American Studies Commons^™

Review Of Grand Procession: Contemporary Artistic Visions Of American Indians: The Diker Collection At The Denver Art Museum By Lois Sherr Dubin, Jessica R. Metcalfe

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Life in miniature, history in vibrant hues, art on parade-this is what is presented in Grand Procession, a catalogue printed by the Denver Art Museum to accompany its recent exhibit of contemporary Native American dolls. Meant to serve as a celebration of this art form, the book makes clear that these figures are more than just playthings: they are sculptural "little people" meticulously clothed and accurately designed to depict Plains and Plateau ceremonial regalia.

Dolls have been created for centuries throughout North America, and exhibits such as the Heard Museum's 2010 More Than Child's Play have sought to elevate …

The Right Call: Baseball Coaches' Attempts To Influence Umpires, Kevin Warneke, David C. Ogden

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

On-field conversations and confrontations between baseball coaches and umpires have long been a part of the game. An umpire's decision can alter the course of the game, but little has been written about the exchanges between a coach or manager and umpire, especially in relation to theoretical considerations. This study applies management and leadership theories in exploring the strategies baseball coaches use to contest an umpire's decision. By using leadership scholar John E. Barbuto's concept of influence tactics and the various types of social power discussed by sociologists John R. French and Bertram Raven, the study also tests the congruence …

Documenting Change At Upper Hamburg Bend: Nebraska's First Side-Channel Restoration, Brandon L. Eder, Gerald Mestl

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

In 1996 a side channel was excavated on 629 hectares of former agricultural land at Upper Hamburg Bend on the Missouri River in Otoe County, NE. This was the first side channel constructed on the Missouri River in an attempt to restore lost aquatic habitat. The initial design was for an approximately 4,200 m long side channel to be constructed with a 3 m bottom width. Development ofthe site was to be dependent on flows diverted from the main channel of the river with a final projected top width of 61 m. The side channel was completed in the spring, …

Evaluating The Role Of Latinidad And The Latino Threat In The State Of Missouri, Joel Jennings, J.S. Onésimo Sandoval

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

Growing Latino populations in midwestern cities of the United States are leading to the creation of contested ethnic spaces and urban landscapes. In this article we examine the historical, demographic, and social contexts associated with a growing sense of Latinidad and the countervailing Latino threat narrative in Kansas City and St. Louis, the two largest metropolitan areas in Missouri. Latinidad, or a notion of belonging based on ethnic identity in Missouri, is being challenged by nativist discourses that frame the growing Latino population as a threat. We highlight the different historical trajectories and geographical characteristics that have created distinct demographic …

Reconsidering National Park Interpretation Of The Great Plains And Trans-Mississippi West, Robert Pahre

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

The National Park Service has generally interpreted its sites in the Great Plains in terms of a Eurocentric narrative of westward expansion. Though some sites are changing (e.g., Little Bighorn), others are not (e.g., Scotts Bluff). Even those sites that have changed still retain important elements of traditional narratives, which often date to the 1930s or to the Mission 66 period (1956-66). The newest sites, such as Washita Battlefield, tell newer stories that resonate well with today's visitors. These provide a model for revising older sites. Giving greater attention to causes and consequences, aiming for a richer mix of disciplinary …

Review Of Implementing The Endangered Species Act On The Platte Basin Water Commons. By David M. Freeman, Mary Bomberger Brown

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

David M. Freeman has written a landmark treatise on a landmark event-the development of the Platte River Habitat Recovery Program. The program's goal. is to integrate provisions of the Endangered Species Act and the· habitat needs of four imperiled species (interior least tern, piping plover, whooping crane, and pallid sturgeon) into river basin-wide water management policy. The process was formally initiated 209 in 1997 with the signing of a cooperative agreement between the states of Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming and the U.S. Department of the Interior, but discussions had been under way since the 1970s. The process was completed in …

Review Of Together We Can: Pathways To Collective Leadership In Agriculture At Texas A&M.; By Edward A. Hiler And Steven L. Bosserman., Theodore R. Alter

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

Edward Hiler's leadership journey through a series of major administrative positions at Texas A&M is a story of collective leadership, as told by Hiler himself, and framed by organizational and leadership strategist Steve Bosserman. This brief, highly readable, and provocative book illustrates the philosophical and operational essences of collective leadership. The shifting demographic, economic, ecological, and sociopolitical realities of Texas and the Great Plains called for optimizing the contributions of Texas A&M and other institutions of higher education in addressing critical issues. Hiler, ever the visionary, saw the power of an inclusive, egalitarian, shared leadership style that allowed diverse constituencies …

Review Of Wet Prairie: People, Land, And Water In Agricultural Manitoba. By Shannon Stunden Bower. Foreword By Graeme Wynn., Sterling Evans

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

Wet Prairie is excellent environmental history that evaluates the human/nature relationship. Stunden Bower writes, "In grappling with the environment of their province, Manitobans confronted not only the environmental conditions, but also the political and social arrangements that bore on their lives." Though no easy task, she succeeds in showing these relationships in what is an important contribution to the geographical, environmental, political, and cultural history of the Prairie Provinces and to the Great Plains as a whole.

Review Of Agricultural History: History Of The Prairie West Series, Volume 3. Edited By Gregory P. Marchildon., Bradford Rennie

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

This is the third book of the History of the Prairie West Series published by the Canadian Plains Research Center in Regina, Saskatchewan. The series, edited by Gregory P. Marchildon, consists of articles previously published in Prairie Forum, a journal devoted to the northern Great Plains, primarily the region encompassing the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. The book is organized into four sections: the first contains broad articles that survey prairie history; the other three focus on farming, ranching, and marketing, respectively.

Review Of Birds Of Southwestern Nebraska: An Annotated Check-List Of Species In The North And South Platte River Valleys And At Lake Mcconaughy. By Mary Bomberger Brown, Stephen J. Dinsmore, And Charles R. Brown., Wayne Mollhoff

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

Opening with a map of the region under study, Birds of Southwestern Nebraska proceeds, in its introduction, to a summary of the presettlement landscape and a description of the large-scale habitat changes occurring since then, along with avian responses to those changes. While crediting previous avian studies in southwestern Nebraska, often not readily available to the public, the authors note this area initially received little attention from ornithologists, who tended to focus on other biologically unique parts of the state, such as the Sandhills, forests, and Pine Ridge. The body of the book consists of a list of species reported …

Review Of The Midwestern Native Garden: Native Alternatives To Nonnative Flowers And Plants, An Illustrated Guide By Charlotte Adelman And Bernard L. Schwartz, Stephen L. Young

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

Native plants are important for maintaining biodiversity and supporting birds, mammals, and insects in a particular region. The interaction of plants with other organisms is what makes up food webs, and a shift in one will result in change in the other, change that is often detrimental to both. Invasive plant species, which include many nonnative types, can alter ecosystems with lasting effects on hydrology, nutrient cycling, and habitat. Similar to other regions, the Central Plains is increasingly threatened by the establishment of invasive plant species. The reintroduction of native plant species not only in large natural areas, but also …

Review Of White Man's Water: The Politics Of Sobriety In A Native American Community. By Erica Prussing, Paul Spicer

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

Epidemiological evidence consistently emphasizes the challenges American Indian tribes of the Great Plains confront through excess alcohol consumption. Until Erica Prussing's recent book, however, we have lacked a detailed analysis of the social and cultural context in which these challenges unfold. With a focus on women's experiences across two generations, White Man s Water provides us with a careful description of the social and cultural world of contemporary Northern Cheyennes, coupled with an understanding of how individual experiences within the milieu vary, especially as a function of history.

White Man's Water is a truly significant book: the first book-length ethnographic …

Review Of Sustaining The Cherokee Family: Kinship And The Allotment Of An Indigenous Nation By Rose Stremlau, C. Joseph Genetin-Pilawa

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Cherokee families, Rose Stremlau states in her elegantly written book, were and remain "egalitarian, flexible, inclusive, and decentralized." These characteristics, she argues, have provided stability through difficult times, as Cherokee families faced colonization, displacement and removal, the Civil War, and ultimately the allotment policy of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries {although it is important to note that she also carries her analysis beyond the allotment era, into the mid-to-late twentieth century}. Using U.S. and Cherokee census data, Dawes Commission records, Guion Miller Commission applications, probate records, articles from the national Cherokee Advocate, and oral histories in the Doris Duke …

Ligia Grischa Bylaws

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

1. The Ligia Grischa fixes the period of its existence for 15 years.

2. In this society can only be accepted persons from 12 to 60 years, who show in their life a good behavior.

3. Every member must pay $5.00 on entering the "Ligia Grischa" and signing the statues. He must also pay 1 Taler every month and on the 5th of June 1875 another 10 Talers.

4. Every member who enters after the foundation of the "Ligia Grischa" is obliged to pay the same capital plus 5% more than the members who joined at the foundation of the …

Review Of Murder, The Media, And The Politics Of Public Feelings: Remembering Matthew Shepard And James Byrd Jr. By Jennifer Petersen, Thomas R. Dunn

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The 1998 murders of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. prompted strong emotions in the national debate over hate crimes. Yet while legal, literary, and critical readings of the murders have emerged, little attention has been devoted to these emotions and their role in the politics that followed. Jennifer Petersen remedies this deficiency, offering broader insights about politics, media, and the public sphere.

Drawing upon close readings of local and national media, Petersen tirelessly traces the complex affective webs that surround each case. In the first half of her book, Petersen describes the national media's characterization of Shepard as an …

Review Of Plains Indian Art: The Pioneering Work Of John C. Ewers Edited By Jane Ewers Robinson, Bill Anthes

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

John Canfield Ewers (1909-1997) authored two important books on Plains Indian art: Plains Indian Painting: A Description of an Aboriginal American Art (1939) and Plains Indian Sculpture: A Traditional Art from America's Heartland (1986). The present collection is the second of two volumes of short essays first published in journals and specialized catalogs. The first, Plains Indian History and Culture: Essays on Continuity and Change (1997), included a number of essays that looked to works of art as sources of primary historical information. This volume collects fifteen essays foregrounding works of art and matters of style, iconography, the historiography of …

Review Of Where The Tall Grass Grows: Becoming Indigenous And The Mythological Legacy Of The American West By Bobby Bridger, John H. Monnett

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Musician, writer, and entertainer Bobby Bridger, a descendant of the well-known western trapper and scout Jim Bridger, has written a book attempting to link the past to the present by connecting historical eras of the American western movement with how Native Americans have been viewed, not only at the time, but in modern writing, especially fiction, stage productions, and, most importantly, motion pictures. His thesis is apparently based on a sentiment expressed by Indigenous author Joseph Marshall III at a Western Writers of America Conference to the effect that, although Indians have walked in the white world, whites have not …

Review Of For King And Kanata: Canadian Indians And The First World War By Timothy C. Winegard, Robert J. Talbot

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

A comprehensive study of Canadian First Nations' experiences during the Great War is long overdue, making Timothy C. Winegard's For King and Kanata a welcome addition to the historiography. In a style both engaging and accessible, Winegard tells the individual and collective stories of those Indian men who enlisted to fight for the Crown. His book also focuses on how government policy shaped First Nations' participation in the war effort. Race, for instance, played a determining role. At first, the government banned Indian men from serving. As casualties mounted and pressure from Britain grew, however, Canadian officials began active recruitment …

Great Plains Quarterly Volume 32 / Number 4 / Fall 2012

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Contents

Book Reviews

Book Notes

Notes and News

Review Of Keep True: A Life In Politics. By Howard Pawley. Foreword By Paul Moist, Kelly Saunders

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

Howard Pawley served as premier of Manitoba from 1981 to 1988, a period that stands to this day as one of the most controversial and turbulent in the province's modern history. Keep True: A Life in Politics traces Pawley's life and political career from his birth in Brampton, Ontario, to the defeat of his government in 1988 at the hands of one of his own caucus members. Educated as a teacher and lawyer, Pawley became active in the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (which later became the New Democratic Party) as a young man before turning his sights on a political career. …

Monitoring Standing Herbage Of The Sands And Choppy Sands Ecological Vegetation Types In The Nebraska Sandhills, Daniel W. Uresk

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

A modified Robel pole with white and gray alternating bands (2.54 cm) was used to measure vegetation on sands and choppy sands ecological types in the Sandhills of Nebraska. Objectives were to determine the relationship between visual obstruction readings (VOR) and clipped standing herbage, develop guidelines for monitoring standing herbage, and provide sample size estimates. Visual obstruction measurements of standing herbage were linear, and regression coefficients were significant (P< 0.001) for 125 transects (R² = 0.60, SE = 496 kg/ha). Clipped standing herbage ranged from 293 to 4389 kg/ha with a mean of 1,559 kg/ha. A minimum of four transects (20 stations/transect with four …

Review Of Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter And The Politics Of Sight. By Timothy Pachirat., Donald D. Stull

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

In June 2004, political scientist Timothy Pachirat went to work on the killfloor of an unnamed beef slaughterhouse in Omaha, Nebraska. He started out as a "liver hanger" in the cooler. There carcasses hang before being sent to the fabrication floor where "hundreds of handheld knives and saws reinvent chilled half-carcasses as steaks, rounds, and roasts that are then boxed and shipped to distributors and retailers around the world." For four days he worked in the chutes, driving cattle to the knocking box to be stunned, as required by the Humane Slaughter Act, before being turned into meat. Then for …

Review Of Conspecific Attraction And Area Sensitivity Of Grassland Birds, David R.W. Bruinsma, Nicola Koper

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

Many species of grassland birds are area sensitive, which may exacerbate the ecological effects of the extensive loss and fragmentation of grasslands that has taken place across the northern Great Plains. However, the reasons for this area sensitivity are unclear, as vegetation structure, matrix composition, and restriction of movements among patches do not seem to provide viable explanations for species native to grasslands. Con specific attraction, whereby species are behaviorally stimulated to select habitat or establish territories near individuals of the same species, may help explain this area sensitivity. We review and discuss theoretical and empirical research on avian conspecific …

Review Of Spanish Mustangs In The Great American West: Return Of The Horse. By John S. Hockensmith, Karen Dalke

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

A combination of myth and reality, the American West evokes images that feature the mustang as a central player. By using oral histories, books, and images, Hockensmith provides meaningful insight into how the mustang weaves together history and culture. He acknowledges his book is not a regurgitation of historical facts. Rather, it seeks to captures the essence of how one animal evokes cultural values over time.

Spanish Mustangs can also be read as a cautionary tale. Throughout, there is an implied superiority of the Spanish mustang in comparison to the Others. the disparate feral horses that currently roam the Great …

Review Of On The Edge Of Purgatory: An Archaeology Of Place In Hispanic Colorado. By Bonnie J. Clark, Jason M. Labelle

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

Bonnie Clark's book is a welcome addition to the small body of published literature regarding Great Plains historical archaeology. It concerns two habitation sites located on the Pinon Canyon Maneuver site, a modern military base in the canyon lands of the Purgatory River (which the Spanish named EI Rio de Las Animas Pedidas en Purgatorio) in southeastern Colorado. The river is the lifeblood of this region, with a deep record of occupation by both prehistoric and historic populations. Clark searches for Hispanic Colorado, which she identifies as both a people and a place. But unlike other historical archaeology studies, this …

Review Of State Of Change: Colorado Politics In The Twenty-First Century. Edited By Courtenay W. Daum, Robert 1. Duffy, And John A. Straayer., Robert R. Preuhs

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

This edited volume compiles an impressive set of contributions covering the complexity, causes, and implications of the transformation of Colorado politics and policy over the last few decades. Several chapters illustrate how demographics, institutions, and public policy altered the makeup of what was once considered a fairly solid red state into one with a more purple hue. Combined with chapters examining recent constraints on legislative authority and Colorado's fiscal policy, the volume represents an exceptional look into the changing nature of Colorado politics and serves as both a historical narrative and solid political analysis that should be compulsory reading for …

Review Of Land Of The Tejas: Native American Identity And Interaction In Texas, A.D. 1300 To 1700. By John Wesley Arnn Iii. Foreword By Tom D. Dillehay., Robert Cast

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

This tremendously enjoyable, thought-provoking book should be read by anyone interested in the history of the state of Texas, the archeology of the Plains, and the past social and cultural interactions among peoples living within this region during this time period. Arnn provides a concise framework for his theme in his introduction: "This book presents a model of late prehistoric and early historic Texas that was also extremely dynamic and diverse and suggests that as early as A.D. 1300 aboriginal peoples living in this region may have also recognized a broader sociocultural identity." ... Overall, Arnn does a fine job …

New Distributional Records Of Great Plains Pseudo Scorpions (Arachnida: Pseudoscorpiones), Paul O. Cooney, James A. Kalisch

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

Pseudoscorpions are tiny, oval, brown, flattened arachnids that possess large "pinchers" in front of the body for capturing smaller prey. They generally live in forested habitats in soil litter or beneath loose bark. It has been presumed that pseudoscorpions are scarce in the Great Plains, except for along rivers, due to harsh climatic conditions. However, new records of pseudo scorpions from the Great Plains were derived from identification of specimens obtained from university and college collections, and from specimens collected by the first author. Records provided new revelations about distributions of not only the more commonly known pseudoscorpion species but …

Review Essay: An Atlas To Be Read From Cover To Cover, Harm J. De Blij

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

Preparing for this review I began by scanning the volume and stopping to read several especially interesting maps, finding myself riveted and, it seemed, on a journey of discovery. It has often been said about books, but perhaps never about an atlas, "I could not put it down once I had opened it." Nor has any atlas ever enhanced my knowledge of any region as greatly as this one has. There can be no doubt about it: no region, certainly in North America and perhaps in the world, is as well served as is the Great Plains region by this …

Great Plains Research, Volume 22, Number 2, Fall 2012, Editorial Matter

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

Cover

Masthead

Table of contents

News and Notes

Annual Index

Instructions for Authors

Inside this issue