Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Natural Areas, Regions, And Two Centuries Of Environmental Change On The Great Plains, David J. Wishart Jan 2006

Natural Areas, Regions, And Two Centuries Of Environmental Change On The Great Plains, David J. Wishart

Great Plains Quarterly

A careful reading of recent issues of the Natural Areas Journal, the publication of the Natural Areas Association, will leave you with the conclusion that humans are not a part of natural areas. When humans do appear, it is either as disturbing agents, disrupting the naturalness through, for example, the introduction of exotic plants and animals, or as managers, enhancing the naturalness through, for example, prescribed burning. This is an explicit and purposeful exclusion: "We can probably all agree," wrote the editor of the journal in 2004, "that 'natural' places are areas where human actions have minimally changed the …


Migration Out Of 1930s Rural Eastern Oklahoma: Insights For Climate Change Research, Robert Mcleman Jan 2006

Migration Out Of 1930s Rural Eastern Oklahoma: Insights For Climate Change Research, Robert Mcleman

Great Plains Quarterly

I undertook an investigation of how rural populations responded to a period of adverse climatic conditions in rural eastern Oklahoma during the 1930s, with particular interest in those households that adapted by migrating to rural California. This is not the first time that 19305 Oklahoma has been the subject of research into how people and communities adapt to difficult environmental conditions. In the wake of a 1985 conference entitled "Social Adaptation to Semi-Arid Environments" at the Center for Great Plains Studies in Lincoln, Great Plains Quarterly presented a series of papers by well-known scholars exploring human-environment interactions that gave rise …


Wither The Fruited Plain: The Long Expedition And The Description Of The "Great American Desert", Kevin Z. Sweeney Apr 2005

Wither The Fruited Plain: The Long Expedition And The Description Of The "Great American Desert", Kevin Z. Sweeney

Great Plains Quarterly

The view from Pikes Peak is breathtaking. Situated where the Great Plains meets the Rocky Mountains, one feels as if the whole nation is laid out before you. It is the perfect vantage point from which to write an inspirational anthem to the environmental magnificence of the United States. In the summer of 1893, Katherine Lee Bates, a Wellesley College English professor, sat on the summit of Pikes Peak, inspired by the panorama to pen the words to "America the Beautiful." Her poem was set to the tune "Materna" by Samuel Augustus Ward two years later to become one of …