Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Quality Of Life Of Rural Nebraskans, Rebecca J. Vogt

Nebraska Rural Poll

Community Life in Rural Nebraska: Trends and Comparisons

Educational Quality And County Government Services: Rural Nebraskans' Perceived Impacts Of Recent And Proposed Legislation, Rebecca J. Vogt

Nebraska Rural Poll

The Quality of Life of Rural Nebraskans

The Value Of Additional Central Flyway Wetlands: The Case Of Nebraska's Rainwater Basin Wetlands, P. Joan Poor

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Waterfowl habitat is a biological resource which is neither bought nor sold in the traditional market sense. Nebraska, which is situated near the center of the North American Central Flyway, contains unique wetland habitat. Recognizing this, resource managers working in Nebraska promote regulatory protection of such areas. This study found that Nebraskans positively value their state's Rainwater Basin wetland region in that they are willing to pay to have it maintained and expanded. In addition, this study demonstrates how this value was estimated and illustrates how such a value can assist in policy decisions regarding habitat acquisition programs.

February 1999 - Staff Meeting Minutes

ALEC Committee Minutes

No abstract provided.

October 9, 1999 - Staff Meeting Minutes

ALEC Committee Minutes

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Pigs, Profits, And Rural Communities, Edited By Kendall M. Thu And E. Paul Durrenberger, E. Wesley F. Peterson

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Early in their introductory comments, the editors of this book claim that they “are not political activists and that [they] neither promote nor defend industrial agriculture based on any political agenda” (p. 4). Industrial agriculture, as understood in this book, includes large corporations, vertically integrated firms, multinationals, and anything else that seems to differ from what might be thought of as a traditional family farm. The editors suggest that their goal is to provide objective assessments of one example of industrial agriculture, large-scale hog confinement operations. However, as the introduction progresses, strange things seem to happen to this perfectly sensible …

Review Of Women Of Oklahoma, 1890-1920 By Linda Williams Reese, Patricia Loughlin

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

In Women of Oklahoma, Linda Williams Reese traces the experiences of African American, Native American, and white women from the creation of Oklahoma Territory in 1890 to the decade following statehood. Using a wealth of source material including diaries, letters, newspaper articles, oral histories, and census materials, Reese reconstructs the lives of Oklahoma women-offering a record of the past often overlooked in Oklahoma history prior to this important work.

Review Of Cowboy Justice: Tale Of A Texas Lawman By Jim Gober, Mark R. Ellis

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

In 1980, James Gober inherited a discolored and aged bundle of papers that had once belonged to his grandfather, Jim RansIer Gober. To his surprise, he found they contained a rough, unedited autobiographical account of his grandfather's life as a Great Plains cowboy, lawman, detective, gambler, and saloon- keeper. Although Jim Gober was a relatively unknown Great Plains figure, his grandson believed his life story contributed significantly to the history of this region; with the assistance of B. Byron Price, a historian and executive director of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, he edited and organized the narrative for publication.

Review Of Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Woman Behind The Legend By John E. Miller, Ann Romines

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Since Laura Ingalls Wilder's fictionalized biography, as the Little House series, has become one of the long-running hits of US popular culture, it is surprising for most readers to realize that the actual woman is a little-known figure. Reticent, determined, and deeply committed to propriety, Wilder had many friends in the small town where she lived for the last fifty-some years of her life, but few intimates beyond her husband and one daughter. Thus John E. Miller's scrupulous new biography of Wilder is a valuable and absorbing book. Miller's aim was to write "a biography describing and explaining the lived …

Litigation, Mitigation, And The American Indian Religious Freedom Act The Bear Butte Example, Kari Forbes-Boyte

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

"S acred mountains, of whatever culture, become merchandise in the dark age that is enveloping the planet. The voices of the spirits are falling silent beneath the roar of the machines that bleed the land and poison the waters and the air. A country, however powerful at the moment, that does not honor and preserve its sacred places is not fit for survival." So states a Lakota man when asked to describe the importance of sacred places to his culture. Sacred places, recognized by indigenous peoples worldwide, are highly esteemed by particular individuals or groups and are perceived to be …

Review Of Too Good A Town" : William Allen White. Community. And The Emerging Rhetoric Of Middle America By Edward Gale Agran, Diane Quantic

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

In "Too Good a Town" Edward Gale Agran demonstrates William Allen White's influence on Americans' view of themselves, especially in the 1920s and 1930s when the "sage of Emporia" was a nationally recognized cultural arbiter. A reader interested in the history of community or middle-class culture, particularly in the Middle West, would find this study useful. but it is of less value to someone more interested in the Great Plains. Occasionally Agran focuses on White's hometown, Emporia, Kansas, as a distinct geographical location, but his primary purpose is to demonstrate White's embodiment of the town as a broader …

Review Of Changing Ones: Third And Fourth Genders In Native North America By Will Roscoe, Sue-Ellen Jacobs

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

In the 212 text pages of Changing Ones, Roscoe demonstrates his storytelling abilities as he reweaves previously published papers with a canonical polemic that deeply engages his own and others' writings about purported Native American sexuality, sex, and gender definitions and practices. In presenting his analysis of select writings on "berdache," he generously acknowledges those who have become his adversaries by painstakingly replaying those authors' points of view against his own interpretations. For example, in the field of sexuality studies, Roscoe's disagreement with Ram6n Gutierrez ("Must We Deracinate Indians to Find Gay Roots?" Out/Look [Winter 1989] ) and Richard Trexler …

Review Of Blessing For A Long Time: The Sacred Pole Of The Omaha Tribe By Robin Ridington And Dennis Hastings, Michael L. Tate

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Omahas occupied a strategic position on the Missouri River and served as important middle men in the rapidly expanding fur trade. By mid-century, however, epidemics and white incursions having devastated their way of life, they were confined to a small reservation in northeastern Nebraska. As with other tribes, their culture came under continuous assault by missionaries, agents, and reformers who wished to accelerate their assimilation into mainstream American society.

In the face of these unwelcome changes, tribal elder Yellow Smoke worried that he would not be able to maintain his role as Keeper …

Notes And News- Winter 1999

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Notes And News

Calling All Fort Totten Boarding School Alumni

Prairie Anthologists Seek Essays

Archive Of Native American Writers

Gpq Author Wins Award

Oklahoma Visiting Scholars Program

"The Silent Artillery Of Time" Understanding Social Change In The Rural Midwest, Jon Lauck

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The great historian of republicanism, J. G. A. Pocock, noted that "[f]rom Jefferson to Frederick Jackson Turner and beyond, it was commonplace that sooner or later the frontier would be closed, the land filled, and the corruptions of history-urbanization, finance capital, 'the cross of gold,' 'the military-industrial complex' -would overtake America. Here are the origins of American historical pessimism." The American frontier has long since closed, the agrarian order has long-since passed away, and the pessimism has mushroomed into a "palpable despair and cynicism and violence," "dark signs of the times," according to the philosopher Jean Bethke Elshtain. The disappearance …

Review Of Texas And Northeastern Mexico, 1630-1690 By Juan Bautista Chapa, Kimberly Henke Breuer

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

This English translation of two seventeenth- century manuscripts concerning the exploration and settlement of northeastern Mexico and Texas is long overdue. The majority of the book is dedicated to Juan Bautista Chapa's Historia del nuevo reino de León de 1650 a 1690; the other translated manuscript is the revised 1690 expedition diary of Governor Alonso de León (the younger). This is the first widely published translation of Chapa's Historia into English. De León's revised diary is published here for the first time in either Spanish or English. Ned Brierley's translations, from the original manuscripts, are eminently readable and accessible.

Great Plains Quarterly, Volume [19], No. [4], Fall 1999

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

"THE SILENT ARTILLERY OF TIME": UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL CHANGE IN THE RURAL MIDWEST -Jon Lauck

COMMUNITY DREAMING IN THE RURAL NORTHWEST: THE MONTANA STUDY, 1944-47 -Philip J. Nelson

ROMANTIC WOMEN AND LA LUCHA: DENISE CHAVEZ'S FACE OF AN ANGEL -Francine K. Ramsey Richter

WHITHER COWBOY POETRY? -Jim Hoy

BOOK REVIEWS

BOOK NOTES

FROM THE EDITOR

NOTES AND NEWS

INDEX

Review Of Seeing The White Buffalo By Robert B. Pickering, Lee Irwin

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

For those unfamiliar with the White Buffalo and its relationship with Native American spirituality, this is the book to read. The author, curator of anthropology for the Denver Museum of Natural History, has written an accessible, informative guide that surveys the popular response to Miracle, the female white buffalo calf born in 1994. Pickering covers four areas: first, the personal perspectives of Dave and Val Heider, the Janesville, Minnesota, couple who run a small buffalo herd in which Miracle was born; then the "historical-cultural perspectives of American Indians"; the "spiritual perspectives" of Native and non-Native peoples toward Miracle; and the …

Whither Cowboy Poetry?, Jim Hoy

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

As a cultural phenomenon the explosion in popularity of cowboy poetry in the past dozen years has been nothing short of spectacular. Until the first full-scale cowboy poetry gathering at Elko, Nevada, in late January 1985, poetry was arguably the one aspect of cowboy culture that had not been expropriated into American popular culture. Certainly the mental picture of the cowboy himself-big hat, high-heeled boots, silk neckerchief, leather chaps-has long since become an icon that represents the very nation: wear a cowboy hat and you will be taken for an American anywhere in the world. The two essential working skills …

Review Of Constructing The Little House: Gender, Culture, And Laura Ingalls Wilder By Ann Romines, Fred Erisman

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Linking her own experiences with those of the fictional and historical Laura Ingalls Wilders, Ann Romines advances several issues she considers central to a fuller understanding of Wilder's well-known "Little House" books. Her five chapters (plus a conclusion) take up the books in chronological order, from Little House in the Big Woods (1932) to the posthumously published The First Four Years (1971), exploring the personal, cultural, and literary processes at work in each.

Review Of The Crowded Prairie: American National Identity In The Hollywood Western By Michael Coyne, John G. Cawelti

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

English and French scholars began to write serious critical commentaries on the American Western almost before Americans did. Beginning with Andre Bazin's important essays of the 1950s, the analyses of Jean Mitry and Jean-Louis Rieupeyrout, and coming down to Paul Bleton's 1997 collection Les hauts et les bas de l'imaginaire western, the French have helped us realize the artistic importance of the generic Western just as they showed Americans how to appreciate Edgar Allan Poe, William Faulkner, and many other major figures. The English critical tradition on the Western has been equally rich but different in its orientation. Beginning …

Book Notes

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The Arbitrary Indian: The Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990. By Gail K. Sheffield. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997. Appendices, notes, bibliography, index. viii + 223 pp. $27.50.

Doc Holliday: A Family Portrait. By Karen Holliday Tanner. Foreward by Robert K. DeArment. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998. Illustrations, maps, charts, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. xxx + 338 pp. $28.95.

McKinney Falls: The Ranch Home of Thomas F. McKinney, Pioneer Texas Entrepreneur. By Margaret Swett Henson. Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1999. Illustrations, notes. 48 pp. $7.95 paper.

Guide to Nebraska Authors. By Gerry Cox and Carol MacDaniels. …

From The Editor

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

This issue marks my last as editor of the Great Plains Quarterly. As I take up my new duties as Assistant Director of Humanities at the University of Nebraska, I leave the GPQ in the able hands of Chuck Braithwaite. Chuck comes to us from the University of Montana and I hope you'll support him as wholeheartedly as you did me. I want to thank my staff: Lona Dearmont, Daniel Justice, Andrea Radke, Linda Ratcliffe, Gretchen Walker, and George Wolf for their unfailing assistance, patience, and good humor. Thanks also to all of our anonymous peer reviewers who took …

Review Of With My Own Eyes: A Lakota Woman Tells Her People's History By Susan Bordeaux Bettelyoun And Josephine Waggoner, Bea Medicine

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

With My Own Eyes represents an historic event for this reviewer, who grew up on Standing Rock reservation in South Dakota where the name Josephine Waggoner was known and remembered. In my view, she represented a local Native intellectual who had a great interest in the history of the reservation. It was known by my father's generation that she had interviewed local headmen (itancan or "chiefs"). She also represents the companionship of Lakota women as they aged. Her literary partnership with Susan Bordeaux Bettelyoun was a fortuitous and productive bonding.

It is amazing that this history is finally published. …

Review Of A Thousand Honey Creeks Later: My Life In Music From Basie To Motown And Beyond By Preston Love, Annette L. Murrell

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

That's why his book is an intriguing combination of autobiography, sermon, and manifesto. Love's mission is not only to recount his life's many memorable moments, but also to lament the present state of jazz in America (particularly the weak music scene in Omaha, a city that between the 1930s and 1960s boasted of world class musicians and a thriving club scene), and the "whitewashing" of jazz which he considers to be black music. "If my anger seems excessive," he writes, "consider that Elvis Presley became the biggest star in the history of show business and was referred to as the …

The Death Of Edward Mcmurty, David J. Wishart

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Edward McMurty would have been lost to history if it hadn't been for the way he died and for what it meant in frontier Nebraska. McMurty's bloated body was found on 20 June 1869 in a pond on an island in the Platte River, about five miles from the town of Columbus (Fig. 1). He had been missing for six weeks. His body had been tethered to a large log and weighted down in the water. But distant snowmelts in the Rocky Mountains and a torrential Nebraska downpour on June 19th swelled the Platte, which flowed onto the island, flooding …

Review Of Confessions Of A Maddog: A Romp Through The High-Flying Texas Music And Literary Era Of The Fifties To The Seventies By Jay Dunston Milner, Kent Blaser

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The title Confessions of a Maddog carries a reference that most readers will not recognize: the "Maddogs" were an assortment of Texas writers and musicians, rowdy "good-old-boys" (and a few girls), who in the 1960s created a social circle-Maddogs, Inc.-complete with official membership cards and a slogan. Milner's book is part autobiography, but mostly a memoir/reminiscence of a particular time and group of people. Billie Lee Brammer, Larry L. King, Bud Shrake, Dan Jenkins, Peter Gent, Gary Cartwright, and Milner himself led the somewhat motley crew. Musician Jerry Jeff Walker was a regular participant. More famous individuals, including Willie Nelson, …

Review Of Lakota Noon: The Indian Narrative Of Custer's Defeat By Gregory F. Michno, Robert Larson

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Among the attempts to give the Indian version of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Gregory F. Michno's Lakota Noon may be one of the most systematic and creative. The study uses the eyewitness accounts of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho participants, as contradictory and confusing as some of them are, and arranges them chronologically in ten-minute intervals, beginning at three in the afternoon and ending at six. Although the testimony is taken primarily from warriors, the observations of women, older people, and even youngsters like the now-famous Black Elk are not overlooked. Michno also adds a spatial dimension …

Index

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Pages 323-331 (9 pages)

Review Of Researching Western History: Topics In The Twentieth Century, Gerald D. Nash And Richard W. Etulain, Eds., Thomas D. Isern

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Between bookend pieces by Earl Pomeroy and Gene M. Gressley, this anthology of hopes comprises essays on economic history by Gerald D. Nash, environmental history by Thomas R. Cox, urban history by Roger W. Lotchin, political history by Robert W. Cherny, women's history by Glenda Riley, cultural history (mainly literature) by Richard W. Etulain, and mythic history (mainly film) by Fred Erisman. The authors vary in the degree to which they emphasize historiography (what already has been done) or the historical agenda (what they think ought to be done), but the formula is much the same throughout: scan the recent …