The Minnesota Historical Society Press is pleased to announce My Grandfather’s Knocking Sticks: Ojibwe Family Life and Labor on the Reservation by Brenda J. Child as the winner of the Jon Gjerde Prize for the best book in midwestern history published in 2014 as awarded by the Midwestern History Association.

My Grandfather’s Knocking Sticks explores the innovative ways Ojibwe men and women on reservations around the Great Lakes sustained both their families and their cultural identity in the face of extreme prejudice and hardship.  Brenda J. Child is professor of American Studies at the University of Minnesota and author of two other books, Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900-1940 and Holding Our World Together: Ojibwe Women and the Survival of Community.

My Grandfather’s Knocking Sticks is also the winner of the Labriola Center American Indian National Book Award.

The mission of the Midwestern History Association is to promote the study of the history of the American Midwest by way of organizing and supporting academic discussions and conference presentations and panels related to the region’s history and culture.

Jon Gjerde was professor of American History at the University of California at Berkeley and distinguished historian of immigration and European-American ethnic groups in the Middle West. He completed his doctorate at the University of Minnesota.

More information on the Star Tribune “On Books” blog.