Winner of The Great Southwest Book Festival for Memoir (2025) In the midst of the Great Depression, a heart-broken twenty-four-year-old, hoping to gain perspective on America's problems as well as her own, fled to the Arizona desert. There she fell in love with and married a handsome but impoverished rancher. Far from being at “Home on the Range,” this Jewish UC Berkeley graduate was at sea on the range, with no telephone or electricity, struggling to cook black-eyed peas and sowbelly on a wood-burning stove, build a traditional adobe home, brand cattle, and run a dude ranch. Lost for decades and never before published, this candid memoir by a prize-winning journalist is a thoughtful and humorous story of triumph over adversity. With twenty-two pages of historical photos, it will captivate those interested in: The Great Depression - The American West - Women’s history - Jewish Studies - Eco-friendly practices - Back-to-the-land stories "A rollicking testimony of what it felt like to become a homesteader during the Depression, as seen through the eyes of an educated Bay Area bohemian. Come for the comic complications of marrying into a conservative ranch family; stay for the enlightened experiments in self-sufficiency." —Lauren Coodley, author of Upton Sinclair: California Socialist, Celebrity Intellectual "An engrossing and beautifully-written story of love, cultural differences, and survival in the Arizona desert." —Margaret Cruikshank, Ph.D., author of Learning to Be Old: Gender, Culture and Aging "I met Jo Alexander in the Haight Ashbury when she was a dynamic presence for the people's politics, an acclaimed author, a mentor to aspiring writers, and a force of nature, as witnessed by this memoir. More precious than gold, Jo Alexander's voice and vivid memories attest that women have always held up half the sky, and sometimes more." —Camille Cusumano, author of Tango: An Argentine Love Story "Gripping, funny, and heartwarming. A feminist tour de force of a woman who discovered her own strength, resourcefulness, skill, and courage." —Bettina Aptheker, Professor Emerita, Feminist Studies, UC Santa Cruz "Jo Alexander was a talented writer indeed, and her ability to depict specific scenes and characters with precision, insight, and humor is impressive. She was a keen observer, an honest and kind person, and of course, a very intelligent and courageous woman." —Hava Samuelson, Regents Professor of History, Arizona State University Josephine Alexander (1909-1993) was born in Biloxi, Mississippi, raised in New Orleans, and studied English and anthropology at UC Berkeley. During the Depression, she spent fourteen years as an Arizona homesteader and dude rancher, and in 1948, returned to California, where she worked as a prize-winning journalist and photographer to support herself and her two children. Jo's 1981 book, America Through the Eye of My Needle (The Dial Press), received widespread praise for its analysis of business conglomerates' problematic power.   Praise for America Through the Eye of My Needle: "If everyone would read Alexander's clear-eyed lucid appraisal of society's ills and their causes, we might begin to beat pollution, inflation, unemployment, emotional and physical starvation in the midst of riches."— Publisher's Weekly   A "wise, unpretentious book in which Alexander emerges a kind of late 20th Century Thomas Paine."— San Francisco Chronicle   Literary Award for At Sea on the Range: The Great Southwest Book Festival for Memoir (2025)