All Posts By

Rebecca Koerselman

Blog

A House Divided

The chorus and lyrics of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” kept rattling around in my head this week. I’m not sure if it

Read More »
Blog

Lunchroom Brawl

Apparently there was a fight in the high school lunchroom. The principal asked many students and teachers who witnessed the fight to write down what

Read More »
Blog

Curriculum Wars

Iowa officially joined the United States in 1846, and fought on the side of the Union during the Civil War. Yet free public schools were

Read More »

No One Sees Clean Windows

When it comes to housework, no one notices it unless you don’t do it. In 1976, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich published an article in American Quarterly

Read More »
Blog

Bodily Trauma

I have to admit that the title was a turn off. For me, it conjured up saccharine stories in the vein of Chicken Soup for

Read More »
Blog

Pageantry

Apparently pageants are still a thing. In the words of one of my favorite sportswriters, Frank DeFord, “maligned by one segment of America, adored by

Read More »
Blog

Regular People

In 1971, Mary Garst of Coon Rapids, IA and Betty Kitzman of Ames, IA argued quite forcefully that the League of Women Voters of Iowa

Read More »