A conversation with historian Martha A. Sandweiss about their book The Girl in the Middle: A Recovered History of the American West (Princeton University Press, 2025).

Martha A. Sandweiss is Professor Emerita of History from Princeton University. A historian of the American West and photography in particular, Sandweiss is the recipient of innumerable awards and honors, served as President of the Society of American Historians and Western History Association, and was the founder of the Princeton and Slavery Project. In addition to an extensive record of articles, chapters, and sundry other publications, she is author or editor of 13 books, including:

• Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line (Penguin Press, 2009)
• Print the Legend: Photography and the American West (Yale University Press, 2002)
• The Oxford History of the American West (Oxford University Press, 1994)
• Photography in Nineteenth-Century America (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1991)
• Eyewitness to War: Prints and Daguerreotypes of the Mexican War, 1846-1848 (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989)
• Laura Gilpin: An Enduring Grace (Amon Carter Museum, 1986)

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The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or X/Twitter, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org. Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com