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"She Does Not Write Like A Historian" Marl Sandoz And The Old And New Western History, Betsy Downey

Great Plains Quarterly

When Mari Sandoz's The Cattlemen was published in 1958 a reviewer for The Christian Science Monitor commented that Sandoz "does not write like a woman." He admitted that his observation was "not all compliment." Reviewer Horace Reynolds might well have said "Sandoz does not write like a historian." Such re-phrasing, with its implications of both compliment and criticism, is a good place to begin examining Sandoz as historian. Mari Sandoz called herself a historian by training and vocation. She is best remembered for her historical works, particularly her Great Plains series: Old Jules (1935), Crazy Horse (1942), Cheyenne Autumn (1953), …

Marl Sandoz Nebraska Sandhills Author A Centennial Recognition, Barbara Rippey, John R. Wunder

Great Plains Quarterly

1996 marks the centennial year of Mari Susette Sandoz's birth to Swiss immigrant parents, Mary and Jules Sandoz, on a homestead in Sheridan County, Nebraska. Mari, the oldest of the six children in the Sandoz family, was shaped and hardened by her father's temper and by bearing the brunt of hard physical work both outdoors on the homestead and as her mother's helper. The people of her neighborhood were the kind of people who not only witnessed but made history, the kind of people whose lives and stories could be transformed into literature. Red Cloud, Robert Henri, Crazy Horse, "Gulla …

"With One Mighty Pull" Interracial Town Boosting In Nicodemus, Kansas, Claire O'Brien

Great Plains Quarterly

One steamy July day in 1887, a young American of African descent named H. R. Cayton arrived in the little northwestern Kansas town of Nicodemus in Graham County. He had traveled from Wyandotte to try his luck in the real estate and loan business, for he had heard that Nicodemus, a town founded by former slaves a decade earlier, was the place to be for an ambitious young black man like himself. Cayton's arrival was enthusiastically noted by one of the town's two newspapers, the Western Cyclone: "Mr. C. is a promising young man and has got 'git up …

Review Of Rachel Calof's Story: Jewish Homesteader On The Northern Plains By Rachel Calof, H. Elaine Lindgren

Great Plains Quarterly

Along with the original narrative this volume provides an epilogue by Jacob Calof, Rachel's youngest child, and two essays, one by J. Sanford Rikoon, the other by Elizabeth Jameson. Jacob Calof's comments confirm the strength and courage we find in his mother's words.

The essays lend significant context to the narrative. Rikoon gives a concise and informative explanation of the history of Jewish families that left Russia and eastern Europe to settle on farms in the Heartland. Jameson's analysis places Rachel's narrative in historical perspective and emphasizes the importance of recognizing diversities of ethnicity, class, and gender in the interpretation …

Review Of Talking Up A Storm: Voices Of The New West By Gregory L. Morris, Gerald Shapiro

Great Plains Quarterly

Morris's subjects include a handful of very well-known writers: Amy Tan, Thomas McGuane, Ron Hansen, and Richard Ford, winner of this year's Pulitzer Prize. Mixed in with these are interviews with lesser known western writers such as James Crumley, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, Mary Clearman Blew, and Ralph Beer. For readers interested in Western literature, an especially useful feature of Talking Up a Storm is the bibliography following each interview. As with any collection like this one, a reader is likely to be left with some questions: Why is this author included but that one left out? Why is the West seemingly …

Review Of Vision Quest: Men, Women And Sacred Sites Of The Sioux Nation Photographs By Don Doll, S.J. Introduction By Vine Deloria, Jr., John E. Carter

Great Plains Quarterly

Don Doll is not the first person of Euro-American ancestry to point the lens of a camera at American Indians. In fact, there is a long tradition of that dating from the middle of the nineteenth century. And neither is he the first person to produce a book of such photographs. That, too, is old hat. But Doll's work is quite different from that of his fellows, and his recent volume, Vision Quest, an assemblage of photographs of Sioux people (inclusive of all three major bands) and the lands that are sacred to them, is proof of that. It …

Notes And News

Great Plains Quarterly

GREAT PLAINS STUDIES SYMPOSIUM

FREDERICK C. LUEBKE AWARD (Frederick C. Luebke)

CALL FOR PAPERS

IN MEMORIAM (James Sinclair Ross)

The Left And Labor On The Plains An Introduction, Frances W. Kaye

Great Plains Quarterly

This issue of Great Plains Quarterly is given up to two long articles that probe different facets of the history of the Left on the Great Plains. In "Workers, Unions, and Historians on the Northern Plains," William C. Pratt surveys unions in Nebraska and the Great Plains with an eye to what historians have written about them, what stories remain to be told, and what sources are available for the telling. Certainly he finds no dearth of material, though he is disappointed not to find integrative texts in the school of the "new labor history" for the northern Plains, the …

Table Of Contents

Great Plains Quarterly

THE LEFT AND LABOR ON THE PLAINS: AN INTRODUCTION (Frances W. Kaye)

WORKERS, UNIONS, AND HISTORIANS ON THE NORTHERN PLAINS (William C. Pratt)

"WHO'S GOING TO DANCE WITH SOMEBODY WHO CALLS YOU A MAIN STREETER": COMMUNISM, CULTURE AND COMMUNITY IN SHERIDAN COUNTY, MONTANA, 1918-1934 (Gerald Zahavi)

REVIEW ESSAY

Ric Burns. The Way West: Episode I, Westward, the Course of Empire Takes Its Way, 1845-1864; Episode II, The Approach of Civilization, 1865-1869; Episode III, The War for the Black Hills, 1870-1876; Episode IV, Ghost Dance, 1877-1893. (Martin Blythe; Mia Graeffe; Sanna Heinsalo; Ossi Heinanen; Ari Helo; Kari Hirvinen; Piia Kiviniemi; Vello …

Review Of Nebraska: An Illustrated History By Frederick C. Luebke, Michael W. Schuyler

Great Plains Quarterly

Masterfully highlighting the contribution that individuals such as William Jennings Bryan, George Norris, and Norbert Tiemann have made to the state, Luebke is able at the same time to relate Nebraska's history to national and international developments. He also provides a sure account of the state's history during the past fifty years. The concluding essay, "Change in Contemporary Nebraska, 1970-1995," is especially helpful in understanding recent changes in population trends, agriculture, the economy, and Nebraska's relationship to the rest of the world. With the assistance of the staff of the Nebraska State Historical Society, to whom the book is dedicated, …

The Frontier Medical Community Of Leavenworth, Kansas, Charles R. King M.D.

Great Plains Quarterly

One of the important elements in the development of a North American frontier community was a system of medical care. During the nineteenth century the work of all frontier professionals was dramatically facilitated by new means of transportation and communication. Mid-century frontier communities had direct contact with urban centers via the telegraph and could acquire supplies over railroads and improved roadways. The development of a medical care system in Leavenworth, Kansas, during the second half of the nineteenth century illustrates the important role that physicians and other health providers played in community building on the western frontier, as well as …

Review Essay: Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, And The Opening Of The American West By Stephen E. Ambrose, John L. Allen

Great Plains Quarterly

From time to time, a serious book excites the imaginations of a vaster public than the audience of scholarly journals. Because the Center for Great Plains Studies has, over the past sixteen years, sponsored the reediting and publication of The Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, we could not help but notice the enormous popular success of Stephen Ambrose's Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West. To provide a focus on some of the scholarly concerns raised by this new text, we invited three prominent scholars to review the book from …

The Missouri River Basin On The 1795 Soulard Map A Cartographic Landmark, W. Raymond Wood

Great Plains Quarterly

The publication in 1814 of Nicholas Biddle's edition of the explorations of Lewis and Clark was accompanied by a remarkable map. This chart, drafted by Samuel Lewis from an 1810 manuscript map by William Clark, synopsized the expedition's many detailed route maps across the continent, plus significant post-expeditionary information. l This landmark document was the first to portray the Missouri River valley in a realistic configuration, and it set the stage for modern conceptions of the heartland of the continent.

Review Of Go West Young Man! Horace Greeley's Vision For America By Coy Cross Ii, Michael Allen

Great Plains Quarterly

Coy Cross's book is a well-written, focused, solidly documented study of an absorbing and important topic. Unlike some of the "new" western historians, Cross analyzes manifest destiny and expansionism in historical context; he avoids the pitfalls of ideological polemics through evenhanded, analytical narrative prose. Moreover, he provides an important assessment and qualification of Greeley's (and Turner's) safety valve theory, concluding that while New York City's poor may not have heeded Greeley's call to "Go West!" millions of others in fact did. "And the Homestead Act, the absence of slavery, the information on the latest developments in agriculture, and the transcontinental …

Review Of The Amazing Death Of Calf Shirt And Other Blackfoot Stories By Hugh A. Dempsey, Gregory R. Campbell

Great Plains Quarterly

Every Native American society has elders who recount the traditions of their people. Some of these traditions are purely religious in nature, explaining their universe and their place in it. Other oral traditions often impart life's lessons, providing a cultural road map for living in a particular society. Still other accounts concern historical events involving prominent men and women. These traditions provide each member of a society with a sense of his or her own collective history and cultural identity. The Amazing Death of Calf Shirt and Other Blackfoot Stories is such a collection of historical accounts, a compilation of …

Review Of Willa Cather's Transforming Vision: New France And The American Northeast By Gary Brienzo, Richard Nielsen

Great Plains Quarterly

Using a fine-tuned blend of textual criticism, biography, and primary research, Gary Brienzo sheds light on the importance of the American Northeast and New France on Willa Cather's life and art.

Brienzo sees Cather's artistic life as a search for a "quiet center," a unified, comforting vision, given focus by an appreciation she developed for the "domestic qualities that enhanced life." He credits Sarah Orne Jewett for providing Cather this "alternative literary tradition," which celebrated woman-centered communities and the power of domestic ritual. Brienzo details Cather's discovery of Quebec and the appeal of its French traditions, for there she recognized …

Review OfLinoleum, Better Babies, And The Modern Farm Woman, 1890-1930 By Marilyn Irvin Holt, Pamela Riney-Kehrberg

Great Plains Quarterly

Marilyn Irvin Holt describes Linoleum, Better Babies, and the Modern Farm Woman, 1890- 1930 as a study of "the domestic economy movement and the rural women it targeted." Focusing on the Dakotas, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas, she examines the many ways in which reformers worked to improve life on American farms through education and uplift programs for American farm women and their children. These efforts included the establishment of home extension programs, home economics education, and 4-H programs, among others. Their goals were the physical improvement of the farm home and the farm child, with the intent of keeping …

Review Of Stephen Long And American Frontier Exploration By Roger L. Nichols And Patrick L. Halley, Seppo Tamminen

Great Plains Quarterly

Stephen Long and American Frontier Exploration is an excellent narrative of early nineteenth- century expeditions. It is enjoyable reading, and its information is particularly valuable for those interested in early westward expansion. The volume is also of importance to scholars studying other members of Long's expeditions, including Titian Peale, since it gives the historical context in which their work was done.

Marl Sandoz's Portrait Of An Artist's Youth Robert Henri's Nebraska Years, Helen Winter Stauffer

Great Plains Quarterly

Robert Henri's life story would have appealed to Mari Sandoz even if he were not an important early twentieth-century American artist. Robert Henri (born Robert Henry Cozad) came from a time, a place, and a family that at first glance seem unlikely to have produced an avant garde painter of landscapes, cityscapes, and portraits; it was the sort of paradox Sandoz liked to explore. That Henri had spent much of his youth in her native Nebraska in a family headed by a magnetic and dominating man not unlike her own father also interested her. That the family left Nebraska in …

Review Of A Dose Of Frontier Soldiering: The Memoirs Of Corporal E. A. Bode, Frontier Regular Infantry, 1877-1882 Edited By Thomas T. Smith, Markku Henriksson

Great Plains Quarterly

For anyone interested in the "big picture" of what happened in the American West ten or fifteen years after the Civil War, Bode's memoirs will prove disappointing: he was not involved in any of the major campaigns in any meaningful way and reveals nothing not already known. If one is interested in a soldier's-although an exceptional one'sviews of some of his superior officers, or Indians, or mostly about the daily duties of an infantryman, Bode offers a good dose of "frontier soldiering." There is also useful primary material here on the 1870s and the social history of the military. Although …

Review Of Prairie University: A History Of The University Of Nebraska By Robert E. Knoll, Paul F. Sharp

Great Plains Quarterly

Institutional histories are often dull and lifeless- but not this one. From its preface to its final chapter celebrating the university's 125th year, this impressive history of the University of Nebraska entertains with colorful vignettes of its facuity, staff, and administrative leaders. With candor, curmudgeons are called curmudgeons, the less than able are identified, and the irascible remain irascible in the story's able telling.

Students of higher education will find this a rich study. Nebraska alumni will respond to its anecdotes with vivid memories, and many readers will enjoy the lively, sometimes opinionated analyses. All will find it a detailed …

Notes And News

Great Plains Quarterly

GREAT PLAINS STUDIES SYMPOSIA

VISITING SCHOLARS PROGRAM

CALLS FOR PAPERS

Workers, Unions, And Historians On The Northern Plains, William C. Pratt

Great Plains Quarterly

Labor history has corne of age over the past three decades. Today two national journals, Labor History and Labor's Heritage, focus on this subject in the United States, and many others, including the Journal of American History, publish articles in the field. In fact, much of what is called new social history often treats labor history topics, and many western historians have had an extended interest in labor history. Numerous recent examples, including the work of Carlos Schwantes, Michael Kazin, Vicki Ruiz, and others have been well received.

Review Essay:The Way West Written And Directed By Ric Burns, Martin Blythe, Mia Graeffe, Sanna Heinsalo, Ossi Heinänen, Ari Helo, Kari Hirvinen, Piia Kiviniemi, Vello Ruus, John Wright, John R. Wunder

Great Plains Quarterly

The Way West, scripted and directed by Ric Burns, is advertised as the story of United States expansion into the American West from 1845 to 1893. Burns sets the series' temporal boundaries arbitrarily from a New York editor's first use of the term "manifest destiny" in 1845 to Frederick Jackson Turner's 1893 address on the significance of the frontier and his announcement of its close. The documentary's episodes actually focus on the struggle for control of the Great Plains, pitting the U.S. Army against the Sioux nation and its allies. Largely forsaking the challenge of providing a sure overview of …

Review Of Along Ancient Trails: The Mallet Expedition Of 1739 By Donald J. Blakeslee, James P. Ronda

Great Plains Quarterly

In the popular mind the names Pierre and Paul Mallet carry little or no weight. Coronado, de Soto, Champlain, and Lewis and Clark occupy our imaginative space, crowding out adventurers like the Mallets. Even scholars have paid scant attention to the Mallets' epic journey from the Missouri River to Santa Fe in 1739. Donald J. Blakeslee's Along Ancient Trails sets the record straight, properly noting the Mallet role in the European exploration of the southern Great Plains. In doing so, Blakeslee not only recounts one expedition but illuminates the complex history of the entire region.

Prelude To Brownsville The Twenty~Fifth Infantry At Fort Niobrara, Nebraska, 1902~06, Thomas R. Buecker

Great Plains Quarterly

Around midnight on 13 August 1906, gunshots suddenly rang out on the deserted streets of Brownsville, Texas. Unknown parties indiscriminately fired at a number of private residences, severely wounding a police officer, and into a nearby saloon, killing a bartender and slightly wounding a patron. Apparently all victims were Hispanics. When the ten-minute fusillade was over, witnesses claimed black soldiers from the Twenty-fifth Infantry stationed at adjacent Fort Brown were responsible for the outrage. Substantiation for their accusations seemingly came when civil and military authorities discovered expended military cartridges at the scene.

The Brownsville citizenry had not been happy when …

Notes And News

Great Plains Quarterly

GREAT PLAINS STUDIES SYMPOSIUM

IN MEMORIAM (Erwin H. Goldenstein)

CALLS FOR PAPERS

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AFRICAN AMERICAN ASSOCIATIONS

RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS

African Americans And The Great Plains An Introduction, Keith D. Parker

Great Plains Quarterly

During 23-25 February 1995 the Center for Great Plains Studies at the University of Nebraska- Lincoln sponsored its nineteenth annual interdisciplinary symposium, "African Americans and the Great Plains." The conference, attended by more than 300 people from throughout the United States and Canada, sought to highlight African Americans' role in Great Plains culture by looking at their contributions in various areas such as agriculture, anthropology, archeology, art, biology, dance, education, history, literature, medicine, music, photography, religion, sports, theater, and urban studies. The four papers in this issue of the Great Plains Quarterly were selected to illuminate the diversity of roles …

Frompin' In The Great Plains Listening And Dancing To The Jazz Orchestras Of Alphonso Trent 1925~44, Marc Rice

Great Plains Quarterly

This paper focuses on one of the most popular and influential of the territory band leaders, Alphonso Trent. From 1925 to the mid 1940s, his groups were acknowledged by listeners and by other musicians as among the very best of the jazz bands performing in the Southwest and Great Plains. In the cities and towns that they visited, their performances were always a special event, particularly in the African American communities. Trent's orchestras played an important role as musicians and entertainers of African Americans in the Great Plains States in the 1920s and 1930s.

Table Of Contents

Great Plains Quarterly

AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE GREAT PLAINS: AN INTRODUCTION (Keith D. Parker)

THE GREAT PLAINS SIT-IN MOVEMENT, 1958-60 (Ronald Walters)

PRELUDE TO BROWNSVILLE: THE TWENTY-FIFTH INFANTRY AT FORT NIOBRARA, NEBRASKA, 1902-06 (Thomas R. Buecker)

FROMPIN' IN THE GREAT PLAINS: LISTENING AND DANCING TO THE JAZZ ORCHESTRAS OF ALPHONSO TRENT, 1925-44 (Marc Rice)

"WITH ONE MIGHTY PULL": INTERRACIAL TOWN BOOSTING IN NICODEMUS, KANSAS (Claire O'Brien)

BOOK REVIEWS

Talking Up a Storm: Voices of the New West

Girl on a Pony

Tough Daisies: Kansas Humor from "The Lane County Bachelor" to Bob Dole

Faded Dreams: More Ghost Towns of Kansas

Indians and the …