Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Federal Land Reclamation In The Dust Bowl, R. Douglas Hurt

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

In the spring of 1932, dust clouds swept over portions of the southern Great Plains. For the next six years, drought and the prevailing winds wreaked havoc over fifty million acres across northeastern New Mexico, southeastern Colorado, western Kansas, and the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma-an area known by 1935 as the Dust Bowl. Much of that acreage was submarginal-land that, given the price of wheat, did not merit cultivation-and it was easily windblown. Tillage with one-way disk plows pulverized the powder-dry soil, and the nearly constant winds blew and drifted it across crop and grasslands. During the remainder of …

Index

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Index 315-321 (6 pages)

Review Of ] Effason And Southwestern Exploration: The Freeman And Custis Accounts Of The Red River Expedition Of 1806 Ed. By Dan L. Flores, James P. Ronda

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The Freeman-Custis expedition does have an important place in exploration history. Flores's presentation of the documents, including the previously unpublished Custis natural history catalogue, goes a long way toward filling out the Jeffersonian roster of explorers. But Flores has weakened his book by half proven hints of conspiracy, charges of congressional cover-up, and occasional sniping at other expeditions. The Freeman-Custis story does not require hype. Readers will be pleased to have the documents but may reject Flores's telling of what they mean.

Review Of Struggle And Hope: The Hungarian-Canadian Experience By N. F. Dreisziger With M. L. Kovacs, Paul Body, And Bennett Kovrig, Linda Dégh

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

This book appears in the government sponsored series A History of Canada's Peoples, aiming at the general public's interest in the ethnic dimension of Canadian society. "Most Canadians belong to an ethnic group, since to do so is simply to 'have a sense of identity rooted in a common origin ... whether this common origin is real or imaginary' ... all have traditions and values that they cherish and that now are part of the cultural riches that Canadians share." Despite the reference to such subjective concepts as "identity," "tradition," and "values," the authors of ethnic extraction were instructed to …

A Review Of A Final Promise: The Campaign To Assimilate The Indians By Frederick E. Hoxie, Brian W. Dippie

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Frederick Hoxie's argument in A Final Promise is that there were two distinct phases to the government's assimilation program between 1880 and 1920, divided roughly at 1900. The first was an idealistic, internally consistent policy of fully incorporating the Indians into the American way of life as small landowners with citizenship rights and the equivalent of a common school education equals among equals, in short. The second phase saw a diminution of expectations and a growing perception, consistent with the segregationist forces active throughout American society, of the Indians as a permanent, backward minority in need of continuing government controls. …

Review Of Daughters Of Joy, Sisters Of Misery: Prostitutes In The American West, 1865-90 By Anne M. Butler, Melody Graulich

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Anne M. Butler's Daughters of Joy, Sisters of Misery is a broad history of prostitution throughout the American West, based on extensive primary research and illustrated with some wonderful photographs. Like many women's historians, Butler begins with two assumptions: that she will rescue a particular group of women from "historical obscurity" and that she will test and ultimately undermine the stereotypical and often one-dimensional portrayal of their lives. Her major thesis, however, gives her book added scope: while her discussion of the lives of prostitutes reveals that they were often powerless and victimized, she demonstrates convincingly that as a group …

Review Of An Unfailing Faith: A History Of The Saskatchewan Dairy Industry By Gordon C. Church, Kenneth Hill

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

An Unfailing Faith will likely become the primary reference work on the development of the dairy industry in Saskatchewan. Considering its several hundred references and its comprehensive outline, it is unlikely that there exists or will appear a publication that covers the historical developments of the dairy industry so completely. The book contains a lot of local color, including pioneer living conditions on the prairies and early histories of cities, towns, attitudes, and operations of community leaders. Descendants of pioneer families will find much to supplement their memories and family histories, and readers of general Western lore will be pleased …

Who Was "Forest Man?" Sources Of Migration To The Plains, John C. Hudson

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

One of the points of high drama in Walter Prescott Webb's The Great Plains is his description of forest man's entry into the grasslands: Let us visualize the American approach to the Great Plains by imagining ourselves standing on the dividing line between the timber and plain ... As we gaze northward we see on the right side the forested and well-watered country and on the left side the arid, treeless plain. On the right we see a nation of people coming slowly but persistently through the forests, felling trees, building cabins, making rail fences, ... advancing shoulder to shoulder, …

Review Of The History Of Prairie Theatre By E. Ross Stuart, Susan Minsos

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

E. Ross Stuart's encyclopedic text, The History of Prairie Theatre-the development of theatre in Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan- is simply too short. Selectively chronicling theatrical events on the Canadian Prairies, stressing "facts rather than opinions," Stuart firmly refuses to evaluate the matters he records. But the man does set out to cover a vast, unexplored territory, a task he completes with admirable success. Stuart clinically divides his research into four areas: Pioneer Times, Amateur Theatre, Educational Theatre, and New Professional Theatre. Analysis focuses around major prairie centers, Winnipeg, Regina-Saskatoon, Edmonton- Calgary-Banff, and since their theatre histories in some cases …

Review Of Maps Of Texas And The Southwest, 1513-1900 By James C. Martin And Robert Sidney Martin, Robert K. Holz

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Frequently old maps are gathered and reproduced in folio volumes that have little scholarly value but that make handsome coffee table displays. In Maps of Texas and the Southwest, 1513-1900, James and Robert Martin have produced an excellent book on the history of cartography that will be of benefit to current and future collectors and students but that is much more than another coffee table volume. The book goes beyond a simple reproduction of old maps on Texas and the Southwest. The authors have done an admirable job of researching the historical record, not only for old maps, but …

Review Of Kit Carson: A Pattern For Heroes By Thelma S. Guild And Harvey L. Carter, Stephen Tatum

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Kit Carson fulfills its authors' hope of providing a readable and reliable biography of its subject. It has helpful maps and illustrations; for the most part it reads well, although the Fremont expedition narrative was the only series of chapters conveying any excitement or enthusiasm. It should appeal to Carson buffs and to history buffs interested in the American Southwest. If it had been more venturesome in speculating at key points on the man's motivations and intentions, and if it had offered intelligent insights on the sociocultural milieu which accorded this unlikely man fame, the biography perhaps would have even …

Review Of America's Country Schools By Andrew Guilliford, Courtney Ann Vaughn-Roberson

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

In Andrew Guilliford's view, many scholars have portrayed the history of American country schools in too narrow a fashionpresenting them as either pedagogical disasters or as images of the nation's success. Thus, the purpose of Guilliford's quite readable book, America's Country Schools, is to present a balanced interpretation of the historic educational setting, reconciling the beneficial elements of traditional education with some of its well-founded criticisms. Although his primary contribution to the literature is a large pictorial collection, Guilliford cites a wealth of scholarly works in his historical review. He takes into account the quality of curricula and teachers, …

Dust Bowl Historiography, Harry C. Mcdean

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

In the late 1930s, Undersecretary of Agriculture Milburn Lincoln Wilson organized "T ravelling Great Plains Schools," culminating three decades of research and reform work in the Great Plains. The schools brought hundreds of rural social scientists together with scores of federal and state policymakers. The schools were broken into two sections, one dedicated to the southern Plains and the other to the northern. Those who attended spent several weeks making their way through the Plains, with care taken to differentiate problems particular to each of the two regions. In the southern Plains, the school spent several days examining the problems …

Review Of Rebel For Rights: Abigail Scott Duniway By Ruth Barnes Moynihan, D'Ann Campbell

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Until now, Abigail Scott Duniway's polemical autobiography, Path Breaking, served as the standard work concerning the life and contributions of the foremost proponent of women's rights in the West. Duniway deserves more, and with the publication of Rebel for Rights we now have a balanced, insightful, comprehensive biography.

Adapting The Environment Ranching, Irrigation, And Dry Land Farming In Southern Alberta, 1880-1914, A. A. Den Otter

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

For centuries the nutritious grasses of the southwestern fringe of the Canadian prairies supported an abundance of game, providing ample food for its nomadic peoples. Not until the middle of the nineteenth century did anyone look to this area as a farming frontier. By the 1850s, however, the curiosity of Canadians about it was increased by a need for new territories for investment, scientific estimates that the land was more favorable for agriculture than had previously been believed, and the fiery rhetoric of expansionist journalists. The need for more accurate knowledge prompted the Canadian and British governments to send scientific …

Review Of Now That The Buffalo's Gone: A Study Of Today's American Indians By Alvin M. Josephy, Jr, William H. Graves

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Alvin Josephy's statement that this book is the "culmination of thirty years of association" with American Indians (p. xi) explains its purpose and reveals the difficulty of trying to evaluate it. It is a study of today's Indians, their concerns, needs, and problems. It is historical, journalistic, personal, and revealing. Josephy, former editor of American Heritage magazine, is the author of several books on American Indians, including the highly regarded Patriot Chiefs. His writing style is smooth, graceful, persuasive and readable. He writes with refreshing sensitivity and his grasp of contemporary Indian issues is impressive.

Notes & News

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

CENTER FOR GREAT PLAINS STUDIES SYMPOSIA

CALLS FOR PAPERS

GEORGE IRA HANSON TRUST

LECTURE SERIES

Great Plains Quarterly, Volume [6], No. [1], Winter 1986

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

PICTURES AND PROSE: ROMANTIC SENSIBILITY AND THE GREAT PLAINS IN CATLIN, KANE, AND MILLER -Ann Davis and Robert Thacker

RITUAL PAGEANTRY IN THE AMERICAN WEST: A WYOMING CASE STUDY -Audrey C. Shalinsky

THE BIG ROCK CANDY MOUNTAIN: THE CONSEQUENCES OF A DELUSORY AMERICAN DREAM - Kenneth C. Mason

KANSAS THROUGH THE EYES OF KANSANS: PREFERENCES FOR COMMONLY VIEWED LANDSCAPES -Roxane Fridirici and Stephen E. White

BOOK REVIEWS

The Sixth Grandfather: Black Elk's Teaching Given to John G. Neihardt

A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians

The Indian Frontier of the American West, 1846-1890

Native Faces: Indian Cultures in …

Notes & News

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

SYMPOSIA: CENTER FOR GREAT PLAINS STUDIES (N. Scott Momaday; La Donna Harris; Peterson Zah; John W. Bennet)

FACES AND TYPEFACES (Warren W. Caldwell; John G. Peters)

MATCHING THE CHALLENGE GRANT

SOME NOTES FROM CANADA

TO APPEAR IN NOTES AND NEWS

Pictures And Prose Romantic Sensibility And The Great Plains In Catlin, Kane, And Miller, Ann Davis, Robert Thacker

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The romantic movement in America, like that in Europe, was characterized by fondness for the exotic and observation of nature. So the Great Plains and the peoples who lived there were favored topics of artists and writers from the mid-1820s through the 1850s. However, at its height the American romantic movement was challenged by a subtle but persistent search for realism. The distinctions between romanticism and realism in belles lettres were not always recognized, since early visual depictions of the plains were seen primarily as ethnographic material, records of an unknown land and the exotic beings who lived there. The …

Review Of Big Bear: The End Of Freedom By Hugh A. Dempsey, Robert S. Allen

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Like his previous publications on Crowfoot (1972), Charcoal's World (1978), and Red Crow (1980), Hugh A. Dempsey's Big Bear: The End of Freedom (1984) makes extensive and effective use of Indian legends and oral data. Who knows if the visions and mystical experiences of Big Bear, as told to Dempsey by native informants, are true or accurate; and who cares? The stories are entertaining, illuminating, probably possess the substance of truth, and would certainly be as authentic as much of the written records of those days. The Indian oral reminiscences are more than complemented by a careful research of the …

Review Of Stampede City: Power And Politics In The West Edited By Chuck Reasons, Brenton M. Barr

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Stampede City inquires into the boom and bust generated by the petroleum industry in Calgary, Alberta, between the mid 1970s and early 1980s. Calgary is Canada's sixth largest population center but is the corporate and financial center of the country's petroleum industry. In economic terms, what benefits that industry benefits the city. The authors of this book argue that what is good for the petroleum industry, however, is not always good for all inhabitants of Calgary. The headings of Stampede City's nine lively and provocative chapters reflect many of the authors' sentiments: "Calgary: Where Free Enterprise costs a little more"; …

Review Of Prairie Politics And Society: Regionalism In Decline By Roger Gibbins And The Making Of The Modern West: Western Canada Since 1945 Edited By A. W. Rasporich, William P. Brown, John Dinse

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Both of these books address regionalism in Western Canada. Prairie Politics and Society, written by a political scientist from the University of Calgary, emphasizes the socio-economic development of the prairie provinces, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, providing an integrated examination of prairie politics throughout the twentieth century. The Making of the Modern West, with its mid-century focus, provides a collection of varied descriptive and analytic essays about all aspects of economic, social, and political life in the prairie provinces. Both books are well worth reading. Canadian readers will benefit from the scholarly attention that details the realities of those vital provinces. …

Review Of The Reservation Blackfeet, 1882-1945: A Photographic History Of Cultural Survival By William E. Farr, Robert C. Carriker

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Tribal histories usually rely upon archival documents and oral traditions for source material. This book adds another source: the lens of a camera. The Reservation Blackfeet offers approximately 200 photographs as a reliable, visual record of tribal cultural change. "Here are windowpanes," suggests Professor William E. Farr of the University of Montana, "that looked out on the past ... [as] fixed, rectangular glimpses ... " Blackfeet tribal history is complex. Once the dominant tribe in present-day Montana, they were seduced into the white man's world during the buffalo robe trade of the 1830s. In 1855 they agreed to a sizeable …

Wallace M. Short: Iowa Rebel By William H. Cumberland, Thomas Burnell Colbert

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Wallace M. Short, a clergyman influenced by the Social Gospel of Washington Gladden and the Progressivism of Robert M. La Follette, was defrocked by the Congregational Church in 1916, in large part for his opposition to prohibition and his defense of organized labor. Two years later he became mayor of Sioux City, Iowa, and for the next three decades he was a conspicuous figure in state politics.

Review Of The Canadian Prairies: A History By Gerald Friesen, R. T. Harrison

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

In The Canadian Prairies, Gerald Friesen has taken on a monumental task. Over the past generation prairie historiography has grown too rapidly to lend itself to synoptic treatments. It would therefore be unreasonable to expect specialists to be entirely satisfied with Friesen's treatment of their aspects of prairie history. I know I would like to edit his remarks on prairie literature, yet my informal inquiries suggest that this book is highly respected both by professional historians and by prairie pioneers, who find that Friesen's narration rings true to their actual experiences. One of Friesen's greatest achievements is in making …

Review Of Plains Country Towns By John C. Hudson, Lawrence H. Larsen

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

John C. Hudson's new book, Plains Country Towns, deals with the dynamics of town building in a 20,000 square-mile area of north central North Dakota. Between 1880 and 1920 railroad colonization agents and independent speculators platted over 500 town sites. Three railroads, the Soo Line, the Northern Pacific, and the Great Northern, planned towns at roughly ten-mile intervals along their main and branch lines. Sometimes, where tracks intersected, they built neighboring promotions. No one expected all the projects to succeed. They were a device used by the railroads to effectively dominate marketing activities. Hudson, a Northwestern University professor of …

Review Of Lewis And Clark Among The Indians By James P. Ronda, G. Malcom Lewis

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

In his instructions of June 1803 to Meriwether Lewis concerning the conduct of what was to become known as the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Thomas Jefferson made it quite clear that one of the Expedition's purposes was to pave the way for the development of American commerce with the Indians of the northern Plains, Rocky Mountains, and Pacific Northwest. That was soon to occur but the President could not have anticipated the longer-term economic spin off for the nation's publishing industry. Since the appearance in 1807 of the first printed account of the Expedition more than one hundred books have …

Review Of Loren Eiseley: The Development Of A Writer By E. Fred Carlisle And Loren Eiseley By Leslie E. Gerber And Margaret Mcfadden, Nancy Bernhardt Holland

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Students of Loren Eiseley who have long looked forward to an account of his life more complete than that found in All the Strange Hours, the episodic and ruminative volume Eiseley designated as his autobiography, have new grounds for disappointment. E. Fred Carlisle in Loren Eiseley: The Development of a Writer and Leslie E. Gerber and Margaret McFadden in the Loren Eiseley volume of Ungar's Literature and Life series provide some pleasant reading but fail to capture the essential Eiseley.

Review Of Views And Viewmakers Of Urban America: Lithographs Of Towns And Cities In The United States And Canada, Notes On The Artists And Publishers, And A Union Catalog Of Their Work, 1825-1925 By John W. Reps, Frederick C. Luebke

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

John Reps, the foremost historian of urban planning in America, has accumulated through the years a mountain of information about the many bird's-eye views of cities and towns in the expanding America of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In this remarkable volume, Reps organizes and systematizes his data to provide the definitive statement on these fascinating artifacts of American cultural history.