American Studies Commons^™

Review Of A White-Bearded Plainsman: The Memoirs Of Archaeologist W. Raymond Wood. By W. Raymond Wood., Peter Bleed

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

Over a period of more than 50 years, Ray Wood has published a string of major works on Great Plains culture history and other subjects. He has held important professional posts, interacted with a vast cohort, and trained a generation of midcontinent archaeologists. Beyond all that, Ray's memoir, A White-Bearded Plainsman, shows him to be a fine writer and terrific storyteller. Wood presents his story in chronological order, appropriate for a culture historian, but it happens that Ray came up at a time when Plains archaeology was blooming: his story describes the growth of Plains prehistory.

A Conceptual Model To Facilitate Amphibian Conservation In The Northern Great Plains, David M. Mushet, Ned H. Euliss Jr., Craig A. Stockwell

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

As pressures on agricultural landscapes to meet worldwide resource needs increase, amphibian populations face numerous threats including habitat destruction, chemical contaminants, disease outbreaks, wetland sedimentation, and synergistic effects of these perturbations. To facilitate conservation planning, we developed a conceptual model depicting elements critical for amphibian conservation in the northern Great Plains. First, we linked upland, wetland, and landscape features to specific ecological attributes. Ecological attributes included adult survival; reproduction and survival to metamorphosis; and successful dispersal and recolonization. Second, we linked ecosystem drivers, ecosystem stressors, and ecological effects of the region to each ecological attribute. Lastly, we summarized information on …

Parochlus Kiefferi (Garrett, 1925) In Nebraska (Diptera: Chironomidae), Barbara Hayford

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

A rare species of nonbiting aquatic midge, Parochlus kiefferi (Garrett, 1925), was discovered in Squaw Creek in the Pine Ridge of northwest Nebraska. Parochlus is a genus of midge found throughout the Southern Hemisphere and is only represented by this one species in the Northern Hemisphere. The typical North American species distribution of P. kiefferi includes high alpine and northern latitude streams, so the collection of P. kiefferi from a low elevation and low-latitude stream in Nebraska represents a range extension for the species. A survey for P. kiefferi from 83 samples from 53 stream sites in northern Nebraska yielded …

Review Of Lone Star Law: A Legal History Of Texas. By Michael Ariens. Foreword By Gordon Morris Bakken., David Anderson

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

The tidelands case is one of many examples of Ariens's success in weaving the narrative of a legal development into the state's political, economic, and social history. He meticulously analyzes scores of decisions and statutes, clearly and economically explains them, and locates them in the larger history of Texas. Some of Texas legal history is unique because of Texas's origins as a republic and its membership in the Confederacy, but other chapters, particularly those relating to land, minerals, water, and railroads, will resonate in the other Great Plains states. Ariens wisely declines to trumpet Texas exceptionalism. The infatuation with Texas …

Review Of Oral History On Trial: Recognizing Aboriginal Narratives In The Courts. By Bruce Granville Miller, Drew Mildon

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

Anthropologist Bruce Miller's new treatise will prove an essential resource for historians, ethnographers, and anthropologists both inside and outside the academy and for lawyers working in the areas of Aboriginal law and Indigenous rights. Demonstrating the classic "iceberg" principle, Miller's broad and deep knowledge of the contemporary theoretical underpinnings that inform approaches to Indigenous oral history in academic practice and in the courtroom are immediately apparent. He gives us the tip ofthat iceberg in a readable, comprehensible exegesis backed by solid research and accessible references. Addressing the complex theoretical and teleological divisions among disciplines with remarkable lucidity and plain language, …

Adaptation Of Annual Forage Legumes In The Southern Great Plains, John A. Guretzky, Twain J. Butler, Jim P. Muir

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

Our objective was to evaluate adaptation and compatibility of cool-season annual legumes overseeded into perennial grasses in the southern Great Plains. Freeze damage, vigor, and standing crop of 14 annual legume species were evaluated during spring at three locations in Oklahoma and Texas from 2006 to 2008. Across locations and years, standing crop of hairy vetch (Vicia villosa Roth) and Austrian winter pea (Pisum sativum L. ssp. arvense (L.) Poir.] averaged 3,513 and 3,210 kg dry matter (DM) ha^-1, respectively. Standing crop of crimson clover (Trifolium incarnatum L.) and arrowleaf clover (T. vesiculosum Savi) averaged …

Review Of Gathering Places: Aboriginal And Fur Trade Histories. Edited By Carolyn Podruchny And Laura Peers., Frank D. Lewis

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

Gathering Places honors Jennifer S.H. Brown, a leading figure in the Aboriginal history of the Hudson Bay drainage basin. The ten essays and introduction deal with Natives and Native history in the region of Hudson Bay, and there is the influence of Professor Brown; otherwise the topics are diverse. The papers have been grouped into several themes, but broadly speaking there are two types of essays. Some use novel as well as more traditional approaches to shed light on aspects of the Aboriginal experience; the others are methodological, dealing with the writing of First Nations histories.

In an afterword, Jennifer …

Channel Width And Least Tern And Piping Plover Nesting Incidence On The Lower Platte River, Nebraska, Joel G. Jorgensen, Mary Bomberger Brown, Andrew J. Tyre

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

Endangered interior least terns (Sternula antillarum athalassos) and threatened northern Great Plains piping plovers (Charadrius melodus) nest together on midstream sandbars in large rivers in the interior of North America. We investigated the relationship between river channel width and tern and plover nesting incidence on the lower Platte River, Nebraska, using a model-based logistic regression analysis. Multiple channel width measurements and a long-term nesting data set were used in the analysis. Nesting incidence was positively associated with increasing river channel width proximal to the nesting site. At a greater distance, up to 802 m away from …

Review Of Storied Landscapes: Ethno-Religious Identity And The Canadian Prairies. By Frances Swyripa, Hans Werner

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

Frances Swyripa's study of the ethno-religious landscape of the Canadian prairies is a delightful painting of the visual legacy ofthe settlement landscape and at the same time a careful analysis of the nuances that undergirded the religious sensibilities of the particular groups she examines. Storied Landscapes pays most attention to Mennonites, Ukrainians, Doukhobors, and Icelanders, and less to other Scandinavians, other Europeans, and Mormons. Three single location settlements in Saskatchewan are also represented: the Esterhazy-Kaposvar Hungarian settlement, the English Barr Colony near Lloydminster, and the German St. Peter's Colony at Muenster.

Storied Landscapes is a welcome and novel way of …

Review Of Federal Fathers And Mothers: A Social History Ofthe United States Indian Service, 1869-1933. By Cathleen D. Cahill., Stephen J. Rockwell

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

Cathleen Cahill's Federal Fathers and Mothers is an excellent contribution to the literature on social provision, American state development, and Indian affairs. It should be essential reading for scholars using Theda Skocpol's classic Protecting Soldiers and Mothers (1992), and it is a fine addition to the growing number of titles critiquing the traditional view of the 19th-century American state as simple, small, and unobtrusive. Cahill offers a social history of the u.s. Indian Service, especially the School Service, from Reconstruction to the New Deal, focusing on the lives and relationships of Indian and non-Indian men and women in the Service, …

Wetland Hydrodynamics And Long-Term Use Of Spring Migration Areas By Lesser Scaup In Eastern South Dakota, Sharon N. Kahara, Steven R. Chipps

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

Lesser scaup (Aythya affinis [Eyton]) populations remain below their long-term average despite improved habitat conditions along spring migration routes and at breeding grounds. Scaup are typically associated with large, semipermanent wetlands and exhibit regional preferences along migration routes. Identifying consistently used habitats for conservation and restoration is complicated by irregular wetland availability due to the dynamic climate. We modeled long-term wetland use by lesser scaup in eastern South Dakota based on surveys conducted during below-average (1987-1989) and above-average (1993-2002) water condition years. Wetland permanence, longitude, and physiographic region were all significant determinants of use (P < 0.01). Long-term use was best described by a quadratic equation including wetland surface area variability, an index of wetland hydrodynamics that is linked to productivity, biodiversity, and value to waterfowl. Contrary to previous findings, our study shows that over the long term, lesser scaup are more than twice as likely to use permanent wetlands as they are semipermanent wetlands. The northern region of South Dakota's Prairie Coteau, which holds the highest density of hydrologically dynamic permanent wetlands, should be considered an area of conservation concern for lesser scaup. The criteria we identified may be used to identify important lesser scaup habitats in other regions of the Prairie Pothole Region.

Review Of Energy Development And Wildlife Conservation In Western North America. Edited By David E. Naugle., Cameron L. Aldridge

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

Current and pending energy developments are likely to alter nearly 100 million hectares of wildlife habitat. David Naugle has compiled the inaugural synthesis of energy development impacts on wildlife populations across western grassland, shrub land, and forested systems. Part 1 sets the stage, characterizing energy development in the West. In part 2 ("Biological Responses"), Johnson and St-Laurent (chapter 3) propose a unifying experimental framework to monitor and assess consequences of energy development, urging proactive rather than reactionary science, conducted as experiments rather than observations, better informing both science and management. ... [Naugle et al.] eloquently conclude that "this book is …

Review Of Texas Bobwhites: A Guide To Their Foods And Habitat Management. By Jon A. Larson, Timothy E. Fulbright, Leonard A. Brennan, Fidel Hernandez, And Fred C. Bryant., Markus J. Peterson

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

Texas Bobwhites: A Guide to Their Foods and Habitat Management is a pictorial guide to the identification of seeds commonly consumed by northern bobwhites (Colinus virginianus)-- and the plants that produce them--in Texas. The authors "hope that interest in what constitutes good bobwhite habitat among hunters and nature enthusiasts will be enhanced by this guide to the identification of seeds eaten by quail." Targeting this lay audience leads to certain constraints regarding how the text, particularly, is presented. Regardless, because Texas includes much of the southern terminus of the Great Plains, this book is directly relevant to readers …

Custer, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, And The Little Bighorn, Ron Mccoy

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

In the summer of 1876, the United States government launched the Great Sioux War, a sharp instrument intended to force the last nonagency Lakotas onto reservations. In doing so, it precipitated a series of events that proved disastrous for its forces in the short run and calamitous for the Lakotas in the much longer scheme of things.

On June 17, Lakotas and Cheyennes crippled General George Crook's l,300-man force at the Battle of the Rosebud in southern Montana. Eight days later and thirty miles to the west, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, the "Boy General" of Civil War fame, led …

Leading The "Father" The Pawnee Homeland, Coureurs De Bois, And The Villasur Expedition Of 1720, Christopher Steinke

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

In 1742 two sons of the explorer Pierre Gaultier de Varennes de La Verendrye met an indigenous nation they called the Gens de l'Arc somewhere along the middle Missouri River near present-day Pierre, South Dakota.¹ Louis-Joseph and Francois were searching for the mythical Sea of the West, and the former asked the chief of the Gens de l'Arc if he "knew the white people of the seacoast." When the chief replied that "'[tlhe French who are on the seacoast are numerous'" and have "'many chiefs for the soldiers, and also many chiefs for prayer,'" Louis-Joseph believed he had at …

Review Of Queer Indigenous Studies: Critical Interventions In Theory, Politics, And Literature Edited By Qwo-Li Driskill, Chris Finley, Brian Joseph Gilley, And Scott Lauria Morgensen, Margaret Noori

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

A colleague and I were asked recently to speak at the Midwest regional conference for LGBTQ and ally-identified college students. We teach an Indigenous language (Anishinaabemowin), one of us has lived in a same-sex relationship, both of us are allies, but the politics and theory of the community are daunting. As we looked across a sea of young faces, empowered by proximity, we saw hope and we said, "gego bigidnike aanji'igwa." This phrase, "don't let them change you," has long served us teaching about identity, freedom, and survival in Native communities and was perfect for the gathering of young LGBTQ …

Review Of Rich Indians: Native People And The Problem Of Wealth In American History By Alexandra Harmon, Kathleen Pickering Sherman

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Across American history, Native American tribes were impoverished through land and natural resource appropriations accomplished through a wide variety of well-documented political, military, and cultural means. Alexandra Harmon, in her book, provocatively titled Rich Indians, focuses on a handful of exceptions to this statistical pattern to explore American discourses about wealth accumulation by Native Americans. Armed with an impressive collection of primary sources, as well as literature from history and anthropology, Harmon also uncovers parallel discourses by Native Americans themselves about wealth accumulation among their own peoples. The result is a complex, multilayered, and fascinating melange of contradictory attitudes and …

Review Of Hill Country Deco: Modernistic Architecture Of Central Texas By David Bush And Jim Parsons, Richard Cleary

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

In 2008, Jim Parsons and David Bush, staff members of the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance, published Houston Deco: Modernistic Architecture of the Texas Coast, a photographic sampling intended to draw attention to the region's surviving examples of buildings erected between the 1920s and the late 1940s in the modernistic styles popularly known as Art Deco and Art Moderne. Hill Country Deco applies this model to Central Texas, covering an area considerably beyond the geographical Hill Country to include San Antonio and Austin as well as towns in the prairie lands to the east. Like its predecessor, Hill Country Deco …

Review Of Rightful Place By Amy Hale Auker Review Of Honyocker Dreams: Montana Memories By David Mogen, Nick Bascom

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Much contemporary western writing, including memoirs such as Judy Blunt's Breaking Clean (2003), abandons the mythic character of early western narratives, striving instead for realism. These two collections of essays do one better offering a satisfying blend of stark realism and wistful nostalgia for heroic western archetypes. With contrasting educational backgrounds and biographies, their authors show us the West from widely different perspectives: Mogen has taught English at Colorado State University for many years; Auker married at nineteen and has worked on ranches ever since. Yet both strike a similar balance, capturing the harsh truths of western living while describing …

Great Plains Quarterly Volume 32 / Number 1 / Winter 2012

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Contents

Book Reviews

Notes and News

Review Of Myth, Memory, And Massacre: The Pease River Capture Of Cynthia Ann Parker By Paul H. Carlson And Tom Crum, Joaquin Rivaya-Martinez

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The so-called "Battle of Pease River," in which the Comanche Indians purportedly suffered a crucial defeat, has become a recurrent topic in the literature on the Indian wars of the Southern Plains, as well as in the collective memory of Anglo-Texans. In this extraordinary book, Carlson and Crum scrutinize numerous accounts of the event to unveil one of the most blatant fabrications in the history of Texas. The authors' painstaking meticulousness has permitted them to discriminate numerous falsehoods and forgeries from the following few discernable facts: a massacre occurred on the banks of Mule Creek, a tributary of the Pease …

Review Of My Ruby Slippers: The Road Back To Kansas By Tracy Seeley., Sarah Smarsh

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Kansas-born playwright William Inge said, "It wasn't until I got to New York that I became a Kansan." For English professor Tracy Seeley, it was San Francisco that did the trick. For years she lived a life of pleasure there grading papers in hip coffee joints, cycling through the cool fog, reveling in the progressive political climate. Her nomadic Kansas childhood was behind her, even beneath her, she thought. Then, an emotional earthquake- triggered by a cancer diagnosis and the deaths of both parents, in quick succession forces a reckoning with mortality and sends her looking for home. But for …

Review Of Assault On The Deadwood Stage: Road Agents And Shotgun Messengers By Robert K. Dearment, David A. Walker

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Robert DeArment, a prolific historian depicting outlaws, gamblers, and lawmen throughout the American West, focuses on individuals associated with the stagecoach network centered in the boomtown of Deadwood, Dakota Territory. This network stretched across the Northern Plains from presentday Bismarck, North Dakota, to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and on to Sidney, Nebraska, and in each case was linked to a transcontinental railroad.

DeArment introduces his readers to the Texas Gang, the Hat Creek Gang, the Joel Collins Gang, and the Tom Price Gang, as well as to a wide variety of characters with such colorful nicknames as "Big Nose George" Parrott, "Laughing …

Review Of Bird Cloud: A Memoir By Annie Proulx, Alex Hunt

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Annie Proulx's latest is nonfiction, recounting her attempt to inhabit a section of land in south-central Wyoming. While tough winters and unmaintained roads make year-round residence too difficult, Proulx glories in the wild isolation of a place that inspires her to research and write as well as to build fence and monitor eagles. Bird Cloud is a book that Proulx's regulars will find both enjoyable and revealing; however, its self-indulgence and lack of polish leave us with a feeling akin to Proulx's own house high in the mountain valley-it remains raw and isolated.

This is not entirely a negative. Proulx's …

Review Of Llano Estacada: An Island In The Sky Edited By Stephen Bogener And William Tydeman, George Lubick

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

"Island in the Sky" aptly describes the Llano Estacado, the southern extension of the Great Plains that rises some 800 feet above the surrounding terrain in northwestern Texas and northeastern New Mexico. It is this expansive landscape that William Tydeman and Stephen Bogener have placed in the forefront of an excellent collection of essays and photographs that explore the connections between the region's geography and culture. The plateau's flat terrain-"horizontal yellow," as historian Dan Flores has described it-invariably defines the Llano, but Stephen Bogener reminds us also that "85 percent of what the human eye registers on the Llano Estacado …

Review Of Great Sioux War Orders Of Battle: How The United States Army Waged War On The Northern Plains, 1876-1877 By Paul L. Hedren, Charles M. Robinson Iii

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The Great Sioux War of 1876-77 was the greatest Indian war ever fought by the United States government. That, together with the continued fascination of the Little Bighorn, has generated enough books and articles to fill a small library. Most follow a common thread of narration or analysis, but Paul L. Hedren's Great Sioux War Orders of Battle takes a different approach. Divided into three parts, it covers the 1876 army, its mission and strategy in the Plains, deployment and tactics, and analysis.

On the surface, this would seem like a book for the specialist. However, the body of text …

Review Of Valentine T. Mcgillycuddy: Army Surgeon, Agent To The Sioux By Candy Moulton, Jason Pierce

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Valentine T. McGillycuddy is not famous, but he should be. His presence at many critical events in the 1870s and '80s compelled Candy Moulton to write this engaging biography. McGillycuddy worked as a doctor and surveyor on the Northern Boundary Survey and the 1875 Newton-Jenney Expedition into the Black Hills. He tended wounded soldiers as an army surgeon during the war with the Lakotas and Cheyennes in 1876 and served as an Indian agent on the Pine Ridge Reservation from 1879-86. He brushed shoulders with such iconic western figures as Calamity Jane, William F. Cody, Marcus Reno, Red Cloud, and …

Review Of William Clark's World: Describing America In An Age Of Unknowns By Peter J. Kastor, Thomas P. Slaughter

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

This book, though not a biography, is biographical. It considers William Clark's attempts to describe the American West within the context of other descriptions during his lifetime (1770-1838). Peter J. Kastor explores the conscious agendas of writers and mapmakers that supported their particular political and cultural goals. He addresses problems that grew from describing the unknown and the ambivalence that inspired many of the attempts. He aims for a subtle and less valedictory analysis than is traditional, while avoiding a flip of that view into a simple indictment of empire-building and ethnic cleansing on the American frontier.

Review Of The Philosophy Of The Western Edited By Jennifer L. Mcmahon And B. Steve Csaki, Robert B. Pippin

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The topic of this collection immediately raises a number of questions. In what sense do artworks have, or express, a "philosophy"? If they can be said to imply or assert propositional claims, why not just make the claims and argue for them? Do the films just serve as examples of philosophical ideas? (The majority of these essays seem to take this approach.) If so, how important is it that the examples are artworks? Would complex and imaginative thought experiments do? Are commercial Hollywood films and television shows artworks at all, and if so, in what sense? Is an artwork a …

Review Of Montana Moments: History On The Go By Ellen Baumler, Amy L. Mckinney

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Ellen Baumler, interpretive historian and coordinator of Montana's National Register Sign Program at the Montana Historical Society, once again delights readers with her excellent Montana Moments: History on the Go. The book is the result of years of research she conducted while writing sign texts for the National Register of Historic Places and her popular History Half-Note radio vignettes for KCAP in Helena. She selected about 250 of her favorite snippets for this collection.

Baumler does a fine job offering readers short, well-researched, and entertaining stories on a variety of topics including animals, buildings, people, events, and nature that …