Harlan’s unpublished manuscript. Recalling Abigail Adams’s order to “remember the ladies,” Justice Ginsburg guided its long journey from forgotten document to published book. Malvina Shanklin Harlan witnessed—and gently influenced—national history from the perspective of a political leader’s wife. Her husband, Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan (1833–1911), wrote the lone dissenting opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson, the infamous case that endorsed separate but equal segregation. And for fifty-seven years he was married to a woman who was busy making a mental record of their eventful lives. After Justice Harlan’s death in 1911, Malvina wrote Some Memories of a Long Life, 1854–1911, as a testament to her husband’s accomplishments and to her own. The memoir begins with Malvina, the daughter of passionate abolitionists, becoming the teenage bride of John Marshall Harlan, whose family owned more than a dozen slaves. Malvina depicts her life in antebellum Kentucky, and her courageous defense of the Harlan homestead during the Civil War. She writes of her husband’s ascent in legal circles and his eventual appointment to the Supreme Court in 1877, where he was the author of opinions that continued to influence American race relations deep into the twentieth century. Yet Some Memories is more than a wife’s account of a famous and powerful man. It chronicles the remarkable evolution of a young woman from Indiana who became a keen observer of both her family’s life and that of her nation.

During his remarkable life, John Charles Frémont served as a senator for the newly-formed state of California, led Union troops in the Civil War, and was governor of the territory of Arizona. His race for the presidency in 1856 brought prestige to the fledgling Republican Party, yet despite his popularity, his uncompromising determination to abolish slavery cost him the election. For all of his experiences in politics and the military, it was the earlier decades of Frémont's life that were the most exciting. Shortly after graduating from college, he joined a mapping expedition and surveyed the hills of South Carolina and Tennessee for the government. Eager to continue exploring, Frémont went on five more expeditions to America west of the Appalachians during the years from 1839 to 1846. He traveled up the Missouri river, crossed the Rocky Mountains, and reached the West Coast on several journeys, often with his friend Kit Carson, the legendary mountain man. In Memoirs of My Life, Frémont recounts those years in the wilderness, encountering the fabulous landscapes and native people of America's interior before the westward expansion of the U. S. His journeys across the unmapped prairies, mountains, and deserts offer a wonderful glimpse of North America's natural grandeur in its original state.