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Review Of The Prairie Schoolhouse By John Martin Campbell, Sally Salisbury Stoddard

Great Plains Quarterly

John Martin Campbell, in this fine book consisting of sixty black and white, well conceived photographic plates and explicative text, has created an evocative picture of the prairie schoolhouses, the age from which they sprang, their environment, and the people for whom these formulaic structures fulfilled many functions. Older folks who grew up in the largely poor, rural areas of the vast American prairies will easily identify with Tony Hillerman's anecdote in the foreword, and they will surely experience a deep nostalgia and a profound sadness for the decay of the schoolhouse concept as well as the decay of the …