Professor Carla Kaplan’s (WGSS, English, CSGS) new book Troublemaker explores the radical life of Jessica Mitford. Originally a British Aristocrat of the famous Mitford family, known as the “Mad Mitfords”, Jessica sought to leave home at a young age. Her family’s close-minded view of the world did not match up with hers. Instead of praising those in power, she would question and spread rumors, such as that the royal princesses had webbed feet. At 12, Jessica began to grapple with the reality of poverty, hunger, and cruelty. Her extremely conservative family was of no help to her questions, so she left to find answers for herself. She ran away at 19, and honored her radical nature, becoming a communist and muckraker who exposed injustices in America. The result of this was a life of activism and writing. While she left her family’s close-mindedness, resistance to her radical nature continued to follow her. When her second book, The American Way of Death, which exposed injustices in the funeral industry was written, publishers refused to publish it in its entirety. Yet, Jessica never caved and refused to erase the gruesome details, because the purpose of her work was always most important to her.
To find out more about Jessica’s exciting story as told in Professor Kaplan’s new book Troublemaker, read this excerpt here.
Professor Kaplan’s book has also been featured in a number of news outlets, including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, the L.A. Times, The Spectator, and The New Yorker. To access these outlets, just go to Northeastern’s library subscription page, find the link to your desired news outlet and set up an account with your northeastern email. Then, you can directly log into the paper’s website with no pay walls.
