Critics and Educators Praise

Revolutionary Heart:
The Life of Clarina Nichols and the
Pioneering Crusade for Women’s Rights
by Diane Eickhoff

Revolutionary Heart: The Life of Clarina Nichols and the Pioneering Crusade for Women’s Rights by Quindaro Press has been honored by 4 major awards:

A Kansas Notable Book Award Winner

A GOLD in the ForeWord Book of the Year Awards

A BRONZE in the Independent Publishers' (IPPY) Awards

A finalist in the PMA Ben Franklin Award

Professional Reviewers Say. . .

"This fine biography takes advantage of newly discovered documentation of Nichols's life.... Eickhoff writes fluently, but also liberally quotes Nichols's columns and letters, allowing readers to get a taste of her eloquence as well as her progressive views. [R]eaders interested in history and women's rights will be glad to have learned about Nichols, a charismatic figure who had fallen out of history's sight for so long."---Publisher's Weekly

“Eickhoff offers an engagingly written portrait of this fascinating woman.... [A] readable treatment of this important feminist, based on solid research evidenced by the useful appendixes... significant primary documents, and short biographical treatments of other early women's rights advocates. This first book-length biography of [Clarina] Nichols is recommended.”—Library Journal

“Eickhoff’s exhaustive research and extensive scholarship results in a sweeping biography of this little-known but undeniably courageous champion of human rights. Nichols’ story, clearly told and research-ready, is an important addition to American and women’s history.” —Booklist

“[Revolutionary Heart is a] well-researched and enjoyable biography.... Nichols’s life story is rich with details.... The reader is carried through many reform movements of the nineteenth century, while also discovering this courageous and influential woman.”—ForeWord Magazine

“Author Diane Eickhoff has gone to great lengths to collect Nichols' scattered writings... highly recommended.”—Midwest Book Review

"Eickhoff tells a compelling saga... superbly researched and clearly written."—Kansas City Star

“With heartfelt appreciation, I thank the author for bringing this important woman's story to light.”—Armchair Reviews

Revolutionary Heart... is not only well-written, but also well-researched and extremely readable. The text is intelligent, provocative, and moves at an interesting pace. I would encourage all historians, students of American history, and any man or woman wanting a good read to pick up Revolutionary Heart.”—Reader Views
 

Authors and Educators Say. . .

“Diane Eickhoff’s biography of Clarina Nichols is a thorough and illuminating treatment of one of the most instrumental—and underappreciated—of the 19th-century American feminists. Nichols’s story deserves to be read: an abandoned wife who went on to make great strides as an advocate for women’s custody and property rights, and who fought for female suffrage in the Midwest.”—Nancy Isenberg, author, Sex and Citizenship in Antebellum America

“Diane Eickhoff has written a very readable history of the life of one of America’s unsung heroines.”—Ambassador Madeleine May Kunin, former governor of Vermont

“In this important new study, Eickhoff shows how the history of westward expansion was more than a story of men, horses, and guns—and how this remarkable woman played vital roles in nearly every major event and movement that roiled 19th-century America.”—Jonathan Earle, author, Jacksonian Antislavery and the Politics of Free Soil

“This is a well-researched biography that tells the fascinating life story of a forgotten feminist. Clarina Howard Nichols was a key figure in the efforts for woman’s rights, first in Vermont, later in Kansas, and as a lecturer throughout the nation. Because she had experienced many of the ills that befell married women under laws that rendered them legal nonentities, she was a particularly effective advocate for woman’s rights.”—Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, Man Cannot Speak for Her

“What I found most interesting about the book is the number of directions a teacher could take it: the Civil War and its causes, the pioneers’ and homesteaders’ lifestyles and reasons for moving, the opposition to slavery and its far-reaching consequences, the differences between coast and frontier—-this in addition to themes of solitude, fortitude, equality and gender issues. . . fascinating.”—Kendall Taylor, public school teacher, Chicago, Illinois

“This deserves to reach as wide an audience as possible.”—Barbara L. Watkins, continuing education coordinator, University of Kansas

Revolutionary Heart: The Life of Clarina Nichols and the Pioneering Crusade for Women’s Rights