American Studies Commons^™

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 …

Review Of Rare: Portraits Of America's Endangered Species. By Joel Sartore., Jim Mason

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

Short of being in the presence of a creature, a really good photograph of one can also make a lasting impression. That is something RARE does compellingly, with exquisite portrait photos of 68 North American species that are dwindling dangerously in numbers or have recently recovered from the brink of extinction. Included are such Great Plains natives as the lesser prairie chicken, the interior least tern, and the black-footed ferret. All creatures were photographed with either a pure white or black background, but unconventional poses surprise the reader with each turn of the page, while creative framing and layout engage …

Review Of Reopening The Frontier: Homesteading In The Modern West By Brian Q. Cannon, Mark Engler

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

FREE LAND was the Cry! For 123 years the Homestead Act provided millions of people the opportunity to pursue the American Dream of land ownership. Moreover, it had a tremendous impact beyond individual people or families, profoundly changing the nation and the world.

Brian Q. Cannon's Reopening the Frontier: Homesteading in the Modern West is one of several recent titles exploring America's epic homesteading story. Within Cannon's book readers will find events tying back to the early years of the homestead movement that have been repeated time and again. While one may believe that modern homesteading between 1946 and 1966 …

Review Of Deep Waters: The Textual Continuum In American Indian Literature By Christopher B. Teuton, Lindsey Claire Smith

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Christopher Teuton's study of four American Indian writers-No Scott Momaday (Kiowa), Gerald Vizenor (Anishinabe), Ray A. Young Bear (Meskwaki), and Robert J. Conley (Cherokee}-offers a useful model for theorizing the interdependence of oral and written traditions within Indigenous communities. In Teuton's view, a limiting separation between oral and written discourse has prevented scholars from recognizing the balance among various forms of signification that, reflecting community histories and identities, has long been a mainstay for Native peoples amid contexts of both tradition and change. This unnecessary divide, which he terms the "oral-literate binary," has informed scholarly practice, comprising "oral-literate theory." Despite …

Review Of Vernon Fisher By Vernon Fisher, Matthew Bourbon

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Internationally acclaimed artist Vernon Fisher is known for making paintings that contain complex, and frequently competing, renderings of the world. His carefully crafted art is crowded with stylistically variant depictions of colonial maps, portraits of classic movie stars, and cartoon drawings of Mickey Mouse. The arrangement of such disparate imagery within discrete paintings encourages the viewer of Fisher's art to make comparisons between the different subjects portrayed. Reconciling the often discordant narrative implications remains an enduring entertainment of Fisher's work.

A long-time resident of Fort Worth, Texas, the artist creates his paintings by co-opting and manipulating images he considers slightly …

Review Of Steamboats West: The 1859 American Fur Company Missouri River Expedition By Lawrence H. Larsen And Barbara J. Cottrell, Ken Robison

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Using two exceptional traveler journals, Steamboats West takes the reader on a remarkable journey "on one of the most memorable feats of steamboat navigation in North American history." The adventurous travelers, Elias J. Marsh, medical officer, and Charles Henry Weber, tourist, boarded the steamboat Spread Eagle for the annual American Fur Company expedition up the Missouri River to Fort Union in Dakota Territory.

In the words of historian Hiram Chittenden, "The incidents of a single steamboat voyage from St. Louis to Fort Union would make an entertaining chapter in any book of adventure." But, for Marsh and Weber, their adventure …

Review Of The North American Journals Of Prince Maximilian Of Wied, Volume 2: April-September 1833 Edited By Stephen S. Witte And Marsha V. Gallagher, Michael G. Noll

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The travel accounts of Prince Maximilian of Wied have long been considered one of the finest early scientific and ethnographic descriptions of North American landscapes. Maximilian journeyed with the Swiss painter Karl Bodmer through the United States in 1832-34 to study its natural environments and Indigenous peoples. His keen observations were published in German in 1839-41, were translated into other languages in the following years, and have been harvested ever since for their factual information. Maximilian's publication, however, left out a good portion of his original observations.

With this, the second of three volumes of Maximilian's journals, Stephen S. Witte …

Public Opinion Is More Than Law Popular Sovereignty And Vigilantism In The Nebraska Territory, Sean M. Kammer

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

While debating Senator Stephen A. Douglas in the fall of 1858, Abraham Lincoln declared the principle of popular sovereignty, as applied to the Kansas Territory, to be "nothing but a living, creeping lie from the time of its introduction till today."¹ While Lincoln conceded the right of majorities to rule and to shape policy, he maintained that there were moral limits to this right-a line beyond which democratic majorities could not govern. This view contrasted sharply with that of Douglas, who argued that the ultimate source of authority was the will of the people, and that this authority was …

Review Of The Rhythm Boys Of Omaha Central: High School Basketball At The '68 Racial Divide By Steve Marantz, Amy Helene Forss

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

During the school year of 1967-68, African American basketball sensations John Biddle, Willie Frazier, Dwaine Dillard, Roy Hunter, and Phil Griffin electrified the predominantly white student body, coaches, and administrators of Omaha Central High School. These five "Rhythm Boys" and the racially tense times they lived through inspired Steve Marantz, a 1966 Omaha Central graduate, to write an examination of the first-string basketball players and the surrounding discrimination and racism they faced on and off the court. It was a year in which their high-school principal, J. Arthur Nelson, privately referred to black students as "Smoky Swedes" and employed only …

Review Of Sex, Murder, And The Unwritten Law: Courting Judicial Mayhem, Texas Style. By Bill Neal., Paul N. Spellman

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

"If, as has often been contended, truth is the first casualty of traditional warfare, then logic, it appears, is the first casualty of sexual warfare." And with that thematic statement in hand, author Bill Neal is off to the proverbial races with an often delightful, sometimes troubling, and generally entertaining legal discourse on the so-called "unwritten law": that a cuckolded husband or a woman wronged has the God-given right to avenge or be avenged, even to redress by murder. With a curiously dispassionate, or at least overly serious, foreword by Cal State-Fullerton professor Gordon Morris Bakken, Neal's tales of adultery, …

Review Of Integrating Aboriginal Perspectives Into The School Curriculum: Purposes, Possibilities, And Challenges. By Yatta Kanu., Jim Silver

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

This is an excellent book about an issue of importance for the future of cities in the Canadian prairies and Great Plains. It examines the difficult task of integrating Aboriginal cultural knowledge into school curricula. In the first chapter Yatta Kanu explains why this matters. In subsequent chapters she draws upon field research over the period 2003- 2007 with 84 Aboriginal students and 18 teachers in six low-income, inner-city schools in a Canadian prairie city with a large Aboriginal population. She brings together the results of an integrated series of research studies, each building on the one before, and the …

Review Of First Nations Education Policy In Canada: Progress Or Gridlock? By Jerry Paquette And Gerald Fallon., Mark Aquash

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

It is a daunting challenge to identify, define, and make sense of First Nations education in Canada. Much of our understanding of current First Nations education is determined by mainstream media. First Nation citizens are continuously reported to be in a deficit compared to their dominant Canadian counterparts. When we take a deeper look into First Nations education, however, we find a great diversity of both successes and challenges, based largely on the fact that there are 614 First Nation communities in Canada. Policies regarding First Nations education have blanketed all regions of Canada from the Maritimes to the Woodlands, …

Surveillance Of Selected Diseases In Free-Ranging Elk (Cervus Elaphus Nelsoni) In Nebraska, 1995-2009, Michael A. Cover, Scott E. Hygnstrom, David W. Oates, Kit M. Hams, Kurt C. Vercauteren

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

Sera samples were collected from 21 free-ranging, captured female elk (Cervus elaphus nelsoni) in 1995- 96, and tissue and sera samples were collected from 415 hunter-harvested elk from 1995 to 2006 and tested for selected diseases. Titers for Anaplasma marginale were detected in 81 of 436 (19%) elk. Occurrence of antibodies to anaplasmosis increased from 4 to 40 elk from 2002 to 2006. Titers for bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) were detected in 18 of 346 (5%) samples. Titers for Leptospira interrogans serovars were detected in 21 of 289 (7%) of samples from 1995 to 2004. Titers for …

Future Participation In The Conservation Reserve Program In North Dakota, Lorilie M. Atkinson, Rebecca J. Romsdahl, Michael J. Hill

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

The purpose of this study was to gauge the impact of agriculture and energy policies on conservation practices through a survey of conservation reserve program (CRP) contract holders in a selected Prairie Pothole Region of North Dakota-Burleigh, Kidder, and Stutsman Counties. The survey results showed that 48% of respondents are considering returning CRP acres to annual crop production once the contract expires. The largest influence on post-CRP land use was the market prices for production of annual crops. Respondents also identified lack of knowledge of conservation programs as a large hurdle to participation. This may indicate a need for improved …

A Model Of Human Scale Tested On Rural Landscape Scenes, Richard K. Sutton

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

Landscapes such as the Great Plains have been described as lacking human scale. This study developed a quantitative model of human scale and compared it with viewers' perceptions of visual structure. Visual structure was selected from the physical features of Otoe County, NE, forming boundaries, found as ground textures, vegetative screens, and topographic breaks and was depicted in photographs of landscape scenes. The model used and tested nine classes of scale based on grain and extent of the photos rated by viewers against those from the model. Viewers identified boundaries representing grain and extent that were synthesized into a viewer-perceived …

Review Of Damselflies Of Texas: A Field Guide. By John C. Abbott., Forrest L. Mitchell

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

Well-produced field guides are always in demand, and Damselflies of Texas is one such. This compact, camera-bag-friendly compendium displays each of the 77 species known to occur, or that have been historically documented, in the state. The guide's first 50 pages are introductory and full of useful detail. There follows a large section devoted to species descriptions and a set of appendices.

Review Of Grass: In Search Of Human Habitat. By Joe C. Truett. Foreword By Harry W. Greene., Mary Ann Vinton

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

Much of the book is devoted to discussing the heavy human dependence on grasslands and whether this relationship can be maintained in company with grassland conservation. Can humans continue to use grasslands for food, fiber, and newer uses like biofuels and carbon banking while still sustaining the ecosystem? Many of us in academic ecology struggle with resolving perceived conflicts between conservation and human grassland use. In many cases, a "win-win" scenario exists in which, for example, the proper use of livestock grazing is perfectly compatible with a healthy grassland ecosystem. In other cases, such as conserving prairie dog populations, tensions …

Review Of Red Power Rising: The National Indian Youth Council And The Origins Of Native Activism. By Bradley G. Shreve. Foreword By Shirley Hill Witt, Bruce E. Johansen

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

While many histories of the "Red Power" movement trace its origins to the founding of the American Indian Movement in Minneapolis during 1968 and the occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay a year later, Bradley G. Shreve offers a compelling case that youth activism began during the 1950s, most notably in the Southwest. The Kiva Club (University of New Mexico), the Tribe of Many Feathers (Brigham Young University), and the Sequoyah Club of Oklahoma, among others, joined into the Regional Indian Youth Council in 1959 and the National Indian Youth Council in 1961. In contrast to AIM, which …

Review Of Light From Ancient Campfires: Archaeological Evidence For Native Lifeways On The Northern Plains. By Trevor R. Peck., Matthew Boyd

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

Despite the relatively long legacy of professional archaeological research in the northern Great Plains, few comprehensive syntheses of the region's 13,000- year human history have been produced in recent years. This is particularly the case for the Canadian side of the region, which has tended to be overlooked in most scholarly summaries of Great Plains prehistory. The shadowy nature of the Canadian prairies to the wider community of Plains archaeologists is not due to a lack of archaeological research in the region-Alberta, alone, has over 35,000 registered sites-but instead reflects the poor dissemination ofCRM (Culture Resource Management) reports and other …

Great Plains Research, Volume 21, Number 2 (Fall 2011): Frontmatter And Volume Index

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

Masthead

Table of Contents

News and Notes

Calls for Papers

Annual Index

Review Of Gentle People: A Case Study Of Rockport Colony Hutterites. By Joanita Kant., Rod Janzen

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

Joanita Kant's Gentle People is an excellent case study of South Dakota's Rockport Hutterite Colony. The book includes in-depth description and analysis of the lifestyle of Rockport Colony residents and covers people of all ages and interests. There are numerous helpful photographs, both contemporary and historical. Members of the Rockport Colony belong to a religious society that has practiced "community of goods" for nearly five centuries. The book not only introduces the reader to the deep-seated beliefs and practices of members, but also provides important sociological analysis supported by helpful figures and maps, including population pyramids, floor plans, and colony …

Persistent Place-Based Income Inequality In Rural Nebraska, 1979-2009, David J. Peters

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

This article addresses a current gap in the inequality literature by identifying demographic and economic factors that best explain persistent income inequality across N = 817 non metropolitan block groups in Nebraska between 1979 and 2009. Over one-half of rural places in Nebraska have average levels of income inequality, one-quarter have persistently low inequality, and one-fifth of places have persistently high levels of income inequality. Results of multinomial logistic regression suggest that persistently high-inequality places in rural Nebraska tend to be smaller, more urbanized, more ethnically diverse, more wealthy, more specialized in high-skill and low-skill industries, and have experienced fast …

Review Of Wives And Husbands: Gender And Age In Southern Arapaho History. By Loretta Fowler., Kathleen S. Fine-Dare

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

Wives and Husbands will likely become a classic of ethnographically informed historical anthropology. From the moment distinguished anthropologist Loretta Fowler's work opens with its account of Little Raven and Walking Backward-a brother and sister born in the early nineteenth century who lived to see great changes- to its final pages, which offer at least ten "new lines of research" that scholars might do well to follow to correct errors regarding everything from women's status under change to the "reidentification process" undergone by educated Arapahos returning to their communities, a wide variety of readers will find themselves engaged in a book …

Historical Biogeography Of Nebraska Pronghorns (Antilocapra Americana), Justin D. Hoffman, Hugh H. Genoways, Rachel R. Jones

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

Archeological and paleontological records indicate that the pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) have a history of at least 20,000 years of occurrence within the current boundaries of Nebraska. Pronghorns occurred throughout the state for much of its history. With the evidence at hand we concluded that the eastern boundary of the geographic distribution of the pronghorn south of the Niobrara River in Nebraska at the beginning of the 19th century was along the western perimeter of the eastern deciduous forest and tallgrass prairie. This excluded most of the easternmost tier of counties in the state. This geographic arrangement persisted throughout …

Review Of Remaking The Heartland: Middle America Since The 1950s. By Robert Wuthnow, Randolph Cantrell

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

Shrinking farm numbers, population losses, and empty storefronts on Main Street have come to be seen as symptoms of an inevitable slide to oblivion for many Heartland communities. Empirical evidence of such decline is easily found, making the trend a favorite topic for journalists. In Remaking the Heartland, Robert Wuthnow offers a very different interpretation of the same trends. His central argument is that Middle America (defined as eight states including most of the Great Plains) has been characterized by adaptation to changing social and economic realities in a way that has made the region a "more vibrant contributor …