Other International and Area Studies Commons^™

Review Of Kansas: A Pictorial History By Robert W. Richmond, Virgil W. Dean

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Like the first, which has been enjoyed and valued by students of Kansas history for more than three decades, this new and improved edition of Kansas: A Pictorial History is a must for the home or school library. We should be grateful to have it available once again.

Review Of A Naturalist In Indian Territory: The]Ournals Of S. W. Woodhouse, 1849-50 Eds.John S. Tomer And Michaelj. Brodhead, David J. Harter M.D.

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

"Weare still very far from being aware of the dimensions and ramifications of our ethnocentric illusions." Although more than forty years have passed since Joseph Epes Brown penned these words in preface to The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk's Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux, Americans still struggle to find a national identity that transcends our European heritage and its Judeo-Greco-Roman foundations. If one doubts just how pervasive (and sometimes counterproductive) the Eurocentric illusion could be, a reading of the Woodhouse Journals and a bit of introspection should suffice to convince. Woodhouse wrote a century before Brown. …

Review Of Then To The Rock Let Me Fly: Luther Bohanon And Judicial Activism By Jace Weaver, Gordon Morris Bakken

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

This is a sympathetic biography of one of Oklahoma's distinguished members of the federal bench. The author chronicles Luther Bohanon's transition from the bar to the judiciary in a well-crafted narrative. On the federal trial bench, Bohanon exhibited a tenacious adherence to a liberal view of the United States Constitution. To flesh out this view of the Constitution, the author focuses upon three celebrated cases. For legal historians, this book may seem limited in its coverage, but for historians of Oklahoma it provides a close look at some of the important events of the civil rights struggle.

Review Of Standing On New Ground: Women In Alberta Edited By Catherine A. Cavanaugh And Randi R. Warne, Anita Clair Fellman

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

This intriguing collection of accessible essays focuses largely on aspects of the relationship that Alberta women have had with public institutions, both formal and informal, from 1904 to the present. While all the essays cover worthwhile topics, some have been developed in only rudimentary fashion, while others are comprehensive and contain sophisticated analyses.

Among the articles dealing with women's voluntary activities, the highlight is an essay by Michael Owen on the Methodist and United Church Women's Missionary Society's missions to Ukrainians in eastern Alberta between 1904 and 1940. Like many missionaries elsewhere, these women had their greatest successes, not in …

Some Observations On The Labor Force Of The Canadian Ranching Frontier During Its Golden Age, 1882 .. 1901, Simon M. Evans

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

It is more than a decade since scholars like L. G. Thomas and David H. Breen challenged the assumption that the Canadian ranching frontier was a straightforward case of technological and land-use diffusion from the United States. Breen argued that the Canadian government had played a significant role in bringing the range cattle industry into being within the North West Territories during the 1880s and went on to trace the manner in which the Department of the Interior overtly supported the ranchers for the next twenty years. Under this regulatory umbrella, upheld by the forceful presence of the North West …

Review Of Main Street In Crisis: The Great Depression And The Old Middle Class On The Northern Plains By Catherine Mcn Icol Stock, Thomas D. Isern

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The analysis in this book rests on the contention that by the time of the Great Depression there existed on the northern Plains a broad commonality of culture and interest that may be termed "the old middle class." The old middle class was a petty-producer class comprising both town and country. It espoused such values as hard work, egalitarianism, and community service, enforcing them through community organizations and public ritual. When a new middle class, the bureaucrats of the New Deal, proposed fundamental reforms in the society and economy of the Plains, they found Dakotans receptive to aid-of course, given …

Review Of Life At Four Corners: Region, Gender, And Education In A German-Lutheran Community, 1868-1945 By Carol K. Coburn, Lesley Ann Kawaguchi

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The strength of this work is Coburn's focus on the way in which boys and girls were socialized into the community and on the roles men and women played in sustaining their households, their community, and their ethnoreligious identity and culture. Furthermore, she has highlighted and offered insight into the German-Lutheran family, a neglected element in many German-American studies. The story of Block Corners's residents is particularly engaging when Coburn draws on individuals, recollections, and anecdotes that illustrate her points, such as first-generation midwife Gesche Mahnken Block and her ties to the informal networks established among the women.

Review Of The Persistence Of Ethnicity: Dutch Calvinist Pioneers In Amsterdam, Montana By Rob Kroes, Frederick C. Luebke

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The Persistence of Ethnicity is not just another digest of desiccated social data but an engaging account, exceptionally well written, that probes the role of religion in the maintenance of ethnicity in the American West. Atypical perhaps in the small size and isolated location of the area of its focus, this case study is all the more valuable because these very characteristics (combined with the availability of excellent sources) allow Kroes to explore and test his ideas with ease.

Review Of Alberta's Petroleum Industry And The Conservation Board By David H. Breen, Mary L. Mcroberts

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Anyone wanting to learn the fundamentals of how the oil and natural gas industry actually operated should read this book. Nevertheless, in some places the amount of detail exceeds the analysis provided to justify its inclusion. And in arguing that the PNGCB members maintained an effective balance among the demands of large integrated and small independent companies for attractive profit margins, government desire for economic growth, and scientific conservation measures designed to protect the public interest, Breen minimizes evidence that suggests a less laudatory evaluation. Moreover, the role of the board in the interplay among the Alberta, Canadian, and American …

Review Of Cather, Canon, And The Politics Of Reading By Deborah Carlin, Christopher Nealon

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

There are moments when Carlin simply gives the novels to much credit for the value of their ambivalence, especially when concluding her chapters: on more than one occasion her final claim seems to be that Cather's late work was simply too complex and metafictional for earlier critics. Moreover, her feminism is more nuanced than her deconstructive technique: although extremely attentive to the complicated ways in which white women make use of black women in Sapphira and the Slave Girl, for instance, Carlin valorizes the way characters in Shadows on the Rock tell small stories in the midst of the …

Review Of Homes In The Heartland: Balloon Frame Farmhouses Of The Upper Midwest, 1850-1920 By Fred W. Peterson, Barry Newton

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The text examines the influence of balloon frame construction as part of the increasing use of industrial methods and transportation on the development of rural life. Peterson shows particular skill in understanding the process of initial settlement and the gradual adaptations and extension to the dwellings that occur as the farm and its family enlarge and become more successful. He explains in detail how the methods of balloon framing assisted these purposes and enabled families to make dwellings that suited their practical needs and moral and aesthetic choices. He also shows how the influence of architects' pattern books and builders' …

Review Of The Most Promising Young Officer: A Life Of Ranald Slidell Mackenzie By Michael D. Pierce, Michael L. Tate

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Michael D. Pierce has produced a credible and nicely written interpretation of Ranald Mackenzie's life. By focusing on the frontier years and placing this officer's experiences within the broader context of military events, he provides the reader a good sense of time and place. Pierce also successfully utilizes the standard source materials and moves well beyond Robert G. Carter's somewhat unreliable On the Border with Mackenzie (1935). Unfortunately, the personal dimensions of Mackenzie's thoughts and deeds will never be fully known because he was an intensely private man who left little documentation about himself. Even his official reports tend to …

Review Of Wagon Wheel Kitchens: Food On The Oregon Trail By Jacqueline Williams, Roger Welsch

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Williams uses original texts liberally-diaries, letters, contemporary published accounts, cookbooks-and a method I appreciate: voices from the past, rather than a modern voice telling us what voices from the past said. The book's illustrations and photos significantly add to the reader's understanding and appreciation of the severe demands of cookery on the Trail.

Review Of Ace Of Hearts: The Westerns Of Zane Grey By Arthur G. Kimball, Alan Wilkinson

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

This is a broad-ranging, thorough, relatively concise and useful book. It offers a reading of Grey that gets beyond the reputation-and beyond Riders of the Purple Sage. Moreover, it spells out what a serious reading of that most celebrated western suggests-a depth that belies Grey's rating as a "formulaic" writer. It also offers a direct response to a number of critics-Ann Ronald, Cynthia Hamilton, John G. Cawelti, among others-who have commented on Grey. Kimball finds much to disagree with but much to build on in his predecessors' work. He refutes their articulations of a Grey formula: if there is …

The Progressive Context Of The Nebraska Capitol The Collaboration Of Goodhue And Tack, Frederick C. Luebke

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Augustus Vincent Tack (1870-1949) was the first of eight artists who executed murals in the Nebraska state capitol. His involvement began in fall 1923, when he was asked by the architect, Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue (1869- 1924), to plan a program of mural decorations for the governor's suite of offices, located in the first part of the capitol to be completed. His murals were installed four years later, and the rooms were opened to the public on 1 January 1928. Tack's work was thus conceived, executed, and installed several years before the construction of the capitol was completed in 1932. At …

Review Of Following The Indian Wars: The Story Of The Newspaper Correspondents Among The Indian Campaigners By Oliver Knight, Todd Kerstetter

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Despite these criticisms, Knight's work has value. It offers insights into the daily rigors of nineteenth-century Army life and examines the sources from which much public knowledge of Indians flowed. Fans of military history may enjoy the book and may join the correspondents' armchair generalling, but readers interested in the correspondents and the history of journalism will have to wade through a lot of extraneous material to get what they want.

Review Of An Unspeakable Sadness: The Dispossession Of The Nebraska Indians By David J. Wishart, Francis Paul Prucha

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

This is a well-written and authoritative book, but it is not a pleasant book to read, for it is a story of unremitting sadness. It traces the nineteenth-century history of four Indian tribes whose homelands in 1800 covered what is now the eastern two-thirds of the state of Nebraska-the Omahas and the Otoe-Missourias along the Missouri River, the Pone as north of the Niobrara River near its mouth, and the Pawnees (in four bands) in the central area of the state.

Breaking The Silence Hymns And Folk Songs In O. E. Rølvaag's Immigrant Trilogy, Phillip R. Coleman-Hull

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

In an essay written in 1933 Einar Haugen briefly mentions that "RØlvaag's most delicate observations take the form of music, and rhythmic sound becomes to him the highest form of beauty." Haugen refers merely to the sonorous qualities of the prairie and never delves into the songs-both Norwegian folk songs and hymns-that surface through O. E. RØlvaag's immigrant trilogy. Since 1933, critics have explored a multitude of themes related to Giants in the Earth, Peder Victorious, and Their Father's God, and much attention has been given to the issue of cultural integrity as espoused by RØlvaag. Language, religion, and folklore …

Table Of Contents

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

"SAME HORSE, NEW WAGON": TRADITION AND ASSIMILATION AMONG THE JEWS OF WICHITA, 1865-1930 (Hal Rothman)

BREAKING THE SILENCE: HYMNS AND FOLK SONGS IN O. E. RØLVAAG'S IMMIGRANT TRILOGY (Philip R. Coleman-Hull)

SENSE OF PLACE IN THE PRAIRIE ENVIRONMENT: SETTLEMENT AND ECOLOGY IN RURAL GEARY COUNTY, KANSAS (Nina Veregge)

HUNT, CAPTURE, RAISE, INCREASE: THE PEOPLE WHO SAVED THE BISON (Ken Zontek)

BOOK REVIEWS

The Cowboy: Representations of Labor in an American Work Culture

Soils in Archaeology: Landscape Evolution and Human Occupation

The Loner: Three Sketches of the Personal Life and Ideas of R. B. Bennett, 1870-1947

The Sioux and Other Native …

"Same Horse, New Wagon" Tradition And Assimilation Among The Jews Of Wichita, 1865,1930, Hal Rothman

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Despite the emphasis on ethnicity and crosscultural contact that permeates the New Western History, western historians have neglected the Jews of the American West. Often mislabeled as German ethnics because of their surnames or ignored altogether, Jews of the interior West in particular have been left out of the intellectual revolution sweeping the field. Their modern demographic distribution in coastal and urban areas has been mistaken for their historic presence, and their contribution to local and regional culture has been overlooked. As a result, the Jews of large urban areas in the West have received the vast majority of scholarly …

Sense Of Place In The Prairie Environment Settlement And Ecology In Rural Geary County, Kansas, Nina Veregge

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Many people who drive across Kansas on the Interstate or on Route 50 see the state as a single, unchanging stretch of treeless plain. A more perceptive observer witnesses the gradual transition from the east to the west: from rolling hills and wooded vales to wide open grassland and sage plain; from corn to winter wheat; from farms to ranches and feedlots; from running streams to dry washes; from humidity on a summer day that is relieved only by constant wind to dry heat blown across grassland untempered by stream valley microclimates. It appears a seamless transition where distinctions are …

Review Of The End Of American Exceptionalism: Frontier Anxiety From The Old West To The New Deal By David M. Wrobel, Kathleen A. Boardman

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

More than a decade before the 1890 Census, some Americans began to perceive that the frontier was disappearing; they worried that, with the closing of the frontier, the country might lose its tough and resourceful individualism, its ability to assimilate foreigners and forge democratic institutions, its safety valve and its future hopes-in short, its uniqueness. Soon this "frontier anxiety" pervaded American writing, speech, and thought. David M. Wrobel traces the theme of frontier anxiety and its variations in American journalism, political rhetoric and policy, literature and popular culture, and academic discussions from the 1880s to the 1930s. He shows that …

Hunt, Capture, Raise, Increase The People Who Saved The Bison, Ken Zontek

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Charles and Mollie Goodnight, C. J. "Buffalo" Jones, Frederick and Mary Dupuis, and Samuel Walking Coyote and his wife Sabine saved the bison. They hunted, caught, and raised bison calves that increased buffalo numbers at a time when the Great Plains monarchs clung desperately to a tenuous existence. Their remarkable stories, deserving of reiteration, cast light on four themes of Western history: proper recognition for front-line conservationists, the role of women, hunters as conservationists, and the profitability of species preservation.

Western bison conservation was not a matter of eastern politicians and scientists, such as Theodore Roosevelt and William Hornaday, legislating …

Review Of Owning Western History: A Guide To Collecting Rare Documents, Historical Letters, And Valuable Photographs From The Old West By Warren B. Anderson, Warren W. Caldwell

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

As the reader will have surmised, this volume is about collecting. It might well have been titled, "Western History: Via Waste Paper, Photographs and Other Ephemera." Be warned, it is not concerned with literary debris, but rather the remains of defunct stock companies, failed businesses, "wanted posters," and seemingly an infinity of other secular paper.

There is little to review here. The book is unabashedly descriptive, anecdotal, and largely non-critical. None the less, it has the virtue of directing the scholar to many documents of "western" society that otherwise might be neglected, and the pay-off can be interesting.

Review Of The Orphan Trains: Placing Out In America By Marilyn Irvin Holt, Fred Erisman

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

One of the most haunting stories of the American West is the legend of the "orphan trains." Relating the practice of taking homeless children from the teeming cities and resettling them in the nation's heartland where they could grow and prosper as youngsters should, the story tacitly invokes some of the most potent of American myths-the Turner safety-valve theory, the Horatio Alger tale of the self-made person, and, more darkly, the lingering traces of Social Darwinism. The Orphan Trains strives to set the record straightnot to debunk the legend, but to give it its proper niche in western history. Emphasizing …

Review Of The Loner: Three Sketches Of The Personal Life And Ideas Of R. B. Bennett, 1870-1947 By P. B. Waite, Dale Jacobs

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The task of rehabilitating the reputation of former Canadian Prime Minister R. B. Bennett is a formidable one. Nevertheless, that is P. B. Waite's goal in The Loner, a set of three "sketches" of Bennett's life. Originally given as the Joanne Goodman Lectures at the University of Western Ontario in 1991, these sketches encompass Bennett's earliest years at Hopewell Cape and the Miramichi, his years as a lawyer and rising politician in Calgary, and his years in Ottawa. The Loner is not, however, another biography of R. B. Bennett, according to Waite, but an attempt to explain "the personal …

Bluestem And Tussock Fire And Pastoralism In The Flint Hills Of Kansas And The Tussock Grasslands Of New Zealand, James F. Hoy, Thomas D. Isern

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The ghost of Lady Barker haunts public discourse on the question of burning tussock grassland in New Zealand. The image of this gentle English woman, author of the Canterbury classic Station Life in New Zealand, transformed into a pastoral pyromaniac professing "the exceeding joy of 'burning,'" is compelling. She contests with friends over who can set the most magnificent blaze, exults at solitary cabbage trees exploding into flame, and regrets that she was not there to see the first blaze rage across the plains. Of this ritual, she says, she and her friends "never were allowed to have half …

Notes And News

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

GREAT PLAINS STUDIES SYMPOSIA

CHEROKEE NATION PAPERS

CALLS FOR PAPERS

JOINT CONFERENCE

Not So Plain Art Of The American Prairies, Joni L. Kinsey

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Since the first European encounters with the grasslands of central North America, beginning with Coronado in the mid-sixteenth century, prairies have alternately confused, dismayed, overwhelmed, depressed, and inspired those who would contend with their contradictions. They have been described as being both nothing and everything, empty as well as vast, monotonous and endlessly varied. For those who saw them in their pristine state, prairies were often disorienting, a place to be lost, whereas today they have become the "heartland" where Americans look to find their truest identity. While such disparities have frustrated many writers who have attempted to convey something …

Table Of Contents

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

GRASSLANDS: AN INTRODUCTION (Kathleen H. Keeler)

BLUESTEM AND TUSSOCK: FIRE AND PASTORALISM IN THE FLINT HILLS OF KANSAS AND THE TUSSOCK GRASSLANDS OF NEW ZEALAND (James F. Hoy; Thomas D. Isern)

NOT SO PLAIN: ART OF THE AMERICAN PRAIRIES (Joni L. Kinsey)

BOOK REVIEWS

The Wealth of Nature: Environmental History and the Ecological Imagination

The Prairie in Nineteenth-Century American Poetry

A Guide to Kansas Mushrooms

Into the Wilderness Dreams: Exploration Narratives of the American West, 1500-1805

What This Awl Means: Feminist Archaeology at a Wahpeton Dakota Village

Yanktonai Sioux Water Colors: Cultural Remembrances of John Saul

The Flag in American …