Cultural History Commons^™

Review Of Women On The North American Plains Edited By Renee M. Laegreid And Sandra K. Mathews, Rebecca A. Buller

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Despite over thirty years having elapsed since Joan Jensen and Darlis Miller, in "The Gentle Tamers Revisited," called for new approaches to western women's history, popular stereotypes of what constitutes a Great Plains woman remain deeply ingrained in the general public's imagination. Although three decades of scholarship have slowly chipped away at the typecast, until recently no one piece has consolidated the diversity of women's experiences within the Canadian and American Great Plains.

We should herald, therefore, the arrival of Women on the North American Plains. This long-needed collection delivers a powerful corrective to scholarship's and popular imagery's shortcomings. …

"I Fear The Consequences To Our Animals": Emigrants And Their Livestock On The Overland Trails, Diana L. Ahmad

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

"You cannot be too careful of your teams; on their condition depends entirely your success in getting through" to the Pacific coast, warned Philip L. Platt and N. Slater in their 1852 Travelers' Guide across the Plains upon the Overland Route to California.¹ The diaries, letters, and guidebooks written by the emigrants who crossed North America on the overland trails during the mid-nineteenth century reveal a new awareness of the animals that journeyed with them. Often written as advice to those who might follow them, the travelers worried about their animals in ways beyond what theologians and philosophers …

Review Of Texas, New Mexico, And The Compromise Of 1850: Boundary Dispute And Sectional Crisis By Mark J. Stegmaier, Bryan Turo

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

In this revision of his 1996 publication, Mark Stegmaier has polished up an already comprehensive history of the Compromise of 1850 as it unfolded from the perspective of Texas and New Mexico. Whereas most histories have focused on the compromise from the standpoint of the national question about slavery, this work illuminates the significance of the part that fixed the boundary between Texas and New Mexico. Stegmaier argues that the boundary dispute acted as the linchpin for the entire block of compromises the 31st Congress passed in 1850. More so than any other issue-including statehood for California, the new fugitive …

Review Of Life Stages And Native Women: Memory, Teachings, And Story Medicine By Kim Anderson, Rebeka Tabobondung

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Life Stages and Native Women unearths the vital teachings of fourteen diverse Indigenous elder oral historians who share their knowledge about the life cycle of Native women. From conception to walking, childhood and youth, adult years, to grandmothers and elders, author Kim Anderson weaves the four life stages from a series of oral history interviews conducted over a period of five years beginning in 2007. Cree/Metis elder and master storyteller Maria Campbell guides Anderson on her journey to gain knowledge from a generation of Creel Metis, Cree, Saulteaux, and Ojibwe elders, each of whom holds tightly to the stories of …

Review Of Portraits Of The Prairie: The Land That Inspired Willa Cather By Richard Schilling, Richard Jussel

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Ultimately, it seems, most Nebraskans seek to return to their roots: to the "home place," a tree-shaded glen, a favorite swimming hole, or a hilltop view of the old town. Essentially, this is what Richard Schilling returns us to in Portraits of the Prairie: The Land that Inspired Willa Cather. Strolling through Cather's works, he weds her words to his own sketches and watercolors, although quickly pointing out that his paintings "are not illustrations of Cather's stories," but images of the land that an artist sees today. As a result, Schilling creates a work of art that explores the sensitivity …

Review Of Westward Bound: Sex, Violence, The Law, And The Making Of A Settler Society By Lesley Erickson, William Katerberg

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Westward Bound is a detailed study of sex and violence in Canada's prairie provinces and British Columbia-the circumstances and causes of that violence, its policing and prosecution, and the role of both in the shaping of class, race, and gender relations during the settlement era. Lesley Erickson's study can be read profitably along with studies of the us. West, such as David Peterson del Mar's Beaten Down: A History of Interpersonal Violence in the West (2002). Erickson makes few comparisons to the US., framing her analysis instead mostly in relation to historiography on other parts of Canada and Britain. But …

Review Of Always An Adventure: An Autobiography By Hugh A. Dempsey, Michael Payne

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Autobiography has been dismissed as the most self-indulgent of literary forms-biographer Humphrey Carter called it the "most respectable form of lying"-but Always an Adventure seems a little deficient in these respects. Instead, it offers a forthright account of the life of one of Canada's most eminent public historians.

After starting his working life in 1947 as a sign painter, Hugh Dempsey quickly moved on to become a newspaper reporter and publicist before taking up a career with the Glenbow Museum and Archives in Calgary. His book discusses the early, and sometimes contentious, history of the Glenbow, and Dempsey's stories of …

Review Of Indian Voices: Listening To Native Americans By Alison Owings, Sally Thompson

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Have you ever noticed how often historians and anthropologists write about Indians in the past tense? This phenomenon is one of the most disempowering experiences for an Indian to encounter. Journalist Alison Owings's unique book helps to correct this misperception, while covering broad subjects of history and culture through the lives of sixteen Native Americans, most of whom are unknown outside of their own communities.

Owings's accounts entwine the contemporary with the past. The reader finds intelligent first-hand reflections on how treaties, allotments, reorganization, relocation, termination, federal recognition, NAGPRA, and other federal policies, alongside blood quantum controversies and gaming, have …

Review Of A New Heartland: Women, Modernity, And The Agrarian Ideal In America By Janet Galligani Casey, Pamela Riney-Kehrberg

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

In A New Heartland, Janet Galligani Casey tackles the difficult issue of how to judge modernity in early twentieth-century America by focusing on a group often thought to embody traditional and anti modern America, its rural women. The book is not about the realities of rural life. Instead, it is about the depiction and idea of rural life, and women's place within these. Galligani Casey examines women's place in the periodicals, literature, and photography of the time, doing a particularly good job of analyzing the leading farm women's periodical of the day, The Farmer's Wife. The book connects agrarian …

Great Plains Quarterly Volume 32 / Number 3 / Summer 2012

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Contents

Book Reviews

Notes and News

Christopher Lasch And Prairie Populism, Jon K. Lauck

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Christopher Lasch was born in Omaha in 1932. By the end of his life, cut short at age sixty-one, he had become one of the most famous intellectuals in the world. During his life of active writing from the time of the early Cold War until the fall of the Soviet Union, Lasch's distinctive voice pierced through the din of the nation's noisy political and cultural debates. The historian Jackson Lears recalled, in particular, the "spell that Lasch cast over a generation of historians and cultural critics who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s." A product and one-time …

Review Of Eyewitness At Wounded Knee By Richard E. Jensen, R. Eli Paul, And John E. Carter, Dawn G. Marsh

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Wounded Knee, Pine Ridge, the Ghost Dance are all phrases that invoke, perhaps more than any others, the senseless, prolonged acts of atrocity against Native Americans. The story of the events, peoples, and places unfolds on a bleak wintry landscape of the Northern Plains at the end of the nineteenth century. Scholars tell and retell this story, pondering the causes and failed communications, often seeking explanations or rationalizations for the assault on Sioux men, women, and children that took place in South Dakota leaving more than 250 dead. Storytellers, poets, and screenwriters employ the frozen, barren landscapes of the Northern …

Review Of The Dream Of A Broken Field By Diane Glancy

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

In her latest book, Diane Glancy, professor emerita at Macalester College, Minnesota, and author of numerous novels, short story collections, and essay collections, returns to the topics that have always been the focus of her work: the importance of space, of landscape, and of travel; reflections on (nonfiction) writing and what she calls "geographies of language" in The Dream of a Broken Field; the difficulties of bridging Native American and European heritages (Glancy has Cherokee, English, and German ancestry); the uneasy combination of Christianity and Indigeneity; and her personal emotional and family history. Like her previous work, especially Claiming …

Review Of Lone Stars Iii: A Legacy Of Texas Quilts, 1986- 2011 By Karoline Patterson Bresenhan And Nancy O'Bryant Puentes, Marcia Kaylakie

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Long awaited by the quilt world, Lone Stars III is the summation of a trilogy of Texas quilt history and quilt documentations. Following the tremendous success of the first two volumes (1986, 1990), book three is another visual wonder of quilt artistry in all its forms. The book is well constructed to create a unified flow of images and ideas. In their introductory "A Quarter Century of Change," Karoline Patterson Bresenhan and Nancy O'Bryant Puentes present a graphic account of the thoughts of modern quilt artists as they struggle to find meaning in modern events.

Review Of West-Words: Celebrating Western Canadian Theatre And Playwriting Edited By Moira J. Day, Scott Sharplin

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Collecting essays from a 2007 national conference hosted by the University of Saskatchewan Drama Department and the Canadian Association of Theatre Research, West-words purports to be "the first comprehensive study of contemporary theatre across the [Canadian] prairies" since 1977. It is certainly wideranging, in terms of style, subject matter, and theme; "comprehensive," however, is beyond the reach of this scattershot anthology.

Editor Moira J. Day divides the entries according to provincial content, moving east to west like the colonists' path across the three prairie provinces. A fourth heading, "Crossing Regional Borders," seems to undermine the tidy geographical categorization of Manitoban, …

Review Of Will Rogers: A Political Life By Richard D. White Jr., Paul F. Lambert

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

A child of the Southern Plains, Will Rogers became an iconic national figure in the 1920s and '30s. Renowned as a vaudevillian, a comedic movie star, a syndicated newspaper columnist, a radio commentator, and an author, Rogers's significance as a political figure has largely been minimized or overlooked. Richard D. White Jr. demonstrates successfully that Rogers indeed was an influential political commentator whose support on behalf of various issues was sought and coveted by presidents from Woodrow Wilson to Franklin Roosevelt.

Review Of Masculine Style: The American West And Literary Modernism By Daniel Worden, Blake Allmendinger

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Daniel Worden argues that masculinity isn't a biological identity or a fixed construct, but a type of performance that allows for fluidity, enabling individuals "the freedom to refashion the self and live as an equal among others." The men and women who assume such a style challenge a hierarchical system in which men are equated with power and dominance. They reveal a complex subjectivity, sometimes engaging in sentimental relationships and forming unorthodox friendships and unions-unlike the traditional cowboy, who is portrayed in literature as a rugged and isolate, though presumably heterosexual, male. Worden examines the subversion of stereotypical western masculinity …

Review Of Scenery, Curiosities, And Stupendous Rocks: William Quesenbury's Overland Sketches, 1850-51 By David Royce Murphy, With Contributions By Michael L. Tate And Michael Farrell, James Peck

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

This handsome volume is a welcome addition to the growing literature detailing nineteenth- century overland migration, especially travel in and through the Great Plains. Its subject is the Omaha World-Herald's William Quesenbury sketchbook, published here in its entirety for the first time. Quesenbury, who traveled west from Arkansas to California seeking gold in 1850 and returned east with John Wesley Jones as part of his team of Pantoscope artists in 1851, produced more landscape drawings of the North Platte and Sweetwater Rivers High Plains regions than any other historical figure.

Review Of Imprisoned Art, Complex Patronage: Plains Drawings By Howling Wolf And Zotom At The Autry National Center By Joyce M. Szabo, Phillip Earenfight

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Imprisoned Art adds to its author's growing list of impressive publications that consider the so-called ledger drawings created by Plains Indian warriors incarcerated, as prisoners of the Southern Plains wars, at Fort Marion in St. Augustine, Florida, between 1875 and 1879. It focuses on what were once two fully intact books of drawings, one by Zotom (Kiowa), the other by Howling Wolf (Cheyenne). Treated earlier in Dorothy Dunn's 1877: Plains Indian Sketch Books of Zo-Tom and Howling Wolf (1969), and, with respect to Howling Wolf, in Szabo's Howling Wolf and the History of Ledger Art (1994), the books receive here …

Review Of American Indian Nations From Termination To Restoration, 1953-2006 By Roberta Ulrich, James Allison

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Roberta Ulrich's blistering, 2S0-page tour of dozens of different Indian groups undergoing termination and restoration can at times leave the reader dizzy and gasping for air. With so many different communities undergoing such diverse experiences, it is often hard to see the utility of housing these stories under one roof. Convenience is welcome, but analytical coherence is better. Ulrich herself provides little justification for the project and rarely draws illustrious conclusions across tribal experiences. She does, however, dutifully collect all the stories together and provides a clear structure that allows readers easily to discern common themes and patterns. For that, …

Review Of This Is Not The Ivy League: A Memoir Y Mary Clearman Blew, Julene Bair

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Mary Clearman Blew reports that her "gorge still rises" recalling "the dearth of expectations" held out for her during her remote Montana childhood. In passages reminiscent of Alice Munro's Lives of Girls and Women, we see a smart girl who, to realize her potential, must bring her own volition ruthlessly to bear.

Of course, she is not forgiven for overstepping her bounds. Most critical of her are her husband's parents. When, after marrying at age eighteen, she becomes pregnant within the year, her mother-in-law is triumphant: "I guess this is finally the end of college for you!" Instead, Blew …

Review Of After Custer: Loss And Transformation In Sioux Country By Paul L. Hedren, Rani-Henrik Andersson

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Paul Hedren is well known for excellent studies focusing on the Sioux wars and the Northern Plains. In After Custer: Loss and Transformation in Sioux Country, Hedren returns to his favorite topics, but this time telling a story no longer focused on Northern Plains conflicts between Indians and whites, but on the changes that took place in the years following the Plains Indian Wars. His approach is admirable, since for most people-scholars and general readers alike-interest often ends with the conclusion of open combat. The years between Little Big Horn and Wounded Knee are seldom treated so thoroughly as in …

The 2012 Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize, Andrew Jewell

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Selecting a single book to win a prize is a tremendous challenge. There can be something unsatisfying about ranking creative scholarly works knowing there is no such thing as a sole "best" book in a group of quality titles. And yet, each year that I've been a part of the Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize committee, it has happened relatively easily: a book is chosen as the prize winner. The ease does not emerge from a casual attitude toward the selection. On the contrary, the many people involved with choosing the Book Prize winner take it very seriously. I also …

Indians And Empires: Cultural Change Among The Omaha And Pawnee, From Contact To 1808, Kurt E. Kinbacher

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The Great Plains is in the middle of everywhere. It has been crossed and recrossed for tens of thousands of years. Because of its central location, the region served as a historical laboratory where people were "forever imagining new environments and trying to muscle them into being." In what is now the state of Nebraska-the very center of the middle-divergent groups of Native Americans claimed vast territories and created dynamic cultures. Among these peoples were the Omaha, who settled on the Missouri River, and the Pawnee, who lived in the Platte Valley. Four empires--Spain, France, Great Britain, and the United …

Every Man A Historian Means Every Man: Speaking With The Fringe, John M. Rudy

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

The amazing power of the internet age is the pure democratizing ethic it has injected into our culture. We aren't simply pleased when the world around us solicits and listens to our opinions, we've come to expect it. Every news story has a comment thread; every article asks for our feedback. The White House solicits input from the American "user" and offers meaningful responses. In short, we are a people who are growing more vocal in our daily lives. The brilliant constitutional law professor and master of cultural understanding Lawrence Lessig has called our culture "Read-Write" as opposed to "Read-Only." …

Lost And Found: Where The Iconic Meet, John M. Rudy

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

I know exactly when I began believing in the Muppets again. I am a child of the '80s. I was five years old when Jim Henson died. I remember watching the TV with my Mom crying beside me as Frank Oz's Fozzie, Richard Hunt's Scooter and Dave Goelz's Gonzo read to their friends the condolence letters sent by thousands of grieving fans. I remember the slow building of "Just One Person." [excerpt]

Good Morning To The Night: Requiem For My Battlefield, John M. Rudy

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

The fireflies have started to appear around Gettysburg. We have a new sliding glass door in the kitchen that I can press my face against and see them. I did it the other night when Jess mentioned they're out there. [excerpt]

College Kids With Guns: Hidden In Plain Sight, John M. Rudy

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

Sunday morning found me out in the field with a stalwart group of Gettysburg devotees: the Gettysburg Discussion Group's annual spring Muster. When the coordinator of this year's Muster put out the call for something a bit different, perhaps something in town for Sunday, my ears perked up. I've been looking for groups to test out the nuggets of the College's Civil War story on and the GDG seemed like the perfect group of guinea pigs. [excerpt]

Peace, Politics, And Vortex: The Cultural And Political Consequences Of Oregon's Only State Sponsored Rock Concert, Kathryn J. Van Marter-Sanders

Lawrence University Honors Projects

As the 1960s drew to a close, mainstream America realized that the rebellious youth counterculture was not going to go away quietly. Meeting the problem head on as the authorities had in Kent State resulted in violent deaths and even more protests. This trend broke, possibly for the first time, at McIver Park in Portland, Oregon during the first ever state-sponsored rock concert. To make the concert, called ‘Vortex One,’ possible, Governor of Oregon Tom McCall, and The Family commune joined forces to create a peaceful alternative to possible violent opposition of the American Legion National Convention. The concert, however, …

"The People For Whom He Saved The Union": Ninety Years Ago In Dc, John M. Rudy

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

Reading the official Facebook page of one of my favorite history authors yesterday, I saw a pithy note about a "day of note." Ninety years ago this week, President Warren Harding dedicated the Lincoln Memorial at the west end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C. [excerpt]