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Review Of Elliott Coues: Naturalist And Frontier Historian By Paul Russell Cutright And Michael J. Brodhead, Gary E. Moulton

Great Plains Quarterly

Vain, petty, vengeful, arrogant, and austere would be appropriate words to describe Elliott Coues. Yet, on occasion, he unselfishly aided a promising career and took up unpopular causes such as women's rights. Trained as a physician and employed as an army surgeon during much of his career, Coues nevertheless used much of his time to observe, study, read, and write about birds. Indeed, Coues (pronounced "cows") was one of America's outstanding ornithologists. He was also a prolific writer with more than six hundred titles to his credit, including a seminal work of taxonomic organization, Key to North American Birds (1872). …

Review Of Over The Chihuahua And Santa Fe Trails, 1847- 1848: George Rutledge Gibson's Journal Edited And Annotated By Robert W. Frazer, Raymond Wilson

Great Plains Quarterly

Born in Virginia in about 1810, George Rutledge Gibson studied law and later opened a law office in Vincennes, Indiana, in 1834. During the early 1840s he moved his practice to Weston, Missouri. Gibson also dabbled unsuccessfully as a journalist, but his two newspapers proved to be financial failures.

When the Mexican War started, Gibson volunteered and was elected a second lieutenant. He was part of Colonel Stephen Watts Kearny's Army of the West, which left Fort Leavenworth for the occupation of New Mexico in 1846. He later became assistant quartermaster and commissary and accompanied Colonel Alexander Doniphan's forces to …

Notes & News- Summer 1983

Great Plains Quarterly

NOTES & NEWS

LUEBKE APPOINTED CENTER DIRECTOR

BERNICE SLOTE DIES

NON-RESIDENT FELLOWS OF THE CENTER FOR GREAT PLAINS STUDIES

WEBB-SMITH ESSAY COMPETITION

Review Of Chief Left Hand: Southern Arapaho By Margaret Coel, Robert C. Carriker

Great Plains Quarterly

For more than two decades, since Alvin Josephy, Jr., wrote Patriot Chiefs (1961), biography has been a useful way to present American Indian history. In its most successful form, up to a dozen Native Americans are examined in a book of chapter-length studies. In a less successful format, whole books are devoted to the life of a single great tribesman. There can be value in these full-length profiles, but the hazards are many. Chief Left Hand falls into the latter grouping.

Left Hand was nearly thirty years of age when he became chief of the Southern Arapaho tribe. His frequent …

Review Of The West And Reconstruction By Eugene H. Berwanger, James A. Rawley

Great Plains Quarterly

Since 1967, historians of the Reconstruction era have turned away from the Confederate states and Washington to focus their attention on the Northern states. David Montgomery, Felice A. Bonadio, James C. Mohr, and others have studied labor, Ohio, New York, and the border states during Reconstruction. The present book adds to that body of literature a broad-gauged examination of the trans-Mississippi West during the years from 1865 to 1870, omitting the former slave states and Iowa, which are considered more middle western than western. The author of a previous work, The Frontier Against Slavery, Berwanger brings a distinguished background …

Review Of Indian Policy In The United States: Historical Essays By Francis Paul Prucha, Ronald N. Satz

Great Plains Quarterly

For two decades, Francis Paul Prucha of Marquette University has produced a steady stream of scholarly publications on nineteenth century American Indian policy. Sixteen of Prucha's lectures and articles, including some never before published, are gathered together in this volume with brief head notes that indicate the circumstances under which they were written and some reactions to them.

The first two essays concern the study and writing of the history of Indian policy. Prucha warns that the historian's task is neither activism nor special pleading, urges scholars to be more fully conscious of the historical context in which the events …

Pioneer Landscape Paintings In Australia And The United States, R. Leslie Heathcote

Great Plains Quarterly

The European invasion of Australia and the American West in the nineteenth century brought a massive transformation of landscapes in the two continents through conflict with the indigenous populations and by the introduction of new and more intensive systems of resource use. As historians and historical geographers have acknowledged, the invasion was generally well documented, not only by the more literate pioneers and contemporaries but also, more importantly for any statistical analysis, by the emerging bureaucracies that administered the transfers of lands and collected the facts of land settlement, which the new societies saw as evidence of the success of …

Nineteenth-Century Patterns Of Railroad Development On The Great Plains, Russell S. Kirby

Great Plains Quarterly

The North American Great Plains experienced rapid settlement and economic growth from 1870 to 1914. The advance of settlement and the development of local economy, while generally contiguous, were by no means uniform. Soil conditions, underground water supplies, the network of rivers and streams, rainfall, and growing season are all attributes of the physical environment that vary across the plains both longitudinally and latitudinally. In addition, the extent of effective settlement in the Mississippi River valley, the natural starting point for westward expansion onto the plains, varied considerably in 1865. Given these economic and environmental preconditions, it is not surprising …

Transportation And Transformation The Hudson's Bay Company, 1857-1885, A. A. Den Otter

Great Plains Quarterly

Transportation was a prime consideration in the business policies of the Hudson's Bay Company from its inception. Although the company legally enjoyed the position of monopoly by virtue of the Royal Charter of 1670, which granted to the Hudson's Bay Company the Canadian territory called Rupert's Land, this privilege had to be defended from commercial intruders. From the earliest days the company developed its own transportation network in order to maintain a competitive edge over its opponents. During its first century, when business ventured hardly beyond the shores of the Hudson Bay, the company perfected its transatlantic shipping. Later, when …

Title And Contents- Summer 1983

Great Plains Quarterly

GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY

SUMMER 1983 VOL. 3 NO.3

CONTENTS

PIONEER LANDSCAPE PAINTINGS IN AUSTRALIA AND THE UNITED STATES R. Leslie Heathcote

WESTERN MYTH AND NORTHERN HISTORY: THE PLAINS INDIANS OF BERGER AND WIEBE Sherrill E. Grace

NINETEENTH-CENTUR Y PATTERNS OF RAILROAD DEVELOPMENT ON THE GREAT PLAINS Russell S. Kirby

TRANSPORTATION AND TRANSFORMATION: THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY, 1857-1885 A. A. den Otter

BOOK REVIEWS

Indian Policy in the United States: Historical Essays

Chief Left Hand: Southern Arapaho

The Gift of the Sacred Pipe

Over the Chihuahua and Santa Fe Trails, 1847-1848: George Rutledge Gibson's Journal

The West and Reconstruction

NOTES & …

Review Of The Gift Of The Sacred Pipe By Black Elk, Paul A. Olson

Great Plains Quarterly

This is a beautiful coffee-table book. One wonders why a university press chose to publish it. Though the illustrations to the book are lovely and in the spirit of Black Elk's account of the major ceremonies of the Lakota people, they do not add to our scholarly understanding of those rituals. Furthermore, in editing Joseph Epes Brown's original text, Drysdale removed all footnotes and much of the technical detail concerning Lakota iconology that was included by Brown and Black Elk in the original Sacred Pipe (1953). As a consequence, this account of the ceremonies is readable but lacks the density, …

Western Myth And Northern History The Plains Indians Of Berger And Wiebe, Sherrill E. Grace

Great Plains Quarterly

We have used up the mythological space of the West along with its native inhabitants, and there are no new places for which we can light out ahead of the rest. . . . [But 1 we have defined the "territory ahead" for too long in terms of mythologies created out of our meeting with and response to the Indians to abandon them without a struggle.

Fiedler,

The Return of the Vanishing American

I want to fashion good words forever, stretch my body into a continuous sentence, humiliate the air with speech, break the chronology of my people's despair, sew …

Review Of The Collapse Of Small Towns On The Great Plains: A Bibliography By Nancy Burns, Brian W. Blouet

Great Plains Quarterly

This short essay and bibliography on small towns on the plains is a useful guide to the literature on the decline of small service centers. In the introductory essay Burns describes alterations in the settlement pattern related to social, economic, and technological change. It is a valuable summary, although the reader will encounter one or two problems. For example, the definition of the Great Plains that is given on page 5 is very broad, and it conflicts with the usage employed by many of the authors summarized later.

The bibliography has been carefully selected. It is not intended to be …

Far Corner Of The Strange Empire Central Alberta On The Eve Of Homestead Settlement, William C. Wonders

Great Plains Quarterly

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, what is now central Alberta was a region in transition. For centuries the area had been inhabited by native Indian peoples, but with the advance of homestead settlement, it became a marginal part of what Joseph Howard has called the "strange empire," a portion of the northern Great Plains that was marked by unrest at the end of one era and the beginning of another. The changes that affected the Red River Valley and later the Saskatchewan Valley had significant local repercussions in this far corner of the "empire," the valley of …

Title And Contents- Spring 1983

Great Plains Quarterly

GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY SPRING 1983

VOL. 3 NO.2

CONTENTS

RUSSIAN WOLVES IN FOLKTALES AND LITERATURE OF THE PLAINS: A QUESTION OF ORIGINS Paul Schach

THE ORIGIN OF RANCHING IN WESTERN·CANADA: AMERICAN DIFFUSION OR VICTORIAN TRANSPLANT? Simon M. Evans

FAR CORNER OF THE STRANGE EMPIRE: CENTRAL ALBERTA ON THE EVE OF HOMESTEAD SETTLEMENT William C. Wonders

PRAIRIE POETRY AND METAPHORS OF PLAIN/S SPACE Laurie Ricou

BOOK REVIEWS

Grasses and Grasslands: Systematics and Ecology

Clio's Cowboys: Studies in the Historiography of the Cattle Trade

The Ambidextrous Historian: Historical Writers and Writing in the American West

Laird of the West

Mexican Emigration to …

Review Of Grasses And Grasslands: Systematics And Ecology Edited By James R. Estes, Ronald J. Tyrl, And Jere N. Brunken, Robert B. Kaul

Great Plains Quarterly

The past decade has seen a revival of biologists' interests in grasslands, and the results are papers, books, and symposia on grassland plants and ecosystems. This book is the product of a symposium at the thirtieth annual meeting of the Amercan Institute of Biological Science at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, and as such will appeal mostly to biologists.

The two parts of the book are integrated by the theme of evolution, the first part dealing with the taxonomy and evolution of grasses themselves and the second part with the evolutionary ecology of grasslands as systems. While taxonomy is one of …

The Origin Of Ranching In Western Canada American Diffusion Or Victorian Transplant?, Simon M. Evans

Great Plains Quarterly

During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, a number of factors combined to promote the rapid advance of the ranching frontier throughout the Great Plains of North America. The demands of rapidly growing urban populations in the northeastern United States and north western Europe provided an apparently insatiable market for meat. The grasslands were linked to these markets by an expanding railway network and steamships that crossed the Atlantic on regular schedules. Rumors of the huge profits to be made from investments in mines, railways, and ranges lured a flood of risk capital to the West. The interplay of …

Prairie Poetry And Metaphors Of Plain/S Space, Laurie Ricou

Great Plains Quarterly

McAlmon's Chinese Opera, the most significant prairie poem from Canada since Robert Kroetsch's Seed Catalogue and Eli Mandel's Out of Place, concerns "understand[ ing) modern writing" more than it does "the Mid-West." Indeed, it is only by the most expansive definition a prairie poem at all. Yet it is an appropriate source of epigraph, not only because it touches on metaphor, space, and poetry, but because its emphasis is characteristic of a shift in plains poetry and in its criticism, which prompts this essay. Furthermore, as a Canadian poet's tribute to a neglected American modernist, Scobie's poem might …

Russian Wolves In Folktales And Literature Of The Plains A Question Of Origins, Paul Schach

Great Plains Quarterly

F or the past several years, my research associate, Robert Buchheit, and I have collected recordings of German dialects spoken by people advanced in years who immigrated to the United States and settled in the Great Plains region decades ago. Our purpose has been to acquire aural records of folk languages, to study the linguistic transformations that have occurred in them, and to preserve permanently languages that will soon disappear. In the course of our research, we have encouraged our informants to speak freely of their personal experiences, family histories, customs, and culture. The numerous recordings that we have made …

Notes And News- Spring 1983

Great Plains Quarterly

NOTES & NEWS

WILLA CATHER SEMINAR

FRIENDS OF THE CENTER

L. J. BIBLE DIES

CENTER RECEIVES STARCH PAPERS

Review Of Mexican Emigration To The United States, 1897- 1931: Socio-Economic Patterns By Lawrence A. Cardoso, Felix D. Almaraz Jr.

Great Plains Quarterly

In this book Lawrence A. Cardoso focuses attention on the flow of unskilled, low-paid Mexican workers who migrated north across the border between Mexico and the United States from 1897 to 1931. He traces the origins of the northward movement, beginning with the rapid changes in the land and labor systems of rural Mexico in the closing decade of the nineteenth century.

During Porfrrio Draz's long tenure in the presidency, Mexico's national policies favored foreign capital investment, the impact of which transformed the pastoral countryside. Prior to the inauguration of public-sponsored programs for economic development, rural inhabitants lived on communally …

Review Of Laird Of The West By John W. Chalmers, John H. Archer

Great Plains Quarterly

David Laird was born in 1883 in Prince Edward Island, a descendant of colonists settled by the fifth Earl of Selkirk. The young Laird was well educated, brought up in a Presbyterian family, and interested in public affairs. As publisher of the Protestant, he was in the thick of the fight for land reform. He married Laura Owen in 1864 and this union was blessed with six children.

Laird entered active politics as a Liberal and was elected to the Island Assembly. When Prince Edward Island entered confederation on 1 July 1873, he stood successfully as a candidate for …

Review Of The Ambidextrous Historian: Historical Writers And Writing In The American West By C. L. Sonnichsen, Ralph Mann

Great Plains Quarterly

This is a short book of essays, some published before and some not, mostly on the pleasures and problems of the amateur historian. Taken together, the essays also reflect C. L. Sonnichsen's attempt to develop a definition of good historical writing. Unfortunately, while most of the book's pages are filled with good, common-sense advice for beginning researchers and writers, the whole is burdened by the author's jaundiced view of the academic historical profession. The essays introduce the neophyte to the editors, librarians, and reviewers who populate his new world, and gently point out that librarians do not have the leisure …

Review Of The Tejano Community, 1836-1900 By Arnoldo De Leon, Richard L. Nostrand

Great Plains Quarterly

Persons of Spanish-Indian or Mexican descent who were incorporated into the United States in the nineteenth century belonged to one of three major subcultures: the Californio, the manito (Hispanos of New Mexico and Colorado), or the Tejano. Leonard Pitt has written a comprehensive social history of the Californio (1966), and now Arnoldo De Leon gives us a counterpart volume on the Tejano. De Leon's purpose is to capture the essence of the "ordinary" Tejano in Central, South, and West Texas between Texas Independence (1836) and the turn of the century, and he develops the theme that in …

Review Of Clio's Cowboys: Studies In The Historiography Of The Cattle Trade By Don D. Walker, Jimmy M. Skaggs

Great Plains Quarterly

Clio's Cowboys is an important book, the first truly analytical historiography of the glory days of the cattle trade. It will probably also be controversial, because it chastises three generations of western historians for mindlessly repeating sweeping generalizations about cowboys and cattlemen, for relying on questionable sources, and, worst of all, for disembodying the most colorful of the nation's epics with impersonalized economic and business histories.

Don D. Walker says that historians-for all their pretense of accuracy-do no better in capturing the essence of the American cowboy than do novelists, whom they superciliously dismiss as naive. Suggestive examples of Walker's …

Review Of Saving The Prairies: The Life Cycle Of The Founding School Of American Plant Ecology, 1895-1955 By Ronald C. Tobey, Royce E. Ballinger

Great Plains Quarterly

Saving the Prairies is an analysis of the growth, development, and decline of a major school of ecologists centered mostly at the University of Nebraska from the 1890s to the early 1950s. The title stems from Ronald Tobey's conclusion that the demise of the grassland ecologists resulted in part from their involvement in practical problems of range management during and following the devastation of the prairies by the great drought of the 1930s.

The book centers on the ideas, principally plant community succession, developed by Frederic Clements, colleagues such as Roscoe Pound, and a network of students whose research concerned …

Review Of Town And City: Aspects Of Western Canadian Urban Development Edited By Alan F. J. Artibise, John C. Hudson

Great Plains Quarterly

Western Canada's settlement is neatly divided at the Rocky Mountain front. West of there, the population is urban and the scattered clusters of people are separated from one another by miles of wilderness; on the prairies to the east there is a network of farms, small towns, and cities dominated, in turn, by a handful of metropolises. This valuable collection of papers by sixteen Canadian urban historians and geographers treats urbanization in both of these western Canadian realms, providing a balanced geographical coverage and giving the reader a consistent view of town formation, ranging from the smallest of places to …

American Literary Images Of The Canadian Prairies, 1860-1910, James Doyle

Great Plains Quarterly

In 1879, the prolific dime novelist Edward L. Wheeler produced a narrative entitled Canada Chet, The Counterfeiter Chief, set in "a location as hitherto quite neglected by the pen of the novelist and veracious historian-i.e., in the British possessions to the North-west of Minnesota." If, as Wheeler suggests, American writers were indifferent to the Canadian West in the nineteenth century, this lack of attention can be related to a number of considerations, the most obvious of which is the fact that Americans were sufficiently occupied by the undeveloped regions within their own border. The westward experience in the United …

Diplomatic Racism Canadian Government And Black Migration From Oklahoma, 1905-1912, R. Bruce Shepard

Great Plains Quarterly

From the turn of the century until World War I, hundreds of thousands of American farmers migrated to western Canada. Not all of them were welcomed. Between 1905 and 1912, more than one thousand black men, women, and children joined the trek. They came mainly from Oklahoma, and they settled in Saskatchewan and Alberta. While their numbers were small in comparison to the total American migration, the appearance of these black settlers aroused bitter race prejudice among western Canadians, many of whom demanded that the Canadian government stop more blacks from coming. How the government went about this task is …

Title & Contents- Winter 1983

Great Plains Quarterly

GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY

WINTER 1983 VOL. 3 NO.1

CONTENTS

INTERSECTIONS: STUDIES IN THE CANADIAN AND AMERICAN GREAT PLAINS Frances W. Kaye

DIPLOMATIC RACISM: CANADIAN GOVERNMENT AND BLACK MIGRATION FROM OKLAHOMA, 1905-1912 R. Bruce Shepard

SOCIAL SCIENTISTS AND FARM POVERTY ON THE NORTH AMERICAN PLAINS, 1933-1940 Harry C. McDean AMERICAN LITERARY IMAGES OF THE CANADIAN PRAIRIES, 1860-1910 James Doyle

COMPETITION FOR SETTLERS: THE CANADIAN VIEWPOINT James M. Richtik

BOOK REVIEWS

Town and City: Aspects of Western Canadian Urban Development

The Prairies and Plains: Prospects for the 80s

The Frontier in History: North America and Southern Africa Compared

Ceremonies of the Pawnee, …