Bibliography on the History of the North American Plains

By Tom Isern

The main purpose for this annotated bibliography is support of "The North American Plains" and other college courses on the Great Plains of North America that I teach. It also will be consulted, I suspect, by a variety of users other than my students. The publication data in the third column includes the original edition as a baseline. Also commonly listed is some other, recent edition commonly available. Occasionally listed is some intermediate edition of particular note. In the fourth column are my own annotations. In the fifth column are links to resources on the book or author on the World Wide Web, including any known on-line edition of the text. In the far-right column, for benefit of my students at NDSU, I add notes on where the books here listed are locally available: SU = NDSU Libraries, TC = Tri College, and TI = my personal library.

Author	Title	Publication	Notes	Links	W
Adams, Andy	Log of a Cowboy: A Narrative of Old Trail Days	Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1903 Reprint, Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1964	The classic work on cattle-trailing, depicting a composite cattle drive from the Rio Grande to Montana.	Handbook of Texas: Adams, Andy	TC
Adams, Howard	Prison of Grass: Canada from the Native Point of View	Toronto: General Publishing, 1975	Adams, a Metís, views settlement as colonialism. He seeks to "unmask both the white-supremacist and the white-liberal view that the natives were warring savages without any government, who craved white civilization." A Metís history from Metís activist perspective.	Native American Authors profile: Howard Adams
Adelman, Jeremy	Frontier Development: Land, Labor, and Capital on the Wheatlands of Argentina and Canada, 1890-1914	New York: Oxford U. Press, 1994
Allen, John L.	Passage Through the Garden: Lewis and Clark and the Image of the American Northwest	Urbana: U. of Illinois Press, 1975			SU
Ambrose, Stephen E.	Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West	New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996	A good, readable history of the Lewis & Clark expedition, in the context of a biography of Lewis.		SU
Andreas, Carol	Meatpackers and Beef Barons: Company Town in a Global Economy	Niwot: U. Press of Colorado, 1994
Archer, John H.	Saskatchewan: A History	Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1980	The standard history of the province.
Artibise, Alan F.J.	Winnipeg: A Social History of Urban Growth, 1874-1914	Montreal: McGill-Queen's U. Press, 1975	By western Canada's premier urban historian. Develops concepts of a "commercial elite" and a "growth ethic" manipulating the development of the city. Discusses ethnic problems in urban growth, also class divisions.		SU
Baker, T. Lindsay	A Field Guide to American Windmills	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1984	A marvelously exhaustive history and guidebook to windmills, which are one of the great symbols of technological adaptation on the plains.		SU
Baker, T. Lindsay and Billy R. Harrison	Adobe Walls: The History and Archeology of the 1874 Trading Post	College Station: Texas A & M U. Press, 1986			TC
Barbour, Barton H.	Fort Union and the Upper Missouri Fur Trade	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 2001	A comprehensive and competent history of this citadel of the American Fur Company. The author defends the company against its harsher critics, who have scored the fur traders for bespoiling the western environment and native cultures.
Bement, Leland C.	Bison Hunting at Cooper Site: Where Lightning Bolts Drew Thundering Herds	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1999	Description of a Folsom bison hunt site in northwestern Oklahoma, including the discovery of the famous lightning bolt skull--a Bison antiquus skull with a red zigzag mark on it.
Bennett, John W.	Hutterian Brethren: The Agricultural Economy and Social Organization of a Communal People	Stanford: Stanford U. Press, 1967	A study of six Hutterian colonies in southwestern Saskatchewan, with a comparison to Israeli communes. An "ecological" study by an anthropologist. Studies relation of social and economic behavior to natural environment, in what he calls "dynamic adaptation."		SU
Bennett, John W.	Northern Plainsmen: Adaptive Strategy and Agrarian Life	Chicago: Aldine Pub. Co., 1969 4th Ed., Arlington Heights: AHM Publishing Company, 1976	Studies Indians, ranchers, farmers, and Hutterites, each of whom found a "niche" on the plains. Explicitly cites W.P. Webb as inspiration for his work, which he calls here "cultural ecology." Study area is Saskatchewan, in fictional locality of "Jaspar."		SU
Bennett, John W. and Seena B. Kohl	Settling the Canadian-American West, 1890-1915: Pioneer Adaptation and Community Building	Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1995	A study of settlement on the Saskatchewan-Montana border that relies heavily on local histories, using them to explore the common mythology of frontier community formation.		SU
Benson, Jackson J.	Wallace Stegner: His Life and Work	New York: Penguin, 1996	This is the standard biography of Stegner, and a serviceable one, but its treatment of Stegner's Saskatchewan roots is the weakest part of the book.		TC
Berlo, Janet Catherine	Spirit Beings and Sun Dancers: Black Hawk’s Vision of the Lakota World	New York: Braziller, 2000	Outstanding study of ledger art that takes the work seriously as art, not just ethnography.	Plains Indian Ledger Art	SU
Berthrong, Donald J.	The Cheyenne and Arapaho Ordeal: Reservation and Agency Life in the Indian Territory, 1875-1907	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1976	The confinement of the Cheyenne and Arapaho on a reservation in Oklahoma, attempts to acculturate the Indians (including attempts to make them into farmers or stockmen), conflicts with traditional culture, and eventual allotment of the reservation.		SU
Berthrong, Donald J.	The Southern Cheyennes	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1963	The old standard history of this central plains nation.
Bicha, Karel Denis	The American Farmer and the Canadian West, 1896-1914	Lawrence: Coronado Press, 1968	History of the emigration of American farmers of the "western Middle West" to Saskatchewan and Alberta, with reference both to American conditions provoking emigration and to Canadian efforts to attract immigration.		SU
Biolsi, Thomas	Organizing the Lakota: The Political Economy of the New Deal on the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations	Tucson: U. of Arizona Press, 1992			TC
Bissinger, H.G.	Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream	Reading: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., 1990	The story of a high-school football season, that of the Permian Panthers (Odessa, Texas), 1988--and the social context thereof. Besides exploring the place of school sport in Odessa, the book treats such other important developments as race relations and boom-and-bust in the oil industry.		TC
Blaine, Martha Royce	Pawnee Passage, 1870-1875	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1990
Blasingame, Ike	Dakota Cowboy: My Life in the Old Days	New York: Putnam, 1958 Reprint, Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1985			SU
Blodgett, Jan	Land of Bright Promise: Advertising the Texas Panhandle and South Plains, 1870-1917	Austin: U. of Texas Press, 1988	A study of land-company promotion of regional settlement.
Bolton, Herbert E.	Coronado on the Turquoise Trail: Knight of the Pueblos and Plains	Albuquerque: U. of New Mexico Press, 1949	Biography of Coronado, best-known Spanish explorer of the plains, by the historian who founded the school of borderlands historiography.
Bonnifield, Paul	The Dust Bowl: Men, Dirt, and Depression	Albuquerque: U. of New Mexico Press, 1979	One of several good secondary books on the Dust Bowl. Notable for its regional, anti-government perspective.		SU
Bowman, Isaiah	The Pioneer Fringe	New York: American Geographical Society, Special Publication No. 13, 1931	Work derives from an intercontinental geographic study of "the pioneer fringe," or frontier of settlement, in various countries. Includes sections on the American and Canadian plains. A good work for comparative context as of its time of publication.		SU
Brackman, Barbara, and Cathy Dwigans, Eds.	Backyard Visionaries: Grassroots Art in the Midwest	Lawrence: U. Press of Kansas, 1999	S.P. Dinsmoor (the Garden of Eden, Lucas) and other eccentric outsider artists are treated in this anthology assembled by the Kansas Grassroots Art Association.		SU
Breen, David H.	The Canadian Prairie West and the Ranching Frontier, 1874-1924	Toronto: U. of Toronto Press, 1983	A solid history of ranching in the Canadian west, which was not just a matter of American intrusion, but a development of British and eastern Canadian enterprise. Details leasing system, society of ranching, coming of homesteaders, hard winter of 1907, and "dark years" of 1905-1911.		SU
Brown, Dee	Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West	New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970	A landmark book in the reinterpretation of the so-called Indian wars of the plains, taking a view wholly sympathetic to the Indians. Unfortunately, it also consigned Plains Indians to victim status; it would be the next generation of histories that would restore agency to them.		SU
Bucko, Raymond A.	The Lakota Ritual of the Sweat Lodge: History and Contemporary Practice	Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1998	An anthropologcal study that includes historical texts describing the ritual of the inipi and traces it to present in Lakota culture.		TC
Burnet, Jean	Next-Year Country: A Study of Rural Social Organization in Alberta	Toronto: U. of Toronto Press, 1951	A sociologist's study of the Hanna vicinity in eastern Alberta, where failure to adapt by Anglo-Canadian and German-Russian cultures produced failure to create stable society. Excellent analysis of social structure of town and country. Vol. 3 of Social Credit in Alberta Series.
Butler, William Francis	The Great Lone Land: A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-west of America	London: S. Low, Marston, Low & Searle, 1875. Reprint, Edmonton: M.G. Hurtig, 1968	Narrative of a British army officer who came west to suppress the Red River Rebellion, was commissioned by the Canadian government to report on Indian affairs and governmental needs in the west, and explored the plains and Rockies. Wrote other adventure books of exploits in other parts of British empire, but this is the best.		SU
Capote, Truman	In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences	New York: Random House, 1965	A "nonfiction novel" (so the author termed it) about the Clutter family murders in Holcomb, Kansas, in 1959.		SU
Carlson, Paul H.	The Plains Indians	College Station: Texas A & M U. Press, 1998	A sound, concise treatment of Plains Indian culture, focusing on Plains culture traditionally defined, following European contact.		TC
Carr, Joe, and Alan Munde	Prairie Nights to Neon Lights: The Story of Country Music in West Texas	Lubbock: Texas Tech U. Press, 1995
Carrels, Peter	Uphill Against Water: The Great Dakota Water War	Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1999	Well-researched history, by a writer from Aberdeen, of the grassroots opposition to the Oahe Diversion in South Dakota.		SU
Carriker, Robert C.	Father Peter John De Smet: Jesuit in the West	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1995	A sound biography treating a religious figure who cultivated a close and cordial relationship with the Indians of the northern plains.
Carter, John E.	Solomon D. Butcher: Photographing the American Dream	Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1985	Butcher is the most illustrious photographer of the homesteading era on the plains; the book offers a splendid selection of images, along with biographical background.		SU
Carter, Sarah	Prairie Harvests: Prairie Indian Reserve Farmers and Government Policy	Montreal: McGill-Queen's U. Press, 1990.
Cather, Willa	My Antonia	Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1918. Scholarly Edition, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994	The best-loved novel by the greatest novelist ever to hail from the plains.		SU
Chalfant, William Y.	Cheyennes and Horse Soldiers: The 1857 Expedition and the Battle of Solomon's Fork	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1989	An authoritative work on the Sumner expedition and on the fight on the Solomon, in western Kansas.		TC
Chalfant, William Y.	Dangerous Passage: The Santa Fe Trail and the Mexican War	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1994			SU
Chalfant, William Y.	Without Quarter: The Wichita Expedition and the Fight on Crooked Creek	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1991			SU
Chiel, Arthur A.	The Jews in Manitoba: A Social History	Toronto: U. of Toronto Press, 1961	One of the few good studies of Jews in the plains region. Part of a series on ethnic groups sponsored by Manitoba Historical Society and the provincial government.
Cleveland, Ceil	Whatever Happened to Jacy Farrow?	Denton: U. of North Texas Press, 1997	This is the autobiography of the woman who was the prototype for Jacy Farrow in Larry McMurtry's The Last Picture Show. That gives it a certain literary interest, but it also has distinct documentary value—as a narrative of a young woman growing up in the Last Picture Show generation, and more to the point, as a