Cultural History Commons^™

The 2013 Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize, R. Matthew Joeckel

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

After long deliberations by members of three subcommittees and the chairs of those committees, the Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize was awarded to Blackfoot Redemption: A Blood Indian's Story of Murder, Confinement, and Imperfect Justice, by William E. Farr, published by the University of Oklahoma Press. As the chair of the prize committee, I am pleased to state that many fine books were submitted for the competition, and that each of them was meritorious in some way. Nevertheless, Blackfoot Redemption is unique among the submissions-and indeed among the vast majority of accounts of Plains Native American lives in …

Review Of The James T. Bialac Native American Art Collection: Selected Works Edited By Mark Andrew White, Emma I. Hansen

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Beginning in the 1950s, Arizona collector James T. Bialac assembled an extensive and eclectic collection of Native American art, consisting of approximately 2,500 paintings and 1,500 kachina dolls, baskets, jewelry, pottery, and sculptures. The collection represents several regions, with particular strengths in the southwestern and southeastern United States and the Southern Plains. Produced by the University of Oklahoma in recognition of Bialac's donation of his collection to the university's Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, the catalogue provides an overview of this assemblage, featuring images of selected works and accompanying essays.

Following Mary Jo Watson's introduction, ''A Tradition of Appreciation: …

Review Of Hell Of A Vision: Regionalism And The Modem American West By Robert L. Dorman, Allen Frost

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

This thorough study of the American West takes as a given the region's contested and continuously shifting identity among scholars as well as among artists, activists, and government agencies. One of Robert Dorman's many contributions to the field in Hell of a Vision is his decision to chart the formations of these multiple Wests alongside each other, from the latter half of the nineteenth century to the present day.

The primary texts examined here range from the canonical to the unexpected. Dorman's archive begins with John Wesley Powell's maps of the "Arid Region," produced in 1891 for the U.S. Geological …

Review Of The Indianization Of Lewis And Clark By William Swagerty, Clarissa W. Confer

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

This two-volume work sets out to chronicle and analyze the process of change experienced by the men of the Corps of Discovery as they traveled through the homelands of diverse American Indian cultures on their way to the Pacific and back. Doubtlessly, an undertaking as bold and arduous as the Lewis and Clark expedition altered those who experienced it. One could examine these changes a variety of ways. Here, author William Swagerty focuses on the intersection between Euro- American and Native American cultures-the point at which white men traded aspects of their culture for those of the people they had …

Review Of Living With American Indian Art: The Hirschfield Collection By Alan J. Hirschfield With Terry Winchell, Heather Ahtone

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

As the reality sets in that Native Americans have not become the vanishing race, their continuum of artistic excellence is underscored in the collection amassed by Alan and Berte Hirschfield. Living with American Indian Art documents how these avid collectors have integrated a broad range of cultural materials into a private Wyoming home, reflecting their collecting passion and broad interests. From the TIingit baskets to the Zia pottery to the Cheyenne buckskin dresses, the Native arts found in the Hirschfield collection are exquisite works, in keeping with Alan Hirschfield's mantra, "When you see something beautiful, buy it!"

Fluid Borders, Concrete Locations: Epicenters Of Cross-Cultural Interaction In The Eighteenth Century Borderland Of The Great Lakes, John W. Nelson

Student Publications

In a recent article on the advent of borderlands history as a prominent field of historical scholarship, Pekka Hämäläinen and Samuel Truett described borderlands as “realms where boundaries are also crossroads, peripheries are also central places, homelands are also passing-through places, and the end points of empire are also forks in the road.” One such region that certainly fits this definition of a borderland and unquestionably hosts such specific crossroads and cultural junctions is the maritime region of the Great Lakes of North America. [excerpt]

1 1/2 Years In Death Valley, Louis T. Gentilucci

Student Publications

This paper is an exploration into the historian as an independent source of history. Homer T. Rosenberger was an amateur historian in Pennsylvania during the better part of the 20th century. His works on Pennsylvania history, early American history, and contemporary historical events are valuable, if unknown, resources in those fields. However, Rosenberger becomes his own source of history when his battle with cancer is examined in the context of the American 1950's. Rosenberger's reactions to his plight help illustrate the mindset American brought to cancer in the 1950's and the transition in American society since then.

Where Have All The Symbols Gone?: A Study Of Sufis And Sufi Symbolism In Ottoman Miniature Paintings, Jesse E. Siegel

Student Publications

Ottoman miniature paintings represent some of the best preserved and documented works of Islamic art still extant. They differ critically from other forms of miniature painting, such as Persian miniature painting, by not representing Sufi symbolism. In the two potential sources of such symbolism, Ottoman Sufism and Persian miniature painters in the Ottoman Empire, appear to have not critically influenced Ottoman miniature painting to produce Sufi symbols, do to political, religious, and cultural factors. Instead, political factors of the Ottoman imperial state and the economics and standards of production in the empire produced an art medium where Ottoman Sufi symbols …

Review Of Native Historians Write Back: Decolonizing American Indian History Edited By Susan A. Miller And James Riding In, Angela Parker

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Susan Miller and James Riding In position this anthology as the first to collect historical work from Native scholars participating in an "Indigenous discourse"-an academic conversation "rooted in North American Indigenous thought" and, they claim, global Indigenous thought. If your essentialism alarm bells are ringing, it is for good reason. Ignore the alarms long enough to work your way through the entire anthology and you will find rich, complicated, vibrant historical analysis and critique from Indigenous historians working in Canada and the United States.

The introduction and framing essays by Susan Miller in part 1 elaborate on the idea of …

Review Of A Geography Of Blood: Unearthing Memory From A Prairie Landscape By Candace Savage, Susan Naramore Maher

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Candace Savage and her companion Keith Bell first discovered Eastend, Saskatchewan, on a journey home to Saskatoon from Cody, Wyoming. They planned a brief stopover but ended up hooked on the town, returning for further visits, and finally buying a home. In a sense, Savage has been pursuing a deeper habitation of Eastend for many years. As a recent transplant, she has sought to understand this comer of Saskatchewan across many spatial manifestations and through many layers of cultural existence. A frequent visitor to the Wallace Stegner House, immortalized in Wolf Willow, she has also worked to uproot Stegner's …

Review Of Theodore Roosevelt In The Badlands: A Young Politician's Quest For Recovery In The American West By Roger L. Di Silvestro, Mark Harvey

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Biographers of Theodore Roosevelt have long been aware of the significance of the time he spent in the Badlands of Dakota Territory during the 1880s. After an initial visit in 1883, Roosevelt returned the following year, this time overwhelmed with grief. Earlier that year he had experienced unimaginable personal tragedy when his beloved wife, Alice, and his mother died on the very same day. A few months later TR returned to western Dakota by train, bound for a landscape he hoped would bring him solace, healing, and renewal.

Over the next several years, Roosevelt returned to the Badlands for weeks …

Review Of Terrible Justice: Sioux Chiefs And U.S. Soldiers On The Upper Missouri, 1854-1868 By Doreen Chaky, Steven C. Haack

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

When strong tensions exist between cultures, small incidents can have grave consequences. Thus, in August of 1854, when a Sioux Indian living near Fort Laramie, Nebraska Territory, found a lame cow and killed it to feed his family, a sad chapter began. The cow's emigrant owner complained of his loss to the fort's commander, and Lt. John Grattan was soon on his way to a Sioux encampment to demand that the thief be turned over to face justice. As a cannon rolled into place to reinforce his demand, violence broke out, and thirty soldiers, including Grattan, soon lay dead. Secretary …

Review Of Fighting Their Own Battles: Mexican Americans, African Americans, And The Struggle For Civil Rights In Texas By Brian D. Behnken, Edwin Dorn

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

If you are an African American, a Mexican American, or a progressive Anglo who grew up in Texas in the past century, reading Brian Behnken's book, filled as it is with examples of the state's racism, is sure to tear off a few old scabs. Behnken's main objective, however, is to explain the factors that kept black civil rights activists from working with their Hispanic counterparts to reduce racial segregation and discrimination.

One factor, Behnken argues convincingly, was geography: the battleground for the black struggle was in the eastern part of the state, the Mexican American battleground hundreds of miles …

Ngram 150th: Race, Sex And Big Data, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

Data is powerful in the right hands. Aggregate data is even more powerful. And Google is data.

One of the odder tools in the Google arsenal is the Ngram viewer a search engine which charts trends within the folds of Google Books' database. Punch in anything. I mean it. Try anything in the Ngram search engine and start falling down the historical trends rabbit hole. [excerpt]

The Grizzly, September 26, 2013, Sabrina Mcgettigan, Mary Deliberti, Briana Mullan, Deana Harley, Amanda Frekot, Vivek Reddy, Shawn Hartigan, Olivia Z. Schultz, Jordan Ostrum, Adebayo Adeyemo, Briana Keane, Atticus Graven, Bethany Mitchell, Austin Fox, David Rogers

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Courtyard Pilot Program Extended • "Much Ado" About UC Drama • Extern Program • Marks Discusses Online Education • Live Music at Reimert • Community Yard Sale This Weekend • New Film Professor Joins the Campus • Enactus Prepares for a New Year • Opinion: Make the Most of Your Ursinus Years; School Spirit Should Extend Beyond Campus • Senior Spotlight: Jenna Stover • Topic of Injuries Overshadowing Football Season • Family Day Roundup

Bridget Of Sweden (1303-1373) As Author, Mark E. Peterson

Libraries

No abstract provided.

Things Never Change: Piecing Together College Life, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

Sometimes you stumble on something on eBay you just can't pass up. It's that $6 buy that is awkward, odd and just a little out of your scope. But it's only $6. If you'd buy a burger for $6, you shouldn't pass up an original letter from 1835.

Every letter has a story. And each of those stories has its own drama, its own meaning, its own power. The mundanities of human life can be just as powerful as the battles and charges. [excerpt]

The Grizzly, September 19, 2013, Sabrina Mcgettigan, Briana Mullan, Mary Deliberti, James Wilson, Vivek Reddy, Brandon Patterson, Nicholas Dimuzio, Deana Harley, Shawn Hartigan, Briana Keane, Gerald Merle Gares, Bethany Mitchell, Derrick Falletta, David Rogers

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

New UC Faculty Members' Plans • Sustainability Week at UC • Ursinus Image Beyond Campus • Tuition Based on Other Colleges' Numbers • Honored Professor • Family Day Brings Food, Fun • Student Groups Spread School Spirit • Opinion: Ursinus Needs a Practical Living Course; Community Service Belongs in the Curriculum • Olympics 2020: Tokyo Wins Bid Over Istanbul • Athletic Communications Promotes UC Athletes • Football, Field Hockey, Men's Soccer Take Home Wins

Composing The Party Line: Music And Politics In Early Cold War Poland And East Germany, David G. Tompkins

Purdue University Press Books

This book examines the exercise of power in the Stalinist music world as well as the ways in which composers and ordinary people responded to it. It presents a comparative inquiry into the relationship between music and politics in the German Democratic Republic and Poland from the aftermath of World War II through Stalin’s death in 1953, concluding with the slow process of de-Stalinization in the mid- to late-1950s. The author explores how the Communist parties in both countries expressed their attitudes to music of all kinds, and how composers, performers, and audiences cooperated with, resisted, and negotiated these suggestions …

Pay Them Now, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

Apparently it took the actions of a wealthy spoiled rich white kid to get the attention of the mainstream of American media on the issue of paying college athletes. The case of Johnny “Football” stirred the nation when the NCAA in its continuing quest to embarrass itself suspended the Texas A & M quarterback for signing memorabilia. Johnny signed not to make money, but so that those entrepreneurs who make a living from collecting signatures of athletes on sporting paraphernalia could cash their tickets.