Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Review Of Sharing The 49th Parallel: A Handbook For Montana Officials, Robert W. Wright

Great Plains Quarterly

This book presents an encyclopedic summary of the political, economic, geographic, and social structure of Canada, written to provide public officials in Montana with background information to use when Canadian issues become relevant to their decision processes. This review is written by a Canadian who is reasonably knowledgeable about his country but who knows nothing about the information gaps in the minds of Montana officials; it should be interpreted within this context.

Great Plains Quarterly, Volume [6], No. [1], Winter 1986

Great Plains Quarterly

PICTURES AND PROSE: ROMANTIC SENSIBILITY AND THE GREAT PLAINS IN CATLIN, KANE, AND MILLER -Ann Davis and Robert Thacker

RITUAL PAGEANTRY IN THE AMERICAN WEST: A WYOMING CASE STUDY -Audrey C. Shalinsky

THE BIG ROCK CANDY MOUNTAIN: THE CONSEQUENCES OF A DELUSORY AMERICAN DREAM - Kenneth C. Mason

KANSAS THROUGH THE EYES OF KANSANS: PREFERENCES FOR COMMONLY VIEWED LANDSCAPES -Roxane Fridirici and Stephen E. White

BOOK REVIEWS

The Sixth Grandfather: Black Elk's Teaching Given to John G. Neihardt

A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians

The Indian Frontier of the American West, 1846-1890

Native Faces: Indian Cultures in …

Pictures And Prose Romantic Sensibility And The Great Plains In Catlin, Kane, And Miller, Ann Davis, Robert Thacker

Great Plains Quarterly

The romantic movement in America, like that in Europe, was characterized by fondness for the exotic and observation of nature. So the Great Plains and the peoples who lived there were favored topics of artists and writers from the mid-1820s through the 1850s. However, at its height the American romantic movement was challenged by a subtle but persistent search for realism. The distinctions between romanticism and realism in belles lettres were not always recognized, since early visual depictions of the plains were seen primarily as ethnographic material, records of an unknown land and the exotic beings who lived there. The …

The Big Rock Candy Mountain The Consequences Of A Delusory American Dream, Kenneth C. Mason

Great Plains Quarterly

Wallace Stegner's great, obsessive theme, evidenced in all of his novels, from the first, Remembering Laughter (1938), to the latest, Recapitulation (1979), is the hard, painful process by which solid, culture-engendering and -preserving values are achieved. The portrayal of intrafamilial conflicts and tensions, extending across generations, has been the means by which Stegner has most successfully demonstrated this process of acquiring civilization-building values. Stegner has left the depiction of the alienation and angst of the modern antihero to others. The family is what truly inspires him, stimulating him to give sensate fictional body to his ideas. Critics have recognized this …

Review Of The Sixth Grandfather: Black Elk's Teachings Given To John G. Neihardt, Edited By Raymond J. Demallie, Paul Olson

Great Plains Quarterly

When John Neihardt finished Black Elk Speaks, he put on deposit in the University of Missouri library the rough English expansion of the shorthand from which he worked and the shorthand transcript of Ben Black Elk's translation of his father's life story. Raymond DeMallie has now edited this material to bring us as close as we are likely to get to what Black Elk actually did speak. DeMallie has done a first rate job. The outcome is a book useful for what it contributes to our understanding of Sioux iconography, Siouan perceptions of negotiations with the United States, Black …

Index

Great Plains Quarterly

Index 315-321 (6 pages)

Notes & News

Great Plains Quarterly

IN MEMORIAM (Henry Nash Smith)

CENTER FOR GREAT PLAINS STUDIES SYMPOSIA

THE ETHNIC AMERICAN WOMAN (Edith Blicksilver)

HERBERT HOOVER FELLOWSHIPS AND GRANTS

ERRATA

The Great Plains Transition Area Revisited: A Review Essay, Howard W. Ottoson

Great Plains Quarterly

A review of Land and People in the Northern Plains Transition Area (Lincoln, 1966), by Howard W. Ottoson, Eleanor M. Birch, Philip Henderson, and A. H. Anderson.

I feel somewhat like Rip Van Winkle as he returned to his village from his nap. Twenty years have passed since Land and People in the Northern Plains Transition Area was published and thirty since the studies on which it was based were begun. I have not been napping, but I feel like a stranger to a geographical area to which I once committed much time working with others to understand some of …

Table Of Contents

Great Plains Quarterly

CULTURAL AND ECONOMIC RESILIENCE AMONG THE KICKAPOO INDIANS OF THE SOUTHWEST (Joseph B. Herring)

THE GREAT PLAINS TRANSITION AREA REVISITED: A REVIEW ESSAY (Howard W. Ottoson)

BOOK REVIEWS

NOTES & NEWS

INDEX

Review Of Big Bear: The End Of Freedom By Hugh A. Dempsey, Robert S. Allen

Great Plains Quarterly

Like his previous publications on Crowfoot (1972), Charcoal's World (1978), and Red Crow (1980), Hugh A. Dempsey's Big Bear: The End of Freedom (1984) makes extensive and effective use of Indian legends and oral data. Who knows if the visions and mystical experiences of Big Bear, as told to Dempsey by native informants, are true or accurate; and who cares? The stories are entertaining, illuminating, probably possess the substance of truth, and would certainly be as authentic as much of the written records of those days. The Indian oral reminiscences are more than complemented by a careful research of the …

Review Of Stampede City: Power And Politics In The West Edited By Chuck Reasons, Brenton M. Barr

Great Plains Quarterly

Stampede City inquires into the boom and bust generated by the petroleum industry in Calgary, Alberta, between the mid 1970s and early 1980s. Calgary is Canada's sixth largest population center but is the corporate and financial center of the country's petroleum industry. In economic terms, what benefits that industry benefits the city. The authors of this book argue that what is good for the petroleum industry, however, is not always good for all inhabitants of Calgary. The headings of Stampede City's nine lively and provocative chapters reflect many of the authors' sentiments: "Calgary: Where Free Enterprise costs a little more"; …

Review Of Prairie Politics And Society: Regionalism In Decline By Roger Gibbins And The Making Of The Modern West: Western Canada Since 1945 Edited By A. W. Rasporich, William P. Brown, John Dinse

Great Plains Quarterly

Both of these books address regionalism in Western Canada. Prairie Politics and Society, written by a political scientist from the University of Calgary, emphasizes the socio-economic development of the prairie provinces, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, providing an integrated examination of prairie politics throughout the twentieth century. The Making of the Modern West, with its mid-century focus, provides a collection of varied descriptive and analytic essays about all aspects of economic, social, and political life in the prairie provinces. Both books are well worth reading. Canadian readers will benefit from the scholarly attention that details the realities of those vital provinces. …

Review Of Firearms Of The American West, 1803-1865 By Louis A. Garavaglia And Charles G. Worman, Warren W. Caldwell

Great Plains Quarterly

The subject of this volume is not one with which most readers of the Great Plains Quarterly will be familiar, yet firearms were the basic tools of survival during the "conquest" of the plains frontier. Often they were also symbols of power. Over the years, a popular literature concerned with firearms in the West has grown. Higher quality firearms history has, with too few exceptions (the books of Hanson and Carl Russel, for instance) not been brought to bear directly upon the West. Many previous syntheses of western arms were the work of dedicated hobbyists lacking the training necessary for …

Review Of Rebel For Rights: Abigail Scott Duniway By Ruth Barnes Moynihan, D'Ann Campbell

Great Plains Quarterly

Until now, Abigail Scott Duniway's polemical autobiography, Path Breaking, served as the standard work concerning the life and contributions of the foremost proponent of women's rights in the West. Duniway deserves more, and with the publication of Rebel for Rights we now have a balanced, insightful, comprehensive biography.

Wallace M. Short: Iowa Rebel By William H. Cumberland, Thomas Burnell Colbert

Great Plains Quarterly

Wallace M. Short, a clergyman influenced by the Social Gospel of Washington Gladden and the Progressivism of Robert M. La Follette, was defrocked by the Congregational Church in 1916, in large part for his opposition to prohibition and his defense of organized labor. Two years later he became mayor of Sioux City, Iowa, and for the next three decades he was a conspicuous figure in state politics.

Patterns Of Prejudice: A History Of Nativism In Alberta By Howard Palmer, Jorgen Dahlie

Great Plains Quarterly

For almost two decades Howard Palmer has worked with impressive diligence to build a foundation of knowledge on ethnic relations in a province where, as he notes, "in a number of Alberta communities, the combinations of peoples are unique in the history of the world" (p. 6). Few readers of this monograph would disagree with that observation. Furthermore, many will discern that while the book purports to have a limited focus, the range and depth of Palmer's research quickly establish that this volume is no parochial examination of the subject of nativism. Whether he deals with the rise and subsidence …

Review Of Edmund Morris: Frontier Artist By Jean S. Mcgill And Land Of Earth And Sky: Landscape Painting Of Western Canada By Ronald Rees, Richard W. Etulain

Great Plains Quarterly

In a brief, narrative biography of Edmund Morris, a Canadian artist of landscapes and Indians, Jean McGill describes the major events of his life and carrer. She is particularly factual in treating his educational experiences, his family and friends, and his varied, numerous paintings. Sometimes, however, these sections are little more than listings. Indeed, th~ unanalytical quality of this book is its major limitation. Often quoting the opinions of others, the author seems hesitant-almost unable-to put forth her critical reactions to Morris's life and works. Instead of evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the paintings noted, she includes extensive commentaries …

Review Of The Cpr West: The Iron Road And The Making Of A Nation Edited By Hugh A. Dempsey, Lillian F. Gates

Great Plains Quarterly

This volume is a collection of fifteen of the essays presented at a conference organized by the Glenbow Museum of Calgary, Alberta, where there is ample source material on the Canadian Pacific Railway. These essays give us something other than an account of the difficult work of exploring for and constructing the railway and of getting and maintaining financial and political support for it. They tell us how people were affected by the railway, how new communities were created, how the hopes of older ones were destroyed, how prairie agriculture and new industries like coal and oil were promoted, and …

Review Of Loren Eiseley: The Development Of A Writer By E. Fred Carlisle And Loren Eiseley By Leslie E. Gerber And Margaret Mcfadden, Nancy Bernhardt Holland

Great Plains Quarterly

Students of Loren Eiseley who have long looked forward to an account of his life more complete than that found in All the Strange Hours, the episodic and ruminative volume Eiseley designated as his autobiography, have new grounds for disappointment. E. Fred Carlisle in Loren Eiseley: The Development of a Writer and Leslie E. Gerber and Margaret McFadden in the Loren Eiseley volume of Ungar's Literature and Life series provide some pleasant reading but fail to capture the essential Eiseley.

Review Of Kansas Geology; An Introduction To Landscapes, Rocks, Minerals, And Fossils Edited By Rex Buchanan, David B. Loope

Great Plains Quarterly

This volume, intended for readers with little or no background in earth science, delivers not only an excellent summary of the geologic materials of Kansas, but provides many of the clues by which geologists have been able to unravel nearly a half-billion years of the state's prehistory. The first chapter, by Frank Wilson, explains the intimate relationship between bedrock and topography that is so beautifully displayed in Kansas landscapes. The ridges, hills, and cliffs of the southeast are developed on the oldest strata exposed in the state; the High Plains, occupying most of the western third of Kansas, are underlain …

Review Of A Buffalo Round-Up: A Selected Bibliography By George W. Arthur, Roy W. Meyer

Great Plains Quarterly

Compiling a bibliography of the buffalo might seem an impossible task, given the immense number of authors who have dealt with the subject. Certainly knowing what to leave out is as important as knowing what to put in. George W. Arthur has tried to set some limits to the scope of his "buffalo roundup" by excluding much (but not all) fiction and being highly selective about his inclusion of European sources. A large proportion of his titles comprise works of historical importance, either by nineteenth-century (and earlier) visitors to the North American Plains or by more recent historians. The fields …

Review Of Women And Indians On The Frontier, 1825-1915 By Glenda Riley, Darlis A. Miller

Great Plains Quarterly

Glenda Riley, professor of history at the University of Northern Iowa, has long been interested in documenting women's role in settling the West. Author of Frontierswomen, The Iowa Experience and numerous articles on western women's history, Riley breaks new ground in Women and Indians on the Frontier by focusing upon westering white women's attitudes toward and relationships with American Indians. Riley presents an interesting and controversial thesis, one that some western history scholars will challenge. After studying more than one hundred fifty westering women's diaries, log books, memoirs, and letters and an equal number of westering men's records, she concludes …

Review Of The History Of Prairie Theatre By E. Ross Stuart, Susan Minsos

Great Plains Quarterly

E. Ross Stuart's encyclopedic text, The History of Prairie Theatre-the development of theatre in Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan- is simply too short. Selectively chronicling theatrical events on the Canadian Prairies, stressing "facts rather than opinions," Stuart firmly refuses to evaluate the matters he records. But the man does set out to cover a vast, unexplored territory, a task he completes with admirable success. Stuart clinically divides his research into four areas: Pioneer Times, Amateur Theatre, Educational Theatre, and New Professional Theatre. Analysis focuses around major prairie centers, Winnipeg, Regina-Saskatoon, Edmonton- Calgary-Banff, and since their theatre histories in some cases …

Review Of Forging New Rights In Western Waters By Robert G. Dunbar, William D. Rowley

Great Plains Quarterly

Dunbar does not address this thorny question. What has resulted is a remarkably useful survey of the flourishing of these "new" rights in western waters. Students of resource policy as well as water law historians will find this volume crucial to any beginning studies on this complex topic. It offers encouragement and understanding even to the timid who previously had avoided the jungle of water resource law in the West.

Review Of Phil Sheridan And His Army By Paul Andrew Hutton, Michael L. Tate

Great Plains Quarterly

Drawing upon extensive manuscript collections, government documents, and other published materials, Hutton has provided us with the definitive treatment of Sheridan's western command. Going well beyond Carl Coke Rister's outdated and narrowly-focused Border Command: General Phil Sheridan in the West (1944), he has artfully synthesized the course of American Indian and military policies from the 1867-1868 winter campaign along the Washita through the 1874 Red River War and the 1876-1877 Little Big Horn and Yellowstone expeditions, to the conclusion of the 1885-1886 Apache War. Never content to merely rehash familiar materials about narrow battlefield tactics, the author has kept the …

Review Of America's Country Schools By Andrew Guilliford, Courtney Ann Vaughn-Roberson

Great Plains Quarterly

In Andrew Guilliford's view, many scholars have portrayed the history of American country schools in too narrow a fashionpresenting them as either pedagogical disasters or as images of the nation's success. Thus, the purpose of Guilliford's quite readable book, America's Country Schools, is to present a balanced interpretation of the historic educational setting, reconciling the beneficial elements of traditional education with some of its well-founded criticisms. Although his primary contribution to the literature is a large pictorial collection, Guilliford cites a wealth of scholarly works in his historical review. He takes into account the quality of curricula and teachers, …

Federal Land Reclamation In The Dust Bowl, R. Douglas Hurt

Great Plains Quarterly

In the spring of 1932, dust clouds swept over portions of the southern Great Plains. For the next six years, drought and the prevailing winds wreaked havoc over fifty million acres across northeastern New Mexico, southeastern Colorado, western Kansas, and the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma-an area known by 1935 as the Dust Bowl. Much of that acreage was submarginal-land that, given the price of wheat, did not merit cultivation-and it was easily windblown. Tillage with one-way disk plows pulverized the powder-dry soil, and the nearly constant winds blew and drifted it across crop and grasslands. During the remainder of …

Notes & News

Great Plains Quarterly

CENTER FOR GREAT PLAINS STUDIES SYMPOSIA

OTHER UPCOMING CONFERENCES

CALL FOR PAPERS

A PERSONAL NOTE

The Dust Bowl Historical Image, Psychological Anchor, And Ecological Taboo, William E. Riebsame

Great Plains Quarterly

T he Dust Bowl is an enduring image in the collective consciousness of Americans. Experience and intuition suggest that a few historical events and eras, and their symbols, endure as important cultural memories or benchmarks. The concept of collective cultural myths or symbols is difficult to define or even to examine. Nevertheless, there is compelling prima facie evidence that the American Dust Bowl is a powerful historical symbol; perhaps not one with the power of Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier, but certainly one that focuses attention whenever issues of Great Plains culture and agriculture arise.

In the light of the stringent …

Table Of Contents

Great Plains Quarterly

THE DUST BOWL: AN INTRODUCTION (John Braeman)

WHO WAS "FOREST MAN?" SOURCES OF MIGRATION TO THE PLAINS (John C. Hudson)

THE FUTURE OF THE GREAT PLAINS RE-VISITED (Gilbert F. White)

FEDERAL LAND RECLAMATION IN THE DUST BOWL (R. Douglas Hurt)

THE DIRTY THIRTIES: A STUDY IN AGRICULTURAL CAPITALISM (Donald Worster)

DUST BOWL HISTORIOGRAPHY (Harry C. McDean)

THE DUST BOWL: HISTORICAL IMAGE, PSYCHOLOGICAL ANCHOR, AND ECOLOGICAL TABOO (William E. Riebsame)

BOOK REVIEWS

Struggle and Hope: The Hungarian-Canadian Experience

NOTES & NEWS