The Girl Who Dared to Defy : Jane Street and the Rebel Maids of Denver

Setting Jane Street’s story within the wider context of early twentieth century class struggles and the women’s suffrage movement, The Girl Who Dared to Defy paints a fascinating-and ultimately heartbreaking-portrait of one woman’s courageous fight for equality.

Jane Little Botkin
Jane Little Botkin
Jane Little Botkin

Marcelina Pedregone, her thin skirt partly ablaze in the early morning light, recalled running hard—sprinting northward toward a fence, then crawling into a smoky arroyo where she could lay flat in the rocky dirt, trying to become invisible from the bullets nipping around her legs and feet like a mad dog. She saw some women dodging flames to desperately help their children reach a well and then scramble inside after them, while others sought safety in a pump house, its walls being chewed by gunfire. Amid their shrieks and wails, Marcelina allowed a brief hesitation to worry about her own children she had left behind, Cloriva and Rodgerio, just four months and six years old. They had been staying with the Valdez and Costa children near Tent No. 58, one of about 150 makeshift homes for Colorado’s southern coalfield miners and their families when someone shrieked, “Dynamite! Dynamite!”...

Over a thousand miles away and almost two years after Ludlow, an obscure young woman—a single mother—simultaneously struggled to support her child and improve her lot. That certain ladies had not empathized with Ludlow’s mothers and children personally offended her sense of feminine integrity. Her name was Jane Street, and she resolved to change the status quo.

Jane Little Botkin
A comic strip

2022 Barbara Sudler Award, Best Book on the West by a Woman Author

2022 Carolyn Bancroft History Prize, Best Book on Colorado or Western American History 

2022 Bronze Medal Foreword Indies Awards in Women's Studies 

2022 Finalist for the Colorado Humanities Book Award, Biography

2022 Finalist for the Sarton Book Award in Women's Studies

2022 Finalist WILLA Award for Scholarly Nonfiction

 

Listen here! New Books Network Interview with Mark Klobas about Jane Street

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Book Details

25 B&W ILLUS

HARDCOVER: 328 pages

ISBN-13: 978-0-8061-6849-4

Published: February 2021

PAPERBACK: 310 pages

ISBN-13: 978-0-8061-9088-4

Published: September 2022

KINDLE

ISBN-13: 978-0-8061-6949-1

Published: February 2021

ePUB 

ISBN-13: 978-0-8061-6970-5

Published: February 2021

“This highly original work explores the life and efforts of Jane Street, an organizer of maids and household servants in Denver. Street played a significant role in IWW attempts to organize one of the poorest-paid and least-respected groups of women. Despite tremendous opposition, Jane persists, a latter-day St. Joan of Arc.”

Tom “Dr. Colorado” Noel
author of A Short History of Denver

"Botkin’s exceptionally well researched and very readable book adds a new chapter to the histories of the American women’s movement, the American labor movement, and the American West, and it will be a great resource for future historians of the early twentieth century."

David Kirkpatrick
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the New York Times

"Jane Botkin's The Girl Who Dared to Defy: Jane Street and the Rebel Maids of Denver is one of the most important biographies of 2021."

True West Magazine
November 2021

"Botkin has not only done a tremendous amount of research, but her biography is also engaging, thoughtful and entertaining - a wonderful change of pace from the traditional academic works from university presses."

Linda Wommack

author of Cripple Creek, Bob Womack and the World's Greatest Gold Camp on Earth

"Drawing on case histories, existing research, and even Street's own writings, Jane Little Botkin creates a captivating portrait of a woman who risked everything to fight for equality."

The 2021 Mighty Women Reading List for Adults

https://amightygirl.com

“The Girl Who Dared to Defy is one of 30 Best Books about Women's History, March 2022!”

On My Booklist

https://www.onmybooklist.com/best-books-about-womens-history.html

“This highly original work explores the life and efforts of Jane Street, an organizer of maids and household servants in Denver. Street played a significant role in IWW attempts to organize one of the poorest-paid and least-respected groups of women. Despite tremendous opposition, Jane persists, a latter-day St. Joan of Arc.”

Tom “Dr. Colorado” Noel
author of A Short History of Denver

"Botkin’s exceptionally well researched and very readable book adds a new chapter to the histories of the American women’s movement, the American labor movement, and the American West, and it will be a great resource for future historians of the early twentieth century."

David Kirkpatrick
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the New York Times

"Jane Botkin's The Girl Who Dared to Defy: Jane Street and the Rebel Maids of Denver is one of the most important biographies of 2021."

True West Magazine
November 2021

"Botkin has not only done a tremendous amount of research, but her biography is also engaging, thoughtful and entertaining - a wonderful change of pace from the traditional academic works from university presses."

Linda Wommack

author of Cripple Creek, Bob Womack and the World's Greatest Gold Camp on Earth

"Drawing on case histories, existing research, and even Street's own writings, Jane Little Botkin creates a captivating portrait of a woman who risked everything to fight for equality."

The 2021 Mighty Women Reading List for Adults

https://amightygirl.com

“The Girl Who Dared to Defy is one of 30 Best Books about Women's History, March 2022!”

On My Booklist

https://www.onmybooklist.com/ best-books-about-womens-history.html