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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Ethnicity, Religion, And Gender: The Women Of Block, Kansas, 1868-1940, Carol K. Coburn
Ethnicity, Religion, And Gender: The Women Of Block, Kansas, 1868-1940, Carol K. Coburn
Great Plains Quarterly
Ethnicity, religion, and gender shape our past, providing a richness and texture to individual and group experience. This experience creates identities and communities that in tum educate the young and ensure the transmission of values, beliefs, and culture across generations. The women of Block, Kansas, provide an opportunity to examine the complex relationship of ethnicity, religion, and gender. Beginning in the late 1860s, this German Lutheran enclave used its ethnic heritage and its religious doctrine to create a separate, distinct community in south central Miami County, Kansas. Trinity Lutheran Church and School served as focal points in the development of …
Structure Of Agriculture And Women's Culture In The Great Plains, Cornella Butler Flora, Jan L. Flora
Structure Of Agriculture And Women's Culture In The Great Plains, Cornella Butler Flora, Jan L. Flora
Great Plains Quarterly
T he family farm has prevailed as a bastion of petty capitalism in the Great Plains. Although capital and labor are highly differentiated in the larger society, they are combined in the family production unit in Great Plains agriculture. In addition to being the economic base for much of the Great Plains from the settlement period onward, the family farm provided a cultural base from which a series of values emerged. Women were important in reproducing this culture that tended to stress agrarian values and the primacy of the family as building blocks for a community based on the values …
Review Of Life Of Bishop Machebeuf., Lance Larsen
Review Of Life Of Bishop Machebeuf., Lance Larsen
Great Plains Quarterly
Original editions of this obscure diocesan biography, the major source of Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop, are all but inaccessible. The present reprint, an exact facsimile of the 1908 version, introduces to a wider audience the lively and memorable Joseph P. Machebeuf, first vicar apostolic of Colorado and Utah. To aid readers, the editors have included a bibliography, an index, and marginal asterisks pointing interested readers to a special notes section.
"There Is Some Splendid Scenery" Womens Responses To The Great Plains Landscape, Julie Roy Jeffrey
"There Is Some Splendid Scenery" Womens Responses To The Great Plains Landscape, Julie Roy Jeffrey
Great Plains Quarterly
During the decades of exploration and settlement of the trans-Mississippi West, travelers and emigrants encountered a new kind of landscape on the Great Plains. Aside from dramatic geological formations like Courthouse Rock, this landscape lacked many of the visual qualities conventionally associated with natural beauty in the nineteenth century. "It may enchant the imagination for a moment to look over the prairies and plains as far as the eye can reach," Sarah Raymond wrote in her diary in 1865, "still such a view is tedious and monotonous. It can in no wise produce that rapturing delight, that pleasing variety of …
Womens Culture In The Great Plains : An Introduction, Helen A. Moore
Womens Culture In The Great Plains : An Introduction, Helen A. Moore
Great Plains Quarterly
Women, including plains Indians, European immigrants, blacks, and Chicanas, have always been essential to the development of Great Plains culture. Bounded by the patriarchal traditions associated with "women's place" in western society, women's diverse experiences are refracted through prisms of class, race, family structure, and work to create women's cultural legacies. In March 1987, scholars and other conference participants gathered in Lincoln, Nebraska, at the eleventh annual symposium of the Center for Great Plains Studies to address the theme of women's culture.
Review Of Helen Hunt Jackson, Valerie Sherer Mathes
Review Of Helen Hunt Jackson, Valerie Sherer Mathes
Great Plains Quarterly
Helen Hunt Jackson, considered by Emerson "the greatest American woman poet," was author of more that thirty books and numerous newspaper pieces and articles. Virtually forgotten today, she is ironically the subject of two short biographies written last year, although neither eclipses the one written in 1939 by Ruth Odell.
Review Of Land Of The Burnt Thigh, Sheryll Patterson-Black
Review Of Land Of The Burnt Thigh, Sheryll Patterson-Black
Great Plains Quarterly
Land of the Burnt Thigh recounts the adventures of two sisters, Edith Eudora Ammons Kohl and Ida Mary Ammons Miller, homesteading in South Dakota in 1907. "Timid as mice" and "city girls" at that, these young women are initially shocked by the rough frontier conditions they encounter but quickly rally to become successful homesteaders; Edith, in addition, becomes a newspaperwoman.
Review Of Emil Loriks: Builder Of A New Economic Order, Jonathan F. Wagner
Review Of Emil Loriks: Builder Of A New Economic Order, Jonathan F. Wagner
Great Plains Quarterly
The author of Emil Loriks: Builder of a New Economic Order wrote the book in order to do justice to the life of her fellow South Dakotan Emil Loriks (1895-1985). Elizabeth Williams, an instructor of journalism and speech at South Dakota State University, has succeeded in producing a eulogy of an interesting and active farm leader. Her biographical portrait loudly praises Loriks for the variety of roles he played: as state legislator and Farm Holiday leader from 1927-34, as unsuccessful liberal Democratic candidate running against Republican Karl Mundt in 1938, as South Dakota Farmer's Union president during the later Depression, …
The Nebraska Capital Controversy, 1854-59, James B. Potts
The Nebraska Capital Controversy, 1854-59, James B. Potts
Great Plains Quarterly
Early in 1857 Mark W. Izard, in a letter to Senator Stephen A. Douglas, summed up the frustrations that marked his tenure as governor of Nebraska Territory. "If there is anything on earth I desire more than all others," he told the Illinois senator, "it is to make this the model territory, and my faith is that if Congress will extend her a moderate share of liberality, the sacred doctrine of popular rights will fully be vindicated in her example." "But," he continued, "the path of your humble servant is extremely narrow and thickly set with snares on every side."l …
Review Of Ghost Towns Of Texas, Suzanne Lindau
Review Of Ghost Towns Of Texas, Suzanne Lindau
Great Plains Quarterly
T. Lindsay Baker, curator of agriculture and technology in the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas, brings back to life eighty-eight Texas ghost towns. In describing each town, Baker relates its founding, its former significance, and the reasons for its decline. In addition, for each townsite he includes a map and full directions for reaching it.
Review Of The Mythic West In Twentieth-Century America, Brian W. Dippie
Review Of The Mythic West In Twentieth-Century America, Brian W. Dippie
Great Plains Quarterly
Robert G. Athearn's The Mythic West in Twentieth-Century America is the capstone to a distinguished career in Western history. It is also a considerable departure from his other work. Athearn began with frontier military history, wrote extensively on railroads and the history of the High Country Empire, and delved into the exodus of blacks into Kansas at the end of the 1870s. His West, the Plains, began one tier of states west of the Mississippi and stopped one short of the Pacific.
Review Of The American Indian And The Problem Of History, Robert H. Keller
Review Of The American Indian And The Problem Of History, Robert H. Keller
Great Plains Quarterly
Long before it became fashionable in the 1960s, John G. Neihardt's Black Elk Speaks, the life of an Oglala Sioux holy man, posed problems for historians and anthropologists. Questions of authenticity have been largely solved by scholars such as Raymond DeMallie, but not so the problem of whether historians can incorporate Black Elk's non-western, nonlipear concepts of the world and human affairs into their history. In short, how does a radically different native metaphysic influence writing about Indian-White relations?
Review Of Agricultural Distress In The Midwest, Past And Present, James Lowenberg-Debore
Review Of Agricultural Distress In The Midwest, Past And Present, James Lowenberg-Debore
Great Plains Quarterly
As Gelfand states in his foreword, the purpose of the four papers in this book is to examine the farm problems in the Midwest from the late nineteenth century through the present, comparing reasons for agricultural distress and responses to the problems. Part of that objective is achieved. The first two papers present reasonable overviews of farm problems through the 1930s, with some insights from recent research. The book's plan falters in description of events after 1940 and lacks almost entirely comparisons between past and present.
Review Of Hoofbeats And Society: Studies Of Human-Horse Interactions, Susanne Lindau
Review Of Hoofbeats And Society: Studies Of Human-Horse Interactions, Susanne Lindau
Great Plains Quarterly
Taking her 1982 book, Rodeo: An Anthropologist Looks at the Wild and the Tame, a step further, cultural anthropologist and practicing veterinarian Elizabeth Atwood Lawrence here concentrates on the universal appeal of the horse. Horses, she states, "can be vivid images in human cognitive processes, and frequently serve as meaningful constructs in ordering social relations between people and the work around them" (p. ix). She explores various facets of the human-horse relationship to discover the special appeal and significance of horses in diverse societies.
Review Of Sam Shepard, Carolyn Perry
Review Of Sam Shepard, Carolyn Perry
Great Plains Quarterly
As Shepard creates myths of the modern world in his plays, Patraka and Siegel use these myths to categorize Shepard's works. Thus, their pamphlet systematically describes each plays it contributes to Shepard's unique portrayal of Western America. Realizing the complexity of each Shepard play, Patraka and Siegel do not attempt detailed textual analysis, but rather offer pertinent insights and explanations where most useful. Also, their explication is often enhanced by Shepard's own comments, which illuminate both the works and the playwright himself. Anyone interested in the works of Sam Shepard, and especially those unaccustomed to his ingenious, eccentric style, will …
Review Of Edible Wild Plants Of The Prairie: An Ethnobotanical Guide., Kathleen H. Keeler
Review Of Edible Wild Plants Of The Prairie: An Ethnobotanical Guide., Kathleen H. Keeler
Great Plains Quarterly
This wonderful and long overdue contribution to the regional literature provides a list of native edible plants of the prairie-grasslands and adjoining forest ecosystems. Kindscher is thorough and careful. She provides current and accurate scientific names of the plants as well as Indian and common names. Her detailed descriptions of the uses of the plants are taken from seventeen plains Indian tribes, from diverse settlers' journals, and in many cases from her own experiences of eating the plant. The line drawings are excellent and the helpful range maps make it easy to determine if a particular plant is likely to …
Review Of Cather's Kitchens: Foodways In Literature And Life., John P. Anders
Review Of Cather's Kitchens: Foodways In Literature And Life., John P. Anders
Great Plains Quarterly
As a cookbook, Cather's Kitchens is unexpectedly delightful. As a commentary on Cather's work, the Welsches could not have selected a more appropriate subject, as domestic art for Cather was art of the highest order. The authors expand upon Cather's domesticity by interpreting foodways as a pervasive motif in her plains fiction. For them, understanding Cather means understanding her food.
Prairie Schoolwomen, Mid-1850s To 1920s, In Iowa, Kansas, And Nebraska, Mary Hurlbut Cordier
Prairie Schoolwomen, Mid-1850s To 1920s, In Iowa, Kansas, And Nebraska, Mary Hurlbut Cordier
Great Plains Quarterly
The ideal schoolteacher of the mid-1800s was characterized by Catherine Beecher as an educated, unmarried lady who was "already qualified intellectually to teach, and possessed of missionary zeal and benevolence," she was ready to go "to the most ignorant portions of our land to raise up schools, to instruct in morals and piety, and to teach the domestic arts and virtues. I This description, as applied to the school women of Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas from the mid-1850s to the early 1900s, omits their unique characteristics and contributions. This article seeks to redefine the prairie schoolwomen as western women, both …
Plains Women, Dorothy Schwieder, Deborah Fink
Plains Women, Dorothy Schwieder, Deborah Fink
Great Plains Quarterly
During the Great Depression, farm families throughout the nation experienced severe economic difficulties. Since then, historians and other scholars have analyzed and reanalyzed the basic problems of American agriculture and the solutions offered to those problems. Only recently, however, have the scholars begun to take a wide view of rural society during the 1930s and begun to look at the dynamics of the farm family: the roles, influences, and contributions of farm women and the work roles and treatment of farm children. 1
Review Of Emily: The Diary Of A Hard-Worked Woman, Alice Hall Petry
Review Of Emily: The Diary Of A Hard-Worked Woman, Alice Hall Petry
Great Plains Quarterly
Diaries are among the most unpredictable of literary genres: they can be fascinating, vivid renderings of what life was truly like during key periods in history, or they can be oddly flat, even tedious affairs-especially when they deal with the daily routines of obscure lives. Some diaries, such as Emily: The Diary of a Hard-Worked Woman, manage somehow to be both. Emily Louisa Rood, born in Michigan in 1843, was raised in middle-class surroundings and thus accustomed to some of the finer things in western life, including her own home and her own horse and buggy. But after bearing …
Review Of On The Santa Fe Trail, Glen E. Lich
Review Of On The Santa Fe Trail, Glen E. Lich
Great Plains Quarterly
Twelve sketches populate this pleasant little volume about overland travel between central Missouri and central New Mexico from the 1840s through the 1860s. The informants include teenagers, military and government workers, an aristocrat, a European immigrant, an agent, and a peon. These travelers tell about hardships and danger as they crossed the "vast wild plain" in the years before 1880, when the railroad finally reached Santa Fe.
Review Of Closing The Frontier: Radical Response In Oklahoma, 1883-1923, Garin Burbank
Review Of Closing The Frontier: Radical Response In Oklahoma, 1883-1923, Garin Burbank
Great Plains Quarterly
Any historian declaring his commitment to the tradition of Frederick Jackson Turner must assume that he will encounter controversy and challenge. In Turner's own essays, and in all the durable arguments provoked by his grand thesis, the precise meaning of the rubbery term frontier has been a matter of much confusion and difficulty. John Thompson has made a fresh attempt to use Turner's theory to explain the spontaneity and effervescence of the agrarian and labor insurgencies so strikingly present in "progressive" Oklahoma.
Review Of Alamo Images: Changing Perceptions Of A Texas Experience, Robert A. Calvert
Review Of Alamo Images: Changing Perceptions Of A Texas Experience, Robert A. Calvert
Great Plains Quarterly
Alamo Images is a catalog to accompany an exhibition of artifacts, artworks, books, broadsides, ephemera, memorabilia, pamphlets, motion picture posters, and other items relating to the Alamo that were displayed at Southern Methodist University in 1985 and 1986. The stated purpose of the book and of the exhibition was to "help explain both the Alamo of historical fact and the Alamo of our imagination" (p. 17). The general intellectual assumption behind the book was that the myth of the Alamo had evolved into such a historical icon of patriotism that any attempt at sorting out truth from fanciful fiction would …
Review Of Pahaska Tepee: Buffalo Bill's Old Hunting Lodge And Hotel, A History, 1901-1947, Joni Gilkerson
Review Of Pahaska Tepee: Buffalo Bill's Old Hunting Lodge And Hotel, A History, 1901-1947, Joni Gilkerson
Great Plains Quarterly
Colonel William "Buffalo Bill" Cody's business ventures other than his Wild West' Show have received little attention from scholars. This book provides a history of one of Buffalo Bill's commercial establishments Pahaska Tepee, a hunting lodge and hotel located near the eastern boundary of Yellowstone National Park. Appropriately, the Sioux name means "Long Hair's Lodge."
Plains Song: Wright Morris's New Melody For Audacious Female Voices, Linda M. Lewis
Plains Song: Wright Morris's New Melody For Audacious Female Voices, Linda M. Lewis
Great Plains Quarterly
"Man's culture was a hoax. Was there a woman who didn't feel it? Perhaps a decade, no more, was available to women to save themselves, as well as the planet. Women's previous triumphs had been by default. Men had simply walked away from the scene of the struggle, leaving them with the children, the chores, the culture, and a high incidence of madness." The lines are from Wright Morris's Plains Song: for Female Voices; they represent a "brief resume" of the "forthcoming lecture" by Alexandra Selkirk, a feminist who has just arrived in Grand Island, Nebraska, to rally the …
Review Of The Cheyenne Nation: A Social And Demographic History., Russel Lawrence Barsh
Review Of The Cheyenne Nation: A Social And Demographic History., Russel Lawrence Barsh
Great Plains Quarterly
"Like every nation in the world," John Moore argues in this exceptionally candid and respectful study, "the Cheyenne have cosmopolitan origins." Building on the Cheyenne case, Moore convincingly challenges the persistent characterization of tribal societies as static "crystals" shattered by their collision with European states.
Review Of Rethinking Regionalism: John Steuart Curry And The Kansas Mural Controversy And Grant Wood: A Study In American Art And Culture., Richard W. Etulain
Review Of Rethinking Regionalism: John Steuart Curry And The Kansas Mural Controversy And Grant Wood: A Study In American Art And Culture., Richard W. Etulain
Great Plains Quarterly
In the first of these two volumes, M. Sue Kendall treats the cultural contexts that helped shape the paintings of John Steuart Curry and sparked reactions to his murals at the Kansas statehouse in Topeka. Emphasizing the details of Curry's life and how they interlocked with national, historical, and political happenings between 1937 and 1942, Kendall focuses particularly on the ideological and cultural attitudes that embroiled Curry, newspaper editors, and thousands of Kansans in the mural controversy.