American Studies Commons^™

Desegregating State Universities In The Great Plains, Raymond Wolters

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

On February 9, 1969, the University of Oklahoma kicked off its annual Black History Week with an especially distinguished visitor, the noted African American author and television journalist Louis E. Lomax. After Lomax's public address, there was a reception at the home of George Henderson, one of only a handful of black professors at the university and the first African American ever to purchase a home in the university town of Norman. When Henderson escorted Lomax back to his room at the Holiday Inn, the two reminisced about the civil rights movement. "Then, as if speaking to himself, [Lomax] said …

Review Of War Party In Blue: Pawnee Scouts In The U.S. Army By Mark Van De Logt, Kevin Adams

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

There are many positive things to say about Mark van de Logt's study of Pawnee Indian scouts. The research, particularly in primary sources, is deep, while van de Logt's prose is so clean it practically sparkles. War Party in Blue is the result of great care taken by both author and press.

Van de Logt's intent, as expressed in his clear and concise introduction, is to revise traditional interpretations that attribute the scouts' success to Major Frank North's leadership. Given the contours of historical scholarship in the mid-twentieth century, as well as the voluminous accounts left us by Luther North, …

Review Of Bound Like Grass: A Memoir From The Western High Plains By Ruth Mclaughlin, Linda K. Karell

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

At a time when so many recent western women's memoirs either eschew the family farm or ranch as a bastion of male domination, or praise it as the fading location of authentic westernness, Ruth McLaughlin's memoir hits a new and sometimes heartbreaking note. Set in the High Plains of northern Montana, the memoir's dustcover photograph is riveting in its expressive ordinariness-and is a courageous choice to represent the lives within. Next to a barbed-wire fence, young Ruth, farm-kid skinny in oversized play clothes, gently pats a calf on the head. Behind them the landscape rolls on promisingly. Within the first …

Great Plains Quarterly Volume 31 / Number 4/ Fall 2011

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Contents

Book Reviews

Notes and News

Review Of Cowboy's Lament: A Life On The Open Range By Frank Maynard, Kenneth L. Untiedt

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Jim Hoy, who edited this volume of the Voice in the American West series, discovered a gold mine when he happened upon Frank Maynard's unpublished autobiography and personal papers. Cowboy's Lament, comprising these documents, is a beneficial resource for Great Plains historians, scholars researching the literature of the American West, and even folklorists. Maynard, who is credited with penning the lyrics to what most people recognize as "The Streets of Laredo," was a mostly self-educated "rangIer" who had the good sense to record his adventures on the frontier. Although he had limited success in publishing his narrative during his lifetime, …

Review Of Frontier Feminist: Clarina Howard Nichols And The Politics Of Motherhood By Marilyn S. Blackwell And Kristen T. Oertel, Barbara Cutter

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

After a difficult first marriage that ended in divorce, Clarina Irene Howard Nichols became an avid supporter of married women's property rights, mothers' custody rights, and, eventually, female suffrage. She was a journalist, a newspaper editor, and in 1852 she became the first woman to speak to the Vermont state legislature, in an address in favor of women's school suffrage. By 1853, she was traveling through the Northeast and Midwest as a public lecturer on temperance and women's rights. She emigrated to Kansas in 1854 as a strong advocate of the free soil cause, but also because she had high …

Review Of Looking Back: Canadian Women's Prairie Memoirs And Intersections Of Culture, History, And Identity By S. Leigh Matthews, Lori Ann Lahlum

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

In Looking Back, Leigh Matthews, a literary scholar, argues that memoirs written by white, English-speaking women who settled in western Canadian prairie communities have been "lost or ignored" and have received little "critical attention from both historians and literary critics." These published accounts of the Euro-Canadian "prairie settlement project" or "homesteading project," terminology used throughout the book, allow Matthews to assess the "Prairie Woman," the stereotypical image of the white, English-speaking female settler, against the more nuanced and diverse experiences of the "prairie woman" who actually migrated to the region. These memoirs, Matthews asserts, both "confirm and challenge …

Review Of Bad Land Pastoralism In Great Plains Fiction By Matthew J. C. Cella, Becky Faber

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Matthew Cella's Bad Land Pastoralism in Great Plains Fiction is based on the concept of "the dialogue between human culture and nonhuman nature on the Great Plains" as explored through the region's literature. Cella defines "bad land pastoralism" as "a persistent effort to both confront and transcend the losses accrued during the ongoing attempt to permanently inhabit a bioregion defined by motion and transience." The reader, to follow Cella's argument, must consider and reconsider the stereotypes of the Great Plains, particularly as they apply to how the region was populated and what the concept of land can mean to Plains …

Guggenheim For Governor Antisemitism, Race, And The Politics Of Gilded Age Colorado, Michael Lee

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

In the summer of 1893 financial panic struck Colorado. The price of silver, in a protracted downward spiral since the conclusion of the Civil War, finally crashed. The British government announced that its Indian mints were ceasing the coinage of silver rupees. The news of that decision caused a torrent of selling on the international market. In a matter of hours, the price of silver plummeted from eighty cents to sixty-four cents an ounce. The collapse in value of Colorado's most important commodity precipitated runs on local banks. Twelve banks alone collapsed in Denver during the month of July. By …

Review Of Tillie Olsen: One Woman, Many Riddles By Panthea Reid, Cinzia Biagiotti

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The large book by Panthea Reid (449 pages, 16 chapters, a prologue, epilogue, and three appendices) tracks Tillie Olsen's long life (1912-2007) step by step, beginning from the Jewish-Russian origins of both her maternal and paternal families, up to her death on January 1, 2007.

The book could have been a useful addition to Olsen scholarship, if not for the biographer's insistent efforts to destroy the image of a writer and a woman who was committed so extensively to unhinging the political, social, and cultural stereotypes built up to contain the action of women in America and elsewhere.

Review Of West And West: Reimagining The Great Plains By Joe Deal, Larry Schwarm

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The geography of the Great Plains defies conventions of what a beautiful landscape is supposed to be. There are no mountains, forests, or pristine streams and lakes. It is mostly a flat horizon line, broken by an occasional tree, and bodies of water are almost always muddy ponds. To the untrained eye, it appears featureless.

It takes a special understanding to appreciate its vastness and subtleties. It requires an especially acute sensitivity to be able to translate these qualities to a photographic image. Most photographers approach this landscape looking for atypical qualities, anomalies rather than the common.

Joe Deal in …

Effects Of Herbicides And Grazing On Floristic Quality Of Native Tallgrass Pastures In Eastern South Dakota And Southwestern Minnesota, Alexander J. Smart, Matthew J. Nelson, Peter J. Bauman, Gary E. Larson

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Historic herbicide use and grazing have influenced natural diversity and quality of native pasturelands in the Great Plains. Floristic quality assessments are useful to assist agencies in prioritizing conservation practices to enhance native grasslands. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of past land-use practices on the floristic quality of remnant native pastures in eastern South Dakota and southwestern Minnesota. Floristic quality assessments were conducted on 30 native pastures and categorized by past management practices (herbicide application and grazing intensity). Mean coefficient of conservatism (C) and floristic quality index (FQI) were calculated for each site~Results showed that …

New Records Of Carrion Beetles In Nebraska Reveal Increased Presence Of The American Burying Beetle, Nicrophorus Americanus Olivier (Coleoptera: Silphidae), Jessica Jurzenski, Daniel G. Snethen, Mathew L. Brust, W. Wyatt Hoback

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Surveys for the American burying beetle, Nicrophorus americanus Olivier (Silphidae), between 2001 and 2010 in Nebraska resulted in 11 new county records for this endangered species and 465 new county records for 14 other silphid species. A total of 5,212 American burying beetles were captured in more than 1,500 different locations. Using mark-recapture data, we estimated the population size of the American burying beetle (ABB) for six counties in the Sandhills. Blaine County (2003) had the largest population, with an estimated 56 ABBs per km² (1,338 ± 272 ABBs). The remaining estimates were between 2 and 36 ABBs per …

Review Of Manitoba Politics And Government: Issues, Institutions, Traditions. Edited By Paul G. Thomas And Curtis Brown., Jim Mochoruk

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

This collection of20 essays stems from a conference held at St. Johns College, University of Manitoba, in the fall of 2008, convened specifically to address what its organizers (now the book's editors) saw as the most glaring gaps in the coverage of "various aspects of Manitoba society, politics, government and contemporary policy issues." As with all such projects-especially when contributors come from several different fields-the contents are a bit uneven. Indeed, readers may feel somewhat whipsawed as they move from the smooth prose and deft touch of western Canada's leading historian, Gerry Friesen (who provides the first substantive chapter), to …

Ecoregional Differences In Late-20th-Century Land-Use And Land-Cover Change In The U.S. Northern Great Plains, Roger F. Auch, Kristi Sayler, Darrell E. Napton, Janis L. Taylor, Mark S. Brooks

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Land-cover and land-use change usually results from a combination of anthropogenic drivers and biophysical conditions found across multiple scales, ranging from parcel to regional levels. A group of four Level III ecoregions located in the u.s. northern Great Plains is used to demonstrate the similarities and differences in land change during nearly a 30-year period (1973-2000) using results from the U.S. Geological Survey's Land Cover Trends project. There were changes to major suites of land-cover; the transitions between agriculture and grassland/shrubland and the transitions among wetland, water, agriculture, and grassland/shrubland were affected by different factors. Anthropogenic drivers affected the land-use …

Review Of Holy Ground, Healing Water: Cultural Landscapes At Waconda Lake, Kansas. By Donald J. Blakeslee., Lauren W. Ritterbush

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

In Holy Ground, Healing Water readers are treated to a historical journey through the changing cultural landscapes of the Waconda Lake area, northcentral Kansas. This region provides the setting for discussion of unique and representative Native American and EuroAmerican cultural developments in the Great Plains. Don Blakeslee, anthropologist with Wichita State University, briefly reviews roughly 13,000 years ofNative traditions, based on archaeological investigations in the region, then discusses the Pawnee Trail, early European and Euro-American expeditions, complex Native-Native and Native-Euro-American interactions during the 19th century, sacred and secular perceptions and uses of Waconda Spring, and Lincoln Park, a local example …

Review Of Food Justice. By Robert Gottlieb And Anupama Joshi., Toby Ten Eyck

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

It is a story about food we have heard before-big is bad; small, local, and organic is better; and if you can link small, local, and organic to students, that is best of all. Part of the problem is that the usual suspects-WalMart, McDonalds, PepsiCo, etc.-have so many more resources than the usual cast of small-is-good heroes eking out a living from the earth and hard work: organic farmers , migrant workers, CSA founders and operators, and similar supporters. Gottlieb and Joshi provide some hope by pointing to a few small victories among the heroes, but it is a fight …

Review Of A Field Guide To The Amphibians And Reptiles Of Nebraska. By Daniel D. Fogell., Joseph T. Collins

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

A good field guide to any wildlife group includes an identification key, quality photographs, distribution maps, and a natural history summary. The recently published Field Guide to the Amphibians and Reptiles of Nebraska does not fail the reader in this regard, having all of these features and more. Dan Fogell effectively presents all 62 species of amphibians, turtles, and reptiles native to Nebraska as well as four additional species of possible occurrence within the state, and all in a useful and compact guide that can be toted easily on a hike or any other field expedition.

This long-overdue updated field …

Review Of Generous Man - Ahxs-I-Tapina: Essays In Memory Of Colin Taylor, Plains Indian Ethnologist. Edited By Arni Brownstone And Hugh Dempsey., Daniel C. Swan

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

This volume celebrates Colin Taylor's contributions to North American ethnology through the presentation 251 of 14 research articles that reflect the diversity and vigor of Taylor's scholarship. Taylor spent his entire life in the Sussex region of southeastern England and the majority of his career teaching at the University of Hastings. His interest in Native Americans began with a boyhood fascination that matured into a disciplined and enduring passion for research and scholarly discourse. Arni Brownstone and Hugh Dempsey, two respected scholars and close friends and colleagues of Taylor, edited the volume. The three of them, along with John C. …

Review Of Hard Grass: Life On The Crazy Woman Bison Ranch. By Mary Zeiss Stange, Linda M. Hasselstrom

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Twenty years ago, Stange and her husband traded a modest New Jersey house for seven square miles of overgrazed prairie and set out to right the wrongs done to a place that had been mismanaged ecologically as well as environmentally. The restoration begins disastrously with llamas before it proceeds to success with bison. Her narration includes her own experiences, but most of her essays are serious, in-depth studies of the broader topics that constitute life in the great grasslands spreading across the interior of the country. She begins with prehistory, analyzing the evolution of both plants and animals in the …