Cultural History Commons^™

Review Of Red Land, Red Power: Grounding Knowledge In The American Indian Novel By Sean Kicummah Teuton, Penelope Kelsey

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

In Red Land, Red Power, Cherokee scholar Sean Kicummah Teuton considers three Red Power novels by N. Scott Momaday, James Welch, and Leslie Marmon Silko with a methodology he terms tribal realism. Teuton defines tribal realism as a "'postpositivist realist' view, which allows for genuine debate and exchange across cultures, while still respecting how social location may grant special access to knowledge." Teuton finds the novels of the Red Power era especially significant for investigation in his forging of tribal realism because of "a new intellectual rigor that ... characterize[d] the Red Power movement," citing the proclamation by Indians …

Review Of Realigning America: Mckinley, Bryan, And The Remarkable Election Of 1896 By R. Hal Williams, Troy Murphy

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

There is no universal agreement among historians regarding the number of presidential elections that should be defined as "critical" or "realigning." Yet the election of 1896 is almost always included in this small group. R. Hal Williams makes the reasons clear in Realigning America, a compelling account of the "Battle of the Standards" between William McKinley and William Jennirigs Bryan. The book is exhaustively researched and written with a storyteller's knack for moving the narrative forward and unearthing personal and colorful testimonies that buttress the history of the campaign.

Review Of In Trace Oftr: A Montana Hunter's Journey By Dan Aadland, Paul R. Krausman

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The title of Dan Aadland's latest book, In Trace of TR: A Montana Hunter's Journey, is intriguing. It implies a connection between Theodore Roosevelt (TR) and the author; less clear is what that connection is, based on the title. In his introduction, Aadland states that the connection between him and the twenty-sixth President of the United States was made with similar experiences in ranching, horsemanship, and hunting. The objective of the book is to invite the reader along for a good ride with TR and Dan. And quite a ride it is.

The book is divided into three parts. …

Review By Hoboes: Bindlestiffs, Fruit Tramps, And The Harvesting Of The West By Mark Wyman, Mary Lyons-Barrett

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Mark Wyman presents the conflicting and often contradictory ways our government has dealt with immigration to satisfy the demands of western growers who have claimed since the late 1880s that there was a shortage of available labor to harvest crops. In the process of meeting the challenge of ripe crops going to waste, local entities used children from reform schools and Native Americans from boarding schools to perform agricultural labor cheaply. Congress, in banning Chinese immigration under the Exclusion Act of 1882, kept the door cracked open to admit Japanese and Hindu workers to do some of the more advanced …

Review Of In The Footsteps Of Lewis And Clark: Early Commemorations And The Origins Of The National Historic Trail By Wallace G. Lewis, Jay H. Buckley

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

This informative and thought-provoking work analyzes the early commemorations of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the origins of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail. Neither a guidebook nor an administrative or institutional history of the agencies or organizations involved, this work is concerned with the interpretation and historical meanings of the expedition within the national ethos and how these have changed over time.

Wallace Lewis identifies the factors that contributed to the reinterpretation, resurgence of popularity, and amplification of the importance of the expedition. These included the erection of monuments and statues, the publication of various editions of …

Review Of The West And Beyond: New Perspectives On An Imagined Region Edited By Alvin Finkel, Sarah Carter, And Peter Fortna, Ryan C. Eyford

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

From 1969 to 1990 the Western Canadian Studies conferences brought together researchers interested in the history of a region defined as "the Prairie West" or simply "the West," often at the University of Calgary. In large measure the conference was an outgrowth of the fractious regional politics of the late 1960s. The range of topics participants explored, however, ultimately went well beyond the limited theme of "western alienation" and made an important contribution to the regional historiography; fourteen volumes of conference papers, usually edited by University of Calgary scholars, were published between 1970 and 1993.

In June 2008 a group …

Review Of Art Quantum: The Eiteljorg Fellowship For Native American Fine Art, 2009 Edited By James H. Nottage With Jennifer Complo Mcnutt And Ashley Holland, Jo Ortel

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

This catalogue, published on the occasion of the sixth biennial exhibition honoring the 2009 winners of the prestigious Eiteljorg Fellowship, follows the format established in earlier iterations: a lead essay by a noted critic or scholar of contemporary Native American art (who also served as a jurist on the Fellowship's independent selection panel), accompanied by five interpretive essays on each of the award recipients written by different artists or scholars and amply illustrated with high-quality reproductions of the artists' work.

Paul Chaat Smith (Associate Curator, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian) contributes the lead essay, a characteristically highly stylized …

Review Of Fur, Fortune, And Empire: The Epic History Of The Fur Trade In America By Eric Jay Dolin, Brad Tennant

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Although many individuals who reside in the Great Plains tend to think of furs in connection with the early nineteenth-century trade conducted along the upper Missouri River valley and in the Rocky Mountains, Eric Jay Dolin takes a broader view of the fur trade's role in history. Dolin explains that the role of furs can easily be traced throughout ancient civilizations. To make his point, he briefly mentions that early Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans engaged in the fur trade and that, during the Middle Ages, furs became a major part of commerce. The focus of his book, however, is on …

Review Of Native America: A History By Michael Leroy Oberg, Roger L. Nichols

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

In this solid text Michael Oberg presents his version of American Indian history. From the start he works to avoid presenting just another encyclopedic narrative likely to leave readers "awash in a sea of facts and data disconnected from any coherent narrative." To this end he focuses on how eleven Indigenous communities dealt with the European invasions of North America. His list includes groups as disparate as the Chumash and Pueblo peoples in the West, the Potawatomis and Dakota Sioux in the North, the Crows, Kiowas, and Caddos in the Plains, and Eastern peoples such as the Mohegans, Powhatans, Cherokees, …

Review Of "Collecting Stamps Would Have Been More Fun": Canadian Publishing And The Correspondence Of Sinclair Ross, 1933-1986 Selected And With An Introduction By Jordan Stouck; Annotations By David Stouck, Andrew Lesk

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

A book not just for completists, the Stoucks' effort succeeds in illuminating the publishing record of one of Canada's most secretive authors. For those who have not read much criticism on Ross, this book will aid in understanding one very representative mid-twentieth-century Canadian author's publishing and artistic struggles.

Most striking is Jordan Stouck's note-perfect introduction, one that is academically rigorous yet free of jargon and platitudes. Stouck begins at, well, the beginning, in noting that Ross's As For Me and My House is "an originary text in western Canadian literature," although Ross himself "perceived his literary career as a failure." …

Review Of The Chosen Folks: Jews On The Frontiers Of Texas By Bryan Edward Stone, Scott M. Langston

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Bryan Stone's The Chosen Folks deserves widespread appeal. Those interested in Jewish studies, Texas history, and immigration will certainly find it a useful analysis. What's more, those concerned with the frontier-where Jewish, Texan, immigrant, and other identities intertwine, influence, and define each other-will especially benefit. Stone aptly applies the modern reconceptualization of the frontier to describe the experiences of Jews-"the quintessential frontierspeople"-in Texas, "a quintessential frontier."

Throughout the book Stone uses the frontier to organize and interpret the Texas Jewish experience. For example, the Republic of Texas's location on a geographic frontier allowed Jews to develop an interior frontier wherein …

Review Of Painting Indians And Building Empires In North America, 1710-1840 By William H. Truettner, John Hausdoerffer

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Just when the problematic relationship between Indian portraits and the cultural politics of nineteenth- century America seemed thoroughly explored, William Truettner's new book adds vital detail to our understanding of "portrait diplomacy" and "artistic imperialism." Truettner opens with an insightful distinction between the "Noble Savage" of eighteenth-century British artists and the "Republican Indian" of artists in nineteenth-century America. British "Noble Savage" imagery depicted Mohawks as a "sovereign people" and as "visiting royalty." Truettner shows how artists such as William Hodges, Thomas Hardy, and Benjamin West portrayed Indian leaders as both active in the future of colonial politics and comfortable with …

Review Of Cather Studies 8: Willa Cather: A Writer's Worlds Edited By John J. Murphy, Francoise Palleau-Papin, And Robert Thacker, Derek Driedger

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Cather Studies continues to assemble and inspire the most well-informed writing on Willa Cather's life and literature. The twenty-three essays in this volume further elevate Cather's reputation for meticulous attention to detail when presenting various cultures in her fiction. As the collection derives from the 2007 International Cather Seminar cohosted in Paris and Abbey St. Michel de Frigolet, essays regularly draw from French history, including the period spanning from Cather's first visit in 1902 through World War I. Consequently, the most analyzed novel is One of Ours (1922), yet The Professor's House (1925), Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927), and …

New Deal Experimentation And The Political Economy Of The Yankton Sioux, 1930-1934, Teresa M. Houser

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Franklin Delano Roosevelt's election to the presidency in 1932 signaled a mandate for sweeping reform at the federal level to lift the nation out of the economic turbulence of the Great Depression. Under Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) joined other agencies in launching policies to rebuild economic stability. Much of the scholarship on the Indian New Deal to date necessarily focuses on the centerpiece of Collier's reform efforts: the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA). But prior to tribal consideration of the IRA, the Roosevelt administration undertook a series of steps in an attempt to …

Great Plains Quarterly Volume 31/Number 3/ Summer 2011

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Contents

Book Reviews

Book Notes

Notes and News

Immigration To The Great Plains, 1865-1914 War, Politics, Technology, And Economic Development, Bruce Garver

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The advent and vast extent of immigration to the Great Plains states during the years 1865 to 1914 is perhaps best understood in light of the new international context that emerged during the 1860s in the aftermath of six large wars whose consequences included the enlargement of civil liberties, an acceleration of economic growth and technological innovation, the expansion of world markets, and the advent of mass immigration to the United States from east-central and southern Europe.1 Facilitating all of these changes was the achievement of widespread literacy through universal, free, compulsory, and state-funded elementary education in the United States, …

Watch What You Eat: From Self-Surveillance To Affective Eating, Constance Calice

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

How is it that Americans are so obsessed with nutrition and dieting and yet remain unhealthy? This project attempts to give a theoretically driven answer to this great paradox within the Western diet. Constance Calice analyzes the practice and rhetoric of dieting as a crystallization of a problematic relationship to food using a Foucauldian understanding of discipline. Using examples from the media, she illustrates the way in which outside forces effect our food choices and the power relationships formed in this exchange. To offer an alternative view to nutritionism she looks to the Local Food Movement and affect theory to …

Jackpot! A Legal History Of Indian Gaming In California, Aaron Peardon

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Indian Gaming has transformed the economic, political, and sociological landscape of California. The growth of Indian casinos has had a profound impact on both Indian and non-Indian communities alike. California tribes took the lead in legalizing Indian Gaming throughout the nation. The efforts of California tribes in the legislative and political process have enabled many tribal groups to rise out of poverty and to gain prosperity that would otherwise be impossible to achieve. They have also brought increased revenue to local communities and have provided thousands of jobs to all Californians.

This thesis discusses the historical relationships between Native American …

The Whiter Lotus: Asian Religions And Reform Movements In America, 1836-1933, Edgar A. Weir Jr.

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study examines the influence of Asian religions and thought on various reform movements in America, including anti-slavery, labor rights, the alleviation of poverty, women's rights, and the rights of immigrants. The interactions between these two forces will be uncovered and analyzed from 1836, the year Ralph Waldo Emerson's ground-breaking work Nature was published, until 1933, the year that Dyer Daniel Lum, the last individual discussed in this work, passed away. Previous studies have demonstrated that those who incorporated Asian religions and thought into their own lives and worldviews also affixed great importance on affecting society in a positive manner. …

Misogyny And The Money, Leah Stevenson

2011 Awards for Excellence in Student Research & Creative Activity - Documents

View Ms. Stevenson's Painting.

In the late 90's hip-hop started as a form of encouragement and empowerment for black people who struggled when growing up. Hip Hop gave black people a voice, where their opinions and challenges could be heard throughout the world. Today the genre of Hip-hop music has developed into a negative image that degrades women and negatively influences the younger black community. Think about some of the hip-hop music at the top of the charts; the songs that disrespect woman, and contains far too much explicit content that it has society desensitized. The pervasiveness of today' …

Review Of In The Remington Moment By Stephen Tatum, Brian Rusted

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Stephen Tatum's study is motivated by two objectives. One is to read Remington's painterly gestures in the light of their production. His second takes up a question Brian Dippie posed a decade ago when reflecting on the lack of critical and academic respect that dogs western art. Can the work of an artist like Remington-nostalgic even in his time-be considered as more than a relic in ours? Might it still have an affecting presence a century after Remington's passing? Tatum's book is a palpable affirmation.

Review Of Julius Seyler And The Blackfeet: An Impressionist At Glacier National Park By William E. Farr, Alexandra Ganser

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The turn from the nineteenth to the twentieth century saw the conclusion of the Great Northern Railway (1893) and the birth of Glacier National Park in Montana (1910), two events so tightly interrelated through the family of railroad tycoon James J. Hill and his son Louis W. Hill that they would come to be automatically associated in the minds of many twentieth-century Americans-especially the prospective middle-class tourists from the metropolitan East who were following the Hills' promotional exhortation to "See America First" and experience a tamed version of western wilderness at Glacier Park: outdoor adventure and close contact with what …

Review Of Life At The Kiowa, Comanche, And Wichita Agency: The Photographs Of Annette Ross Hume By Kristina L. Southwell And John R. Lovett, Joanna Cohan Scherer

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

This book presents the photographs of Annette Ross Hume (1858-1933), a pioneer of Oklahoma and one of many amateur women photographers historians have neglected who took important photos documenting the life and times of late nineteenth- and early twentieth- century America. The Annette Hume collection, part of the Western History collection at the University of Oklahoma Library, consists of 738 images, including many glass plate negatives. It is gratifying to see this collection of her work published with such care by the authors and the University of Oklahoma Press.

Review Of Women Elders' Life Stories Of The Omaha Tribe: Macy, Nebraska, 2004-2005 By Wynne L. Summers, Karen M. Morin

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

I'm not sure that I've ever read such a light volume that carries such heavy contents. This book's dramatic core encompasses the life stories of three women from the Omaha Tribe in Macy, Nebraska: Eleanor Baxter, the first woman elected tribal chairperson; and Alice Saunsoci and Hawate (Wenona Caramony), language teachers and educators. Their stories collectively describe mid to late twentieth-century experiences of American Indian women, each of whom grew up learning, living, and working on the Omaha reservation and off it in what they describe as "multicultural societies" such as in Lincoln, Nebraska. Each returned to the reservation later …

Some Thoughts On "Taking" Pictures Imaging "Indians" And The Counter-Narratives Of Visual Sovereignty, Morgan F. Bell

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Soon after its inception the camera became the primary vehicle for producing images of Native Americans. Without question, late nineteenth and early twentieth-century images of Native Americans have been integral in forming the stereotypical ideal of "Indian." For many imaginations, these images have frozen North America's indigenous people, not only in a timeless past but, in essence, outside time. This essay examines photographic images that illustrate this phenomenon and some that dismantle it. The fact that indigenous people picked up the camera long ago to commission and produce their own images, although long overlooked, is a topic that has received …

Review Of Hancock's War: Conflict On The Southern Plains By William Y. Chalfant, Steven C. Haack

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Major General Winfield Scott Hancock headed west from Fort Riley in late March of 1867, well prepared to engage the Cheyennes in western Kansas. Seven companies of infantry, eight of cavalry, and an artillery battery accompanied him. A man with political ambitions, he also brought the press along to publicize his efforts. Hancock had neither knowledge nor curiosity about the culture of the people he sought. He wanted to fight them. "I think it would be to our advantage to have these Indians refuse the demands I intend to make, a war with the Cheyennes would answer our purpose."

Traveling …

Review Essay: Packing, Unpacking, And Repacking The Cinema Of Guy Maddin, George Melnyk

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Guy Maddin is Canada's most unusual filmmaker. He also happens to have a global cult following for his retro b&w films. His stature as a cult filmmaker began almost a quarter of a century ago, when his sophomore film, Tales from the Gimli Hospital (1988), was launched at a midnight screening in New York that drew audiences for a year. A Winnipegger by birth, he has become that city's most famous filmmaker and one of the few Canadian film directors with an international following. His New York debut led to a regular stint in the 1990s as a film commentator …

Review Of Playing In Shadows: Texas And Negro League Baseball By Rob Fink, Pellom Mcdaniels Iii

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

One of the most underappreciated aspects of American life and history is that of black baseball. Shortly after the invention of the game, African American men began playing as an expression of their status as middle-class professionals. These particular black men had access to leisure time and the disposable income necessary to acquire the proper equipment and pay the necessary fees to participate in organized play. During Reconstruction, formerly enslaved African American men who had been introduced to the game by Union soldiers used their ability to play the game as an expression of their independence, as well as a …

Review Of Here You Have My Story: Eyewitness Accounts Of The Nineteenth-Century Central Plains Edited By Richard E. Jensen, Adam R. Hodge

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The history of the central Great Plains is at its heart a vast collection of stories about the complex interactions between humans and the grasslands. When American settlers during the nineteenth century ventured into what had hitherto been Indian country, they found that their fortunes were inextricably bound to the whims of the often harsh Plains environment. In Here You Have My Story: Eyewitness Accounts of the Nineteenth-Century Central Plains, readers have the opportunity to view the challenges and triumphs of settling the Plains of present day Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, and Wyoming through the eyes of those who were …

Review Of Like No Other Place: The Sandhills Of Nebraska Photographs And Text By David A. Owen, Drake Hokanson

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Our collective understanding of place benefits greatly from the work of careful observers/ interpreters/writers/photographers who ultimately blend narrative and photographs into an explication of the nature of a region, a county, a town, a neighborhood, or a highway into a book of substance. Such books can bring us far more than straight geography, journalism, sociology, anthropology, or history can alone. Done right, the very cut of the wind and timbre of voices come through, making the place not only clear, but real.

Like No Other Place combines Owen's narrative about time, people, and place in the Nebraska Sandhills with his …