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Acknowledgments This book would not have been possible without the support of many people, to whom I owe an enormous debt of gratitude. My editor, Meredith Morris-Babb at the University Press of Florida, belongs at the top of the list, thanks to her endless patience and unwavering belief in the project . The librarians and archivists at the George A. Smathers Libraries and Special Collections at the University of Florida, the Special Collections of the Otto G. Richter Library at the University of Miami, the Mississippi State Archives, and the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at Harvard University were unfailingly helpful. I am especially grateful to Paul Camp at the University of South Florida’s Special Collections, as well as David Coles and Jody Norman at the State Archives of Florida in Tallahassee, who always had a friendly word and a wealth of knowledge to share. In Chapel Hill, I was fortunate to be surrounded by enormously talented colleagues and friends. Kirsten Delegard, Eve Duffy, Natalie Fousekis , Kathy Newfont, and Ginny Noble are extraordinary women whose humor, intellect, and appreciation for good food and drink sustained and inspired me, as did their meticulous reading and thoughtful comments on draft after draft of this book. Gavin Campbell, Tom Devine, Gary Frost, John Hepp, Molly Rozum, Robert Tinkler, and Michael Trotti made the act of sharing my writing more fun than it probably should have been. I know they made my writing better and my thinking sharper, and I thank them. I am grateful to UNC for institutional support in the form of research and writing grants. I also deeply appreciate the friendship of the people who made Chapel Hill so special and so hard to leave for the better part of a decade: Eric Carrig, Spencer Downing, Lars Golumbic, Elizabeth Horst, Ethan Kytle, Kelly Manno, Hans and Jennifer Muller, Jennifer Ritterhouse, xii · Acknowledgments Blain Roberts, David Sartorius, Mike Snyder, Adam and Jennifer Tuchinsky , David and Kathy Walbert, and LeNaye Willis. I began writing this book during an unforgettable four years in Boston, the only time I’ve lived north of the Mason-Dixon Line. As the assistant editor for the latest volume of the venerable Notable American Women, I joined the staff of the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University, which I can only describe as a dream come true. My colleagues were exceptional in every way. Three notable women in particular, Diane Hamer, Sylvia McDowell, and Debbie Richards, shared with me their knowledge and love of Boston and showed me the ropes at Harvard—no easy task. I am proud to call them my friends. Annie Bergen, Amanda Bird, Jennifer Cote, Kathryn Losavio, and David Wagner demonstrated grace under fire and a supportiveness that seemed to know no bounds. Melissa Carlson, Kirsten Condry, Shayne Goldberg, Lisa Hurlbutt, Matt Kaliner, Meredith Leigh, Deborah Levine, Heather Malkani, Dan Miller, Robin Morris, Jessica Shroder, and Chris Timmerman were there for me in ways that I will never be able to sufficiently thank them for. My life is all the richer for their friendship. It has been my greatest privilege—and still, after all these years, hard to believe my good fortune—to work with some truly remarkable historians. The depth of my gratitude to John D’Emilio, Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Nancy Hewitt, and Steven Lawson is immeasurable. Since our days together at the University of South Florida more than twenty years ago, Nancy and Steven have encouraged my writing and supported me through good times and bad. John was patient and skillful in guiding me through every stage of research and writing, and his deft blending of scholarship with activism continues to awe. And I thank Jacquelyn for challenging me to take myself seriously as a writer and as a person. I have taken every word to heart, and I consider myself lucky to have her as a mentor and a friend. Countless other scholars have been indispensable to this project. George Lewis read and reread the manuscript through two rounds of revisions , and each time he made the work vastly better with his suggestions and queries. Steven Niven didn’t hesitate when I asked him to read it. His skills as a historian and a writer are humbling, and his generosity exceeds anything I could have hoped for. I have never met James Schnur in person , but our e-mail exchanges over the past two years inspired me to forge ahead with the book when my...

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