International and Area Studies Commons^™

Review Of The Black Regulars, 1866-1898 By William A. Dobak And Thomas D. Phillips, Robert Wooster

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

As part of its 1866 army reorganization bill, Congress, presuming that black troops would be less prone to desert than white soldiers, reserved six of the sixty regiments for black enlisted men. Although subsequent reductions allowed for only four such regiments in a forty-five- regiment army, the all-black units functioned as their sponsors had intended. Stationed largely in the West until 1898, the men of the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry and Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Infantry regiments deserted far less frequently and reenlisted far more often than their white comrades. Their story has often been told, but never with the comprehensiveness, …

Review Of Common And Contested Ground: A Human And Environmental History Of The Northwestern Plains By Theodore Binnema, James E. Sherow

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Theodore Binnema's engaging ethnohistorical account of the peoples who once lived upon the Northwestern Plains is an excellent study in human relationships. Organized in a straightforward manner, its first two chapters explore the ecosystems of the Northwestern Plains and how hunters developed their techniques over thousands of years. Next, Binnema recreates the trade systems and routes in the protohistorical period and offers a sensitive analysis of the evidence for warfare on the Plains prior to the appearance of horses. Based upon careful research in the archives of the Hudson's Bay Company, he recreates the economic and social intricacies of the …

Title And Contents- Spring 2003

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Great Plains Quarterly

Spring 2003 Vol. 23 No.2

CONTENTS

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION Charles A. Braithwaite

EXCERPTS FROM THE LEWIS AND CLARK JOURNALS; AN EPIC OF DISCOVERY, THE ABRIDGMENT OF THE Definitive NEBRASKA EDITION; THE JOURNEY ACROSS THE PLAINS Gary E. Moulton

"A PRAIRIE CHILDHOOD" BY EDITH ABBOTT: AN EXCERPT FROM THE CHILDREN'S CHAMPION, A BIOGRAPHY OF GRACE ABBOTT John Sorensen

COME TO THE "CHAMPAGNE AIR": CHANGING PROMOTIONAL IMAGES OF THE KANSAS CLIMATE, 1854-1900 Karen De Bres

BOOK REVIEWS

Theodore Binnema Common and Contested Ground: A Human and Environmental History of the Northwestern Plains By JAMES E. SHEROW

Gerald Betty Comanche Society: …

Review Of Heartbeat Of The People: Music And Dance Of The Northern Pow-Wow By Tara Browner, Clyde Ellis

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Powwows have been a powerful expression of cultural identity in Indian country for much of the past century. Adaptive and innovative, they are good examples of how some Native people simultaneously maintain connections to tradition and embrace new trends, but their history and meaning have received relatively limited attention. In this slim volume, Tara Browner combines an insider's perspective with a scholarly bent to give readers an informative account of Northern Plains powwow ways.

Browner begins by situating Northern Plains powwows in a broad historical context, but her interpretation will likely raise some eyebrows. Unlike virtually every other scholar who …

Book Notes- Spring 2003

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Dictionary of Midwestern Literature. Volume One: The Authors

The University of Manitoba: An Illustrated History

Willa Cather: The Contemporary Reviews

Children of the Dragonfly: Native American Voices on Child Custody and Education

Petticoat Prisoners of Old Wyoming

Minister to the Cherokees: A Civil War Autobiography

''A Prairie Childhood" By Edith Abbott An Excerpt From The Children's Champion, A Biography Of Grace Abbott, John Sorensen

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Grace Abbott (1878-1939) is, perhaps, the greatest champion of children's rights in American history. She was a woman of intriguing contradictions: a life-long Republican Party member and a life-long liberal activist; a native of the Nebraska frontier who spent much of her life in the poorest immigrant quarters of urban Chicago; an unmarried woman who was nicknamed "the mother of America's forty-three million children."

Grace Abbott was a public figure who was both much adored and bitterly, sometimes vehemently, attacked. She was a born and bred pioneer: the first woman nominated for a Presidential cabinet post {secretary of labor for …

Review Of Comanche Society; Before The Reservation By Gerald Betty, Daniel J. Gelo

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

While the merging of historical and anthropological outlooks has been a productive trend in Plains Indian studies, there are pitfalls. For one, the authority inherent in an accurate chronology or lively narrative can mask basic errors in social analysis. Sometimes historians have difficulty in properly employing the terms and principles of social organization so carefully wrought in the neighbor discipline. Readers get an epic infused with mistaken ethnology, resulting in a setback rather than advance in understanding.

So it is with Gerald Betty's Comanche Society. The work attempts to recast the history of Comanche expansion via chapters on kinship, …

Review Of Studies In American Indian Art: A Memorial Tribute To Norman Feder Edited By Christian F. Feest, Bill Anthes

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Norman Feder (1930-1995), a pioneer in the field of Native American art history and material culture, began his career in a community of amateur collectors and "artifakers" (Feder's term for serious hobbyists who produced high-quality reproductions of Indian crafts). His periodical, American Indian Hobbyist (begun in 1954 and renamed American Indian Tradition in 1960), spawned many careers in anthropology and Native American history. Later, Feder's professional experience included positions at the Denver Art Museum, the Heye Foundation Museum of the American Indian, and major exhibitions and catalogs at the Brooklyn Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Feder served …

Review Of The Nature Of Native American Poetry By Norma C. Wilson, Andrew Wiget

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

For the reader new to the field, perhaps attracted by an encounter with an individual poem or poet, Wilson's book offers genuine insights into the relationship among history, biography, and Native American poetry. Readers more familiar with contemporary Native American poetry will find good thematic readings that fall somewhere between an overview and appreciation on the one hand, and hard academic criticism on the other.

The book's introduction attempts to locate the emergence of Native American poetry in English as an articulation of a special relationship to the land and a partial response to the traumas of Native American history. …

Review Of Dreams And Thunder: Stories, Poems, And The Sun Dance Opera By Zitkala-Sa, Susan Bernardin

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

This new collection of previously unpublished writing by Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Bonnin) marks a milestone in the scholarship of this crucial figure in Native literary and intellectual history. Meticulously researched, editor Jane Hafen's compilation advances our understanding of this Yankton Sioux writer, activist, and artist, about whom little has been documented. Hafen located a range of her writings in a variety of archives, from early poems written at Earlham College to Iktomi stories and the opera she created in collaboration with William Hanson in 1913.

In her introduction, Hafen provides the most accurate biographical overview of Gertrude Bonnin to date, showing …

Review Of Performing The American Frontier, 1870-1906 By Roger A. Hall, Sarah J. Blackstone

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Roger Hall's engagingly written study of frontier drama provides a good overview of the topic. Covering the period from the end of the Civil War to the beginning of cinema, the book surveys how eastern audiences reacted to frontier depictions, examining these reactions against the backdrop of contemporary debates about national policies affecting the settlement of the West. Hall has limited his discussion to plays produced in New York, which allows him to take advantage of a wealth of theatrical documents, including reviews printed in New York newspapers and trade papers of the day. He takes into account the often …

Review Of West Of The American Dream: An Encounter With Texas By Paul Christensen, Roger Jones

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

In 1974, fresh from his doctoral studies at the University of Pennsylvania, poet and critic Paul Christensen set out for his first teaching job, in College Station, Texas, at Texas A&M. Eastern by education and temperament, and as yet unsteeped in Texas culture, Texas literature, or Texas landscape, Christensen was somewhat uncertain about what to expect in his new setting. Almost thirty years later, however (and still at Texas A&M), Christensen now looks back on the years and on his own experiences in West of the American Dream, a rich, wide-ranging, evocative work combining his critical eye for the …

Review Of Beauty, Honor, And Tradition: The Legacy Of Plains Indian Shirts By Joseph D. Horse Capture And George P. Horse Capture, Imre Nagy

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The study of Plains Indian art is currently in a transitive stage. Because of the enthusiasm of several non-Native researchers and scholars in the eighties and nineties-like Norman Feder, Dennis Lessard, Richard Conn, John C. Ewers (just to name those who have already passed away)-the appreciation of Plains Indian beadwork and quillwork almost reached the highest levels of connoisseurship, and prices for these pieces rose to the stars. At the same time, our knowledge of tribal or regional styles clarified to a certain degree, and our vision became less obscured by centuryold misconceptions. The presence of Native American scholarship also …

Review Of Anti-Indianism In Modern America: A Voice From Tatekeya's Earth By Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, Jacki Thompson-Rand

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The fertile mind of Elizabeth Cook-Lynn has produced essays, lectures, and papers on an array of issues confronting Native America, a selection of them presented here. Writing from a Dakota-centered view, Cook-Lynn provides analysis and commentary on oppression that arises and takes shape out of language, knowledge production, and "misrepresentations of Indian people on the part of individuals and institutions. Literature, federal Indian policies, the academy, American Indian Studies, scholarly theoretical trends, and art are indices to Anti-Indian ism in America.

Cook-Lynn's authoritative assessment of the state of Native American Literary Studies provides insight into her appreciation of the complications …

Come To The "Champagne Air" Changing Promotional Images Of The Kansas Climate, 1854 -1900, Karen De Bres

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Euro-American settlers poured into Kansas during the second half of the nineteenth century, and there they encountered a hostile and unpredictable climate. Rainfall patterns were erratic, and the extremes of temperature were both demanding and daunting. Countering these conditions, or at least tempering them, became a task for a variety of individuals and organizations. The work was straightforward: to transform the image of Kansas in order to attract prospective immigrants. As historian Carl Becker wrote, this was not easy: Until 1895 the whole history of the state was a series of disasters, and always something new, extreme, bizarre, until the …

Review Of Racial Frontiers: Africans, Chinese, And Mexicans In Western America, 1848-1890 By Arnoldo De Leon, Sucheng Chan

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Arnoldo De Leon wrote this book to fill a gap in the existing literature on the American West that either "overlooks or is mindless about the contributions of Africans, Chinese, and Mexicans to the frontier experience." In his view, the presence of these nonwhite groups made the region a racial as well as a psychological frontier. In a short text of only 107 pages, he argues, in chapter 1, that these groups came because the frontier offered them opportunities not available in their homelands (though "homeland" is not entirely applicable to American-born blacks). That is, their motive for migrating to …

Migrations Of Grassland Communities And Grazing Philosophies In The Great Plains: A Review And Implications For Management, Joe C. Truett

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Ecologists commonly separate Great Plains grasslands communities into types based on grass height: shortgrass prairie, mixed-grass prairie, and tallgrass prairie. Grass height correlates directly with precipitation and thus lessens with distance westward and with drought. Grass height correlates inversely with grazing intensity and thus shortgrasses expand eastward when grazing pressures are great and shrink westward when grazing pressures relax. Evidence about past distributions of shortgrasses, coupled with the prehistoric and historic abundances of large grazers and the black-tailed prairie dog (a shortgrass indicator), suggest a far-eastward occurrence of shortgrass prairie in the late Pleistocene (despite a relatively wet climate), a …

Range And Population Size Of The American Burying Beetle (Coleoptera: Silphidae) In The Dissected Hills Of South-Central Nebraska, Mark Peyton

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

The American burying beetle (Nicrophorus americanus Olivier) is the only insect found in Nebraska currently on the federal endangered species list. I conducted surveys in 1995, 1996, and 1998 to determine range and population size of the American burying beetle in south-central Nebraska, A total of 826 individuals were captured during these three years, A Sequential Bayes Algorithm was used to estimate population size based on mark and recapture data. Results from this study and other studies identify the range of this population in south-central Nebraska as an approximately 4,500 km2 area located south of the Platte River in …

Fish Community Persistence In Eastern North And South Dakota Rivers, Jeffrey Shearer, Charles Berry, Jr.

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Over the past 25 years, the James River in North and South Dakota has experienced records in minimum and maximum discharge. Our objectives were to compare: (1) the fish community in the main river after dry (1988-90) and wet (1993-2000) years, and (2) the fish community of both the main river and tributaries between dry (1975) and wet (1998-2000) years. In South Dakota in the main river, there were 10 families and 29 species after several dry years and 11 families and 35 species after several wet years. Percichthyidae was the additional family after the wet years. Basinwide, there were …

Constructing The Cooper Model Of Folsom Bison Kills On The Southern Plains, Leland Bement

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

The Cooper model postulates that a dichotomy exists in the size and seasonality of bison kill sites from the Folsom age (10,800- 10,200 years ago). This dichotomy is a result of changing settlement and subsistence patterns, from population aggregation in the late summer and early fall for large-scale kills, to a dispersed pattern with small bison kills during all other seasons. Attendant to the change in human population aggregation and number of bison harvested are changes in bison butchering techniques, choice of camp location, and ritual activity. It is postulated that ritual activity of an aggregated group is manifest in …

Sustainability And Historical Land-Use Change In The Great Plains: The Case Of Eastern Colorado, William J. Parton, Myron Gutmann, William Travis

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

The Great Plains is one focus of the debate in the United States over appropriate land use and sustainability. Within the Plains region, eastern Colorado represents a case study that permits researchers and policymakers to focus on important relationships between agricultural land use, population change, and the sustainability of agriculture, environment, and communities. Colorado Front Range urban areas experienced large increases in population from 1950 to 2000 that resulted in a 35% reduction in total farmland. In the urban fringe region, farmland declined rapidly since 1978 and harvested irrigated cropland declined by 16% since 1990. Rural population in eastern Colorado …

Changes In Asian And Hispanic Population In The Cities Of The Great Plains, 1990-2000, Evelyn Ravuri

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

In several areas of the United States previously not known for foreign populations, the number of Hispanics and Asians have increased in the past two decades. I examined the percentage change for Hispanics and for Asians for 41 cities in the states of Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota between 1990 and 2000. Hispanics and Asians are then disaggregated by ethnic subgroup, and regression analysis is used to determine the characteristics of cities that attract or repel different subgroups for both 1990 and 2000. In 2000 Mexicans, Other Hispanics, and Vietnamese were attracted to cities with low income …

Relationship Between Community Satisfaction And Migration Intentions Of Rural Nebraskans, Rebecca J. Vogt, John C. Allen, Sam Cordes

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Though many nonmetropolitan counties in the United States experienced population gains in the 1990s, many of the nonmetropolitan counties in the Great Plains continued to experience population declines. Thus, the reasons that people are moving need to be explored. This paper examines possible reasons by analyzing the relationship between community satisfaction and migration intentions of nonmetropolitan Nebraskans. Data used for this analysis were from an annual survey mailed to 6,500 residents living in nonmetropolitan counties in the state. The survey data were analyzed at two levels. First, demographic comparisons were made between those who planned to stay in their communities …

Historical And Recent Records And First Nest Records Of Henslow's Sparrow In North Dakota, Jill A. Shaffer, Lawrence D. Igl, Frédérick Vanhove

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

The northwestern limit of the Henslow's sparrow (Ammodramus henslowii) breeding distribution occurs in southern Minnesota and central Wisconsin. In North Dakota, observations of Henslow's sparrows are reported infrequently, and there are no published nest records in the state. Herein, we summarize and review previous reports of Henslow's sparrows in North Dakota and document the first two nest records of Henslow's sparrow in the state.

Differences In Distribution Of Modified Basins And Ducks Relative To Roadside Transects, Jane E. Austin, Glenn R. Guntenspergen, H. Thomas Sklebar, T. K. Buhl

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

Wetland basins in the Prairie Pothole Region of the U.S. are commonly modified by excavation (e.g., roadside ditches, stock dugouts), partial drainage (ditching), and diking. Differences in the distribution of modified wetlands may affect the predictive accuracy of waterfowl survey data if such wetlands are not distributed randomly in the landscape and if waterfowl are not distributed equally among them. We used data collected on thirty-eight 40-km² plots in North Dakota to examine the distribution of modified basins relative to roadside transects and their use by five species of dabbling ducks in 1995. The 800-m-wide transects were subdivided into …

Nest Parasitism On Constructed Islands In Northwestern North Dakota, Amy L. Zimmerman, Marsha A. Sovada, Tim K. Kessler, Robert K. Murphy

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

Parasitism of duck nests can reduce host productivity. We examined effects of nest parasitism on success of host nests found on constructed islands in the Fuller-Big Meadows marsh in northwestern North Dakota from 1994 to 2000. We found 1642 duck nests of 10 species on 25 0.3-ha islands. Nine hundred- seventy (59%) of the 1642 nests were parasitized, of which 87% were parasitized by redheads (Aythya americana). The observed parasitism rate was greater than 50% in four of seven years and was highest in 1997 (81 %, n = 252). Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) nests tended to …

Genetic Variation In The Midcontinental Population Of Sandhill Cranes, Grus Canadensis, Jessica L. Petersen, Richard Bischof, Gary L. Krapu, Allen L. Szalanski

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

Three subspecies of sandhill crane (Grus canadensis) are recognized in the Midcontinental population, the lesser (Grus c. canadensis), Canadian (G. c. rowani), and greater (G. c. tabida). Blood samples collected on the population’s primary spring staging area in Nebraska, U.S.A., were used to resolve the genetic relationship among these subspecies. Phylogenetic analysis of 27 G. canadensis, by DNA sequencing of a 675 bp region of the mtDNA, supports the subspecies designations of G. c. canadensis and G. c. tabida. G. c. rowani individuals were intermediate with each of the other …

Effects Of Leafy Spurge Infestation On Grassland Birds, Daniel M. Scheiman, Eric K. Bollinger, Douglas H. Johnson

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

Grassland bird populations are declining. Invasive plant species may be contributing to these declines by altering habitat quality. However, the effects of invasive plants on grassland birds are largely unknown. Leafy spurge (Euphorbia esula) is an exotic, invasive weed in the northern Great Plains. We examined the effects of leafy spurge infestation on densities of breeding birds, nest-site selection, and nest success in grasslands on the Sheyenne National Grassland (SNG), North Dakota, USA, 1999-2000. We categorized spurge-infested grasslands into 3 groups (low, medium, high), based on the area covered by spurge patches. We surveyed 75 100-m-radius circular points …

Book Review Of Climate Change Impacts On The United States: The Potential Consequences Of Climate Variability And Change. A Report Of The National Assessment Synthesis Team, Us Global Change Research Program, Susan Capalbo

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Addressing the potential consequences of climate variability and change can be best summarized in terms of tradeoffs: tradeoffs between short-term and long-term impacts; tradeoffs among sectors and regions; and tradeoffs among national-level versus more regional-level impacts. Evidence of these tradeoffs is presented in this comprehensive report by the National Assessment Synthesis Team (NAST) for the US Global Research Program. Its findings are based on analysis of historical data, model projections, and scientific research. A key assumption in the report is the absence of major interventions to reduce continued growth of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Book Review Of A Green And Permanent Land: Ecology And Agriculture In The Twentieth Century By Randal S. Beeman And James A. Pritchard, Kristin Ahlberg

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Concentrating on the ideological underpinnings of American agriculture, Beeman and Prichard illuminate the 20th-century debate over defining and implementing suitable agricultural practices and policies. Against the backdrop of the Great Depression and World War II, farmers, environmentalists, federal officials, and academics found agriculture influenced by a growing ecological movement. Techniques purporting a better urban-rural balance, soil conservation, and organic fertilization were favored by individuals seeking an alternative to the economic and social despair experienced by Americans during the 1930s and 1940s. The agricultural establishment troika of agribusiness, land-grant universities, and the United States Department of Agriculture eschewed such ideas until …