The Girl in the Middle

A Recovered History of the American West

Martha A. Sandweiss

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English

Princeton University Press
23 July 2025

History; History of the Americas; Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900

Shortlisted for the Cundill History Prize

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. She recounts the lives of William S. Harney, a slave-owning Union general who earned the Lakota name ""Woman Killer,"" and Samuel F. Tappan, an abolitionist who led the investigation into the Sand Creek massacre. And she identifies Sophie Mousseau, the girl in Gardner's photograph, whose life swerved in unexpected directions as American settlers pushed into Indian Country and the federal government confined Native peoples to reservations.

Spinning a spellbinding historical tale from a single enigmatic image, The Girl in the Middle reveals how the American nation grappled with what kind of country it would be as it expanded westward in the aftermath of the Civil War.

By: Martha A. Sandweiss
Imprint: Princeton University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9780691238418
ISBN 10: 0691238413
Pages: 368
Publication Date: 23 July 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Martha A. Sandweiss is professor emerita of history at Princeton University, where she is founding director of the Princeton & Slavery Project. She is the award-winning author of many books, including Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception across the Color Line and Print the Legend: Photography and the American West.

Reviews for The Girl in the Middle: A Recovered History of the American West

""[Sandweiss’s] deeply researched book takes its title from an arresting black-and-white photograph of the peace commissioners gathered at Fort Laramie in 1868. . . . Sandweiss is an elegant writer who knows how to craft a satisfying story.""---Melanie Kirkpatrick, Wall Street Journal ""Sandweiss’s forensic investigation of a single photograph widens the aperture to depict an astonishingly intertwined frontier society where everyone—soldier, trader, photographer, man, woman, Native, mixed-race, or white—was connected to most everyone else. The result is a fascinating snapshot of this “oddly intimate” world, a bubbling cauldron of people constantly on the move, in contact or in conflict, their lives beset by unremitting public and familial violence.""---Alix Christie, American Scholar ""Sandweiss. . . shows her extraordinary ability as a historian-detective.""---David Steinberg, Albuquerque Journal ""Compelling. . . . A truly revealing image of American empire."" * Literary Hub * ""A perceptive historical inquiry, The Girl in the Middle illuminates the post–Civil War era’s dark negotiations surrounding Native American land.""---Karen Rigby, Foreword