Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

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 Of Tough Daisies: Kansas Humor From "The Lane County Bachelor" To Bob Dole By C. Robert Haywood, William Kloefkorn

Great Plains Quarterly

Haywood calls Tough Daisies "a sampler" intended to illustrate that Kansans, contrary to a long litany of misconceptions, "have always had a sense of humor." He succeeds splendidly, chiefly because he gives the reader dozens of well-selected jokes, anecdotes, poems, and cartoons, and partly because the author himself has a wry sense of humor, one that wears well and unobtrusively complements his material. I finished the book wanting more-more jokes, more stories, more history, more Haywood.

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 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 Elizabeth Bacon Custer And The Making Of A Myth By Shirley A. Leckie, Kimberly Jensen

Great Plains Quarterly

Throughout the book's detailed accounts of the campaigns, career, and posthumous reputation of George Armstrong Custer, Elizabeth Custer virtually disappears. At other times Leckie presents glimpses of Custer's life beyond her role of wife and professional widow that would, if explored in more detail, enrich the study considerably. A broader analysis throughout the chronological narrative-with the inclusion of a greater portion of recent work on the complexity of gender roles in the nineteenth century, the relationship of women to war and the military, women's paid work roles, the women's club movement, women as writers and readers, and the relationship between …

Review Of Cowgirls Of The Rodeo: Professional Athletes By Mary Lou Lecompte, Joan Wells

Great Plains Quarterly

This book sets out to describe the lives and achievements of women wild west show and rodeo contestants from 1896 to 1992. Offspring of their culture, these cowgirls exhibited athleticism, ranching skills, competitive spirit, and perseverance. Historical chapters relate the quest of rodeo women to compete as equals in the exhibition of their athletic ability.

Early promoters recognized and supported the appearance of women in the sport of rodeo, admitting that their glamour, costuming, and skilled performances were necessary in selling rodeo as family entertainment. Cowgirls like Tad Lucas, Alice and Maggie Greenough, Lucille Mulhall, Florence Randolph, Mabel Strickland, Ruth …

Review Of Rooted In Dust: Surviving Drought And Depression In Southwestern Kansas By Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, Thomas R. Wessel

Great Plains Quarterly

Few environmental disasters match the drought years of the 1930s. Drought extended well beyond the Great Plains for most of the decade, but was particularly intense in southwestern Kansas. Fiction writers and historians have generally concentrated on those who fled the drought stricken Plains, or written accounts condemning farmers and government programs for converting the southern Plains into a dust bowl.

Pamela Riney-Kehrberg transforms farmers from villains in a man-made environmental disaster into stubborn optimists with heroic perseverance. She acknowledges that many avoided the economic depression in Kansas, or at least the drought, by simply abandoning the state, but notes …