Cornelia's Empire

Name: Cornelia's Empire
Brand: UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS
SKU: 9780806197616
Price: 63.99 AUD
Availability: InStock

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESSISBN: 9780806197616

The JA Ranch of Texas and the Global West

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$63.99

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By Alex Hunt, William E. Green
Imprint: UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS
Release Date: June 28, 2027
Format: HARDBACK
Dimensions: 229 x 152 mm
Weight:
Pages: 368

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One of the storied Wadsworths of western New York, Cornelia Adair (1838-1921) was very much a woman of her time and privileged social circle. And yet, wielding her wealth and power in her own way, she also became a singular force in international business and finance, a transatlantic trendsetter who managed properties in England and Ireland-and, as the owner of the legendary JA Ranch, made an improbable and lasting mark on Texas history. As the first book to tell her story, Cornelia's Empire draws a complex portrait of an extraordinary woman at a historic moment-and, through her unlikely, adventurous life, offers a surprising perspective on the global nature of empire and business at the turn of the twentieth century. After the death of her father and first husband during the Civil War, Cornelia took her sons and moved abroad, where her travels and association with important leaders in the US and Britain tied her into an international financial web. Authors Alex Hunt and William E. Green describe her second marriage, to Irish financier John George Adair, and her participation in developing the vast JA Ranch, which, following John's death, she owned and managed through the vicissitudes of frontier challenges, changing markets, and world war. They follow Cornelia as she traverses continents, becomes involved with an array of influential figures, and takes up philanthropic efforts that span the Boer War, educational projects, and beyond. But it was at JA Ranch, which she considered her true home, that Cornelia made her indelible mark. Once spanning over a million acres and home to over one hundred thousand head of cattle, the JA Ranch also included much of the terrain of Palo Duro Canyon, the second-largest canyon in the United States, within its boundaries. There she deployed the business strategy and tactics that ensured the ranch's long success and established her place in the development of the Texas Panhandle. A fresh look at the making of modern-day Texas, Cornelia's Empire reveals how this exceptional woman represented a new kind of modern global woman who moved between frontiers and empires in search of freedom and fulfilment.

Alex Hunt is the Vincent/Haley Endowed Professor of Western Studies at West Texas A&M University. He is author of Cornelia's Empire: The JA Ranch of Texas and the Global West. The late historian William E. Green held several teaching and museum positions, notably history curator at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas.

"A fabulous book... My initial thought was that this would be a draw for anyone studying ranching history in West Texas, but Cornelia's Empire covers so much more than that. It will interest general readers, women's historians, and students of American history. Hunt should be commended for his great depth of research."-Deborah M. Liles, coeditor of Texas Women and Ranching: On the Range, at the Rodeo, and in Their Communities "A gem of American biography... From the Civil War to World War I, from the fields of Donegal, Ireland to London's gilded drawing rooms, and to the high plains of West Texas, Cornelia's Empire traces the story of a fascinating figure and a crucial moment in history when the trappings of Victorian England did not seem at all out of place among stampeding buffalo and the deep red canyons of the American Southwest. "-Tracy Daugherty, author of Larry McMurtry: A Life "The mythology around the great Texas ranches is almost as potent in American memory as that of the western cowboy. Now, thanks to the outstanding research and superb writing of Alex Hunt and William Green, we can assess the significance of the JA Ranch in the history of the Great Plains-and beyond. This is western history at its best." -Clay Jenkinson, host of Listening to America "A compelling read. The amount of research and attention to detail by authors Hunt and Green brings Cornelia's fascinating story to life." -Jodi Thomas, New York Times bestselling author "Thanks to meticulous international research, a complex portrait emerges of a woman who took advantage of her positioning to live her life boldly. For those interested in the global West, Cornelia's Empire provides a rare in-depth example of an astonishing woman who moved among global frontiers as easily as she did among male-dominated social settings." -Andrew Offenburger, author of Frontiers in the Gilded Age: Adventure, Capitalism, and Dispossession from Southern Africa to the U.S.-Mexican Borderlands

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