Selected Bibliography for
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Author |
Title |
Publication |
Notes |
Where |
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Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin |
The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-colonial Literatures |
Routledge: |
This is a classic and accessible survey of post-colonialism
in literature with emphasis on the post-Commonwealth branch. The
application of post-colonial theory to |
TC |
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Blew, Mary Clearman |
Bone Deep in Landscape: Writing, |
Norman: |
This is a memoir with a self-conscious sense of place coming from a locality (Havre, Montna) near that of Stegner. |
TI |
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Boardman, Kathleen A.
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"Lowry Charles Wimberly and the Retreat of Regionalism" |
Great Plains Quarterly 11 (Summer 1991): 143-56 |
Wimberly, editor of the Prairie Schooner, was a disillusioned regionalist who came to doubt the capacity of region to resist the metropolis and conformity. |
R |
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Bogue, Allan G.
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Frederick Jackson Turner : Strange Roads Going Down |
Norman: |
The indispensable biography of Turner. |
SU |
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Cronon, William
|
" |
Journal of American History 78 (March 1992): 1347-76 |
This piece mentions Webb specifically, but is applicable to all our texts, as Cronon seeks to reconcile his narrative bent as a historian with the post-modern times in which he lives and writes. He speaks for a generation of historians attempting to be more self-conscious about the stories they tell—in this case stories about the plains. |
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Debo, Angie |
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The book is largely about Debo’s
home town of |
SU |
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Dorman, Robert L.
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Revolt of the Provinces: The Regionalist Movement in |
Chapel Hill: |
A key secondary work undergirding the seminar. Dorman defines the regionalist movements that are the context for the works of regional autonomy. |
SU |
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Etulain, Richard W.
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Telling Western Stories: From |
Albuquerque: |
In particular see Chapter 4, "New Stories," for its correspondence to the delineation of generations of regionalism made in this seminar. |
SU |
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Etulain, Richard W.
|
Western American Literature: A Bibliography of Interpretive Books and Articles |
Vermillion: Dakota Press, 1972 |
Dated and unannotated, but still useful. |
SU |
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Etulain, Richard W.
|
"Western Stories for the Next Generation" |
Western Historical Quarterly 31 (Spring 2000): 5-23 |
After confessing his affection for Stegner, Etulain goes on to praise examples of complex story-telling in literature, film, and History, and to call for more "moral" and "hopeful" stories (using those words in senses different from the usual connotations). |
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Fink, Deborah
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Agrarian Women: Wives and Mothers in Rural |
Chapel Hill: |
If you're wondering where the women are in Webb, read Fink.
If you suspect that Cather romanticized the farm women of |
SU |
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Harrison, Dick
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Unnamed Country: The Struggle for a Canadian Prairie Fiction |
Edmonton: |
An excellent survey written in plain prose—and one that poses the classic issue of cultural interpretation on the plains, that is, should one emphasize the imprint of environment or the importation of culture? |
TC |
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Holman, David Marion
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A Certain Slant of Light: Regionalism and the Form of Southern and Midwestern Fiction |
Baton Rouge: |
A study of Southern and Midwestern fiction contrasting the Romantic tradition of the former with the Realistic tradition of the latter. Treats Cather as Midwestern—and ponders why she doesn't fit with others of the region (duh). |
TC |
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Isern, Thomas D.
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"The Comedy of the Commons, or, My Life on the Post-Colonial Plains" |
[get citation] |
This essay asserts that an understanding of
post-colonialism is useful for anyone trying to understand life and
literature on the |
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Isern, Thomas D.
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"Nowhere Spelled Backwards: The Quest for Region in
the Tussock Grasslands of |
Western Historical Quarterly 31 (Winter 2000): 477-85 |
This essay deals with another plains, but it reflects on the role of intellectuals in defining region by building on the vernacular sense of place. |
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Isern, Thomas D.
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"Thorfinnson Rides Again: A Sense of Place on the Northern Plains" |
North Dakota History 67 (2000): 2-9 |
An essay setting out three eras of Euro-American history on the plains (settlement, consolidation, renewal) and exploring the importance of History to the sense of place. |
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Isern, Thomas D. |
My So-Called Life on the Plains: Confessions of the
Last Picture Show Generation |
CD, West Fargo: Kindred House, 2005 |
The Tri-College History of 2004, in which Isern assesses the state of the Great Plains in the late 20th century, alluding in passing to several authors read in this seminar. |
SU |
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Jensen, Merrill, Ed.
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Regionalism in |
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Here is a grand diversity of views as to what constitutes the definition and potential of regionalism. The chapter on literary regionalism is spot on, and recommended, but the book is worth sampling throughout. Particular attention might also be given to the final part, which comprises essays on the limits and promise of regionalism. |
SU |
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Luebke, Frederick C.
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"Regionalism and the |
Western Historical Quarterly 15 (January 1984): 19-38 |
Luebke first sketches the origins and aspects of
regionalist thought, then goes on to argue for a culturalist approach to
the history of the Great Plains in lieu of Webb's environmentalist
approach. An authoritative historical treatment of |
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Odum, Howard W., and Harry Estill Moore
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American Regionalism: A Cultural-Historical Approach to National Integration |
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An invaluable explanation of the rationale and variety of approaches to regionalism. Odum's generation of regionalists, as social scientists, sought to solve problems and use regions as elements of healthy nation-building. |
SU |
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Quantic, Diane Dufva
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The Nature of the Place: A Study of |
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A descriptive survey of regional lit organized according to mythic themes. |
SU |
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Riley, Glenda
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The Female Frontier: A Comparative View of Women on the Prairie and the Plains |
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Riley finds the |
SU |
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Said, Edward W.
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Culture and Imperialism |
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A classic of post-colonial theory with a particularly interesting section (for application to the plains experience) on "Resistance and Opposition." |
SU |
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Schwieder, Dorothy |
Growing Up with the Town: Family and Community on the
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A mix of memoir and research, Schwieder
reconstructs the town of her girlhood in western |
SU |
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Smith, Henry Nash
|
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No discussion of the literature of the West can proceed
without dealing with |
SU |
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Thacker, Robert
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The Great Prairie Fact and Literary Imagination |
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"On the prairie, the great fact is the land itself," writes Thacker in this, the best look-length survey of prairie writing. All four texts of the seminar are discussed here. A unique strength of Thacker's analysis is that he treats the entirety of the plains, Canadian and American. |
SU |
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Turner, Frederick Jackson
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The Frontier in American History |
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Turner is basic to understanding the historical thought of both Webb and Stegner. |
SU |
Cather |
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Acocella, Joan |
"Cather and the Academy” |
In Geoffrey C. Ward., Ed., The Best American Essays 1996 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996) |
An excellent introduction to the massive scholarly literature on Cather, showing the uses and abuses to which her works have been subjected by scholars with agendae. |
ILL |
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Arnold, Marilyn |
"The Other Side of Willa Cather" |
Nebraska History 68 (Summer 1987): 74-82 |
A nice gossipy profile exploring Cather's irascible yet gracious personality. |
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Arnold, Marilyn |
Willa Cather: A Reference Guide |
Boston: G.K. Hall, 1986 |
An exhaustive list of references, arranged chronologically and indexed topically. |
SU |
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Aronson, Marilyn A. |
"Plains Goddesses: Heroines in Willa Cather's Prairie Novels" |
Heritage of the Great Plains 28 (Fall/Winter 1995): 5-16 |
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Bennett, Mildred R. |
The World of Willa Cather |
New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1951 2nd Ed., Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1962 |
A wonderful, exasperating book by a resident of Red Cloud "living in the 'world of Willa Cather.'" Because Bennett drew on informants not available to later writers, subsequent biographers continue to make good use of her material. |
SU |
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Bloom, Harold, Ed. |
Antonia |
New York: Chelsea House, 1991 |
A volume in the Major Literary Characters series, gathering together a collection of critical extracts (including the well-known remarks of H.L Mencken) along with a set of critical essays focusing on Antonia. These are a mixed bag, each with its own agenda. Major commentators such as Rosowski summarize their views. Lesser-known writers offer occasional gems—such as Mary Kemper Sternshein's almost offhand closing remarks about young Leo. |
TC |
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Bloom, Harold, Ed. |
Willa Cather's My Antonia |
New York: Chelsea House, 1987 |
A volume in the Modern Critical Interpretations series, gathering a group of essays on the work. Of particular interest here is Stegner's essay on Cather. Of the other contributions I think Terence Martin's on memory has special use to us, and Blanche H. Gelfant's on sex is just generally notable. |
TC |
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Boucher, |
Heartwomen: An Urban Feminist's Odyssey Home |
San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1982 |
Generally I find this book rather naive, but its reporting of an interview with Mildred Bennett in Red Cloud (see the "Catherland" chapter) is choice. |
ILL |
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Cather, Willa Sibert |
"Nebraska: The End of the First Cycle" |
Nation 117 (5 September 1923): 236-38 |
A much-cited piece that illuminates Cather's understanding of regional history. |
R |
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Cather, Willa |
O Pioneers! |
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1913 Willa Cather Scholarly Edition, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992 Bison Book Edition, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997 |
For context, contrast, and comparison, read Antonia in juxtaposition with Pioneers. Moorhead State holds an original edition. |
SU |
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Cather, Willa |
Obscure Destinies |
New York: Knopf, 1932 |
First of the three stories here published is "Neighbor Rosicky," which you must read as a companion to Antonia. |
SU |
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Cather, Willa |
On Writing: Critical Studies on Writing as an Art |
New York: Knopf, 1949 |
Two essays here are important to Cather's style in Pioneers and Antonia: "The Novel Demeuble" and "My First Novels [There Were Two]." |
SU |
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Cherny, Robert W. |
"Willa Cather and the Populists" |
Great Plains Quarterly 3 (Fall 1983): 206-18 |
Cather disaproved of Populism and Bryanism. This article includes an interesting discussion of the handling of Populist issues (or characters) in Antonia. |
R |
|
Danker, Kathleen |
"The Influence of Willa Cather's French-Canadian Neighbors in Nebraska in Death Comes for the Archbishop and Shadows on the Rock" |
Great Plains Quarterly 20 (Winter 2000): 35-54 |
This doesn't touch directly on Antonia, but it is additional discussion of Cather's fascination with her immigrant neighbors. |
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Vision and Refuge: Essays on the Literature of the Great Plains |
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982 |
See the essay on pp. 93-105 (Bernice Slote, "Willa Cather and Plains Culture") for a casual survey of regional and cultural details incorporated in Cather's work. |
SU |
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Gustafson, Neil |
"Getting Back to Cather's Text: The Shared Dream in O Pioneers!" |
Western American Literature 30 (August 1995): 151-162 |
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Howarth, William |
"The Country of Willa Cather" |
National Geographic 162 (July 1982): 70-93 |
Many are the personal narratives of visitors to Cather country, among which this stands as one of the most professional, although not the most insightful. |
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Murphy, David |
"Jejich Antonie: Czechs, the Land, Cather, and the Pavelka Farmstead" |
Great Plains Quarterly 14 (Spring 1994): 85-106 |
This is a rich, rich piece on the interaction of ethnic culture and plains landscape that is essential to Antonia, focusing on the material culture of the farmstead. |
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Murphy, John J. |
"Nebraska Naturalism in Jamesian Frames" |
Great Plains Quarterly 4 (Fall 1984): 231-37 |
Antonia has always been a problem for critics intent on categorization (regional, Realistic, Romantic). This article helps to explain some of the ambivalence. |
R |
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My Antonia |
VHS, Gideon Productions, 1995 |
You think this might be pretty good because it has Jason Robards in it, but the screenplay is lame, the ending abrupt. It's a tough novel to adapt to film, no doubt. 92 minutes. |
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Newstrom, Scott |
Willa Cather |
http://www.gustavus.edu/oncampus/academics/english/cather/ |
This site, hosted on a Gustavus Adolphus University server, offers a good collection of links and documents, including, for instance, Cather's high school graduation address. |
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O'Brien, |
Willa Cather: The Emerging Voice |
New York: Oxford University Press, 1987 |
This work treats Cather's life and writing through publication of O Pioneers! Although a generally fascinating account, O'Brien's work is best known for its frank treatment of Cather's lesbianism, which O'Brien adroitly places in the context of the times. |
SU |
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Olson, Paul A. |
"The Epic and Great Plains Literature: Rolvaag, Cather, and Neihardt" |
Prairie Schooner 55 (Spring/Summer 1981): 263-85 |
Olson considers Antonia the most clearly epic of the works treated and develops the analogy to Virgil's Aeneid. |
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Rosowski, Susan J. |
The Voyage Perilous: Willa Cather's Romanticism |
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986 |
For this seminar, Rosowski's work is key. Her development of Cather's Romanticism is persuasive and methodical; her prose is wonderfully accessible. The chapter devoted to Antonia begins, "It was as if everything Cather had written until now had been in preparation for My Antonia." I recommend this as the first thing to read about Antonia. |
TC |
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Rosowski, Susan J., Ed. |
Approaches to Teaching Cather's My Antonia |
New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1989 |
For the understanding of Cather's conception of region and sense of place, see the essays by Sally Allen McNall, Robert W. Cherny, Paul A. Olson, and Robert Thacker. |
TC |
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Schach, Paul |
"Russian Wolves in Folktales and Literature of the Plains: A Question of Origins" |
Great Plains Quarterly 3 (Spring 1983): 67-78 |
This is essential background for the notable, chilling set piece in Antonia. |
R |
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Slote, Bernice |
"Willa Cather as a Regional Writer" |
Kansas Quarterly 2 (1970): 7-15 |
A useful piece for explicating Cather's regional roots, but one tinged by the apparent discomfort of the author with consigning Cather to the realm of "regional." Unknowingly, Slote's hedging on this question places Cather as a regionalist exactly as J. Frank Dobie would define one. |
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Welsch, Roger L., and Linda K. Welsch |
Cather's Kitchens: Foodways in Literature and Life |
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987 |
Thankfully, Cather is not one of those Great Plains authors who celebrates asceticism; she (and perhaps more so, Roger) takes delight in food and foodways. |
TC |
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Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial |
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Information about Catherland, the state designation of the western half of Webster County, Nebraska—local sites with reference to Cather's works. |
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Woodress, James |
Willa Cather: A Literary Life |
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987 |
A thoroughgoing and laudable biography that methodically treats key Cather works, using and emphasizing their capacity to reveal elements of Cather's life. |
SU |
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Zitter, Emmy Stark |
"Making Herself Born: Ghost Writing and Willa Cather's Developing Autobiography" |
Biography 19 (1996): 283-301 |
This article takes on what has become an interesting debate among scholars, having to do with the shift in Cather's authorial voice in the years after her Nebraska novels. This is commonly interpreted as moving from a male-emulative voice to a woman's voice. (Personally, I think this has more to do with region than with gender, but of course, to me, everything is about region!) |
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Momaday |
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N. Scott Momaday |
Biographical sketch and interview. |
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Anderson, Edward F. |
Peyote: The Divine Cactus |
Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1988 2nd Ed., 1996 |
A broad survey of peyote origins and practices useful as an introduction to the subject. |
TC |
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Boyd, Maurice |
Kiowa Voices: Ceremonial Dance, Ritual and Song |
Vol. 1, Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1981 |
A substantial piece of ethnography notable for its native authority, that is, the Kiowas (through the Kiowa Historical and Research Society) appear to have governed content. Among the customs and artifacts treated is the Tai-may, which is so central to Rainy Mountain. |
SU |
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Crawford, Isabel |
Kiowa: The History of a Blanket Indian Mission |
New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1915 |
A book of sketches and journal entries of the author's ten years' experience (closing in 1906) at Saddle Mountain Baptist Mission, and at the Elm Creek and Rainy Mountain stations. An interesting female (not to say feminist) account of the acculturation process spurred by missions. |
ILL |
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Ellis, |
To Change Them Forever: Indian Education at the Rainy Mountain Boarding School, 1893-1920 |
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996 |
The boarding school campus was at the foot of Rainy Mountain, to its southeast. Especially consider the final chapter, which posits that Kiowa identity has been preserved through synthesis, and that the boarding school was pivotal in this. |
TI |
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Ewers, John C. |
Murals in the Round: Painted Tipis of the Kiowa and Kiowa-Apache Indians |
Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1978 |
Color-illustrated catalog of an exhibition of the model painted tipis painted for Mooney by Kiowa artists. Included is the "Kiowa Underwater-Monster Tipi." |
TC |
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Isernhagen, Hartwig |
Momaday, Vizenor, Armstrong: Conversations on American Indian Writing |
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999 |
Although the extended interview with Momaday is dragged down by intrusive interviewing, this work contains some illuminating primary material. |
TC |
McAllister, Mick
|
“N. Scott Momaday: Mandarin Tribal Voice,” in Dancing Badger |
http://www.dancingbadger.com/scott_momaday.htm |
Critical commentary on Momaday’s works. |
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Mayhall, Mildred P. |
The Kiowas |
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962 2nd Ed., 1971 |
A competent tribal history given its year of publication. As was common then, however, the narrative substantially ends with confinement on the reservation. |
SU |
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Momaday, N. Scott |
The Ancient Child |
New York: Doubleday, 1989 |
This later Momaday novel works with a familiar Momaday triangulation (Kiowa, Navajo, California); places mythic Kiowa material at center; and is the venue for Momaday's strange excursion into the life of Billy the Kid. |
TC |
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Momaday, N. Scott |
The Names: A Memoir |
New York: Harper & Row, 1976 |
An excellent companion to read with Rainy Mountain. Rainy Mountain is a hymn with a lyric lack of specificity. Names gives specifics—names, places—by which the reader can reconstruct the family and community background to Momaday's writings. |
SU |
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Momaday, N. Scott |
House Made of Dawn |
New York: Harper & Row, 1968 |
Momaday's Pulitzer Prize-winning first book. The theme of personal identity is pervasive through his works, and it starts here. The novel also deals with historical themes of relocation and urban flight by American Indians. House poses the problem of identity to which Rainy Mountain is the response. |
SU |
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Momaday: Voice of the West |
VHS, Alexandria: PBS Video, 1996 |
A good general introduction (30 minutes) to Momaday, giving a sense of his presence, but light on Kiowa and plains roots. |
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Mooney, James |
Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians |
In 17th Annual Report, U.S. Bureau of Ethnology Reprint, Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979 |
The core of this work by the pioneering ethnographer, Mooney, is the Kiowa calendars, which govern the chronological narrative presented. Mooney is a major source for Momaday's reconstruction of his Kiowa identity, in Rainy Mountain and elsewhere. The 1979 edition of Calendar History has an introduction by John Ewers providing background on Mooney. |
SU |
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Mooney, James |
"In Kiowa Camps" |
Proceedings of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association 3 (1911): 43-57 |
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Moses, L.G. |
The Indian Man: A Biography of James Mooney |
Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
1984
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Moses devotes a meaty chapter to Mooney's work among the Kiowas. More generally, the book informs us about how white ethnology shaped our images of Plains Indians. |
SU |
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Schubnell, Matthias |
N. Scott Momaday: The Cultural and Literary Background |
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985 |
This is a key work for understanding Rainy Mountain in the context of the whole body of work by Momaday. Identity, personal journey—these themes weave throughout. |
TC |
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Trimble, Martha Scott |
N. Scott Momaday |
Boise: Boise State College, 1973 |
A brief, competent, useful sketch of Momaday through publication of Rainy Mountain. |
SU |
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“N. Scott Momaday,”in Modern American Poetry |
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/momaday/momaday.htm |
Poems, artwork, and an online interview. |
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Vestal, Paul A., and Richard Evans Schultes |
The Economic Botany of the Kiowa Indians as It Relates to the History of the Tribe |
Cambridge: Botanical Museum, 1939 |
Little here seems directly applicable to Rainy Mountain, but that impression is misleading; the place of plants in the hunting culture Momaday eulogizes is pertinent to understanding its place in the environment. |
SU |
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Woodard, Charles L. |
Ancestral Voice: Conversations with N. Scott Momaday |
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991 |
This is an outstanding piece of interviewing, particularly illuminating for our discussions, inasmuch as the first subject treated at length is Momaday's Kiowa identity. |
SU |
Stegner |
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Benson, Jackson J. |
Wallace Stegner: His Life and Work |
New York: Viking, 1996 |
The only full-length biography of Stegner, and a competent one, although not particularly searching. It does not appear, for instance, that Benson ever went to Eastend. |
TC |
Leckie, Shirley A.
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Angie Debo:
Pioneering Historian |
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000 |
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DeVoto, Bernard |
Across the Wide Missouri |
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1947 |
Since Stegner was DeVoto's biographer, and DeVoto his mentor, it's interesting to compare the two. They have grand themes and certain literary structures in common, but I find them quite different as to voice. |
SU |
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Etulain, Richard |
Conversations with Wallace Stegner
on History and Literature |
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SU |
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Fradkin, Philip L. |
Wallace Stegner and the
American West |
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Billed As the first “critical biography” of Stegner, Fradkin’s work does take on some of the more knotty issues of Stegner’s personal and literary life. It complements Jackson Benson’s authorized, literary biography nicely. |
SU |
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Howard, Joseph Kinsey |
Strange Empire: A Narrative of the Northwest |
New York: William Morrow, 1952 Reprint, Minneapolis: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1994 |
The work is of interest to the seminar for two reasons. First, Stegner relied on it heavily for his chapter on the Metis. Second, Howard is part of the Western literary clique along with Stegner and DeVoto (who did the final editing of Strange Empire after Howard's death). |
SU |
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Isern, Thomas D. |
"The Sensuous Savage in All of Us: Wallace Stegner in Review" |
North Dakota History 66 (Winter 1999): 16-20 |
My own review of recent biography and criticism on Stegner, along with images and description from Eastend. |
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Isle, Walter |
"History and Nature: Representations of the Great Plains in the Work of Sharon Butala and Wallace Stegner" |
Great Plains Quarterly 19 (Spring 1999): 89-95 |
Isle finds basic differences between the nature experiences of these two authors from Eastend—"detachment" for Stegner, "immersion" for Butala. |
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Lojek, Helen |
"Wallace Stegner, Herodotus of the Cypress Hills" |
Prairie Forum 24 (Spring 1999): 41-50 |
A handy introduction to Stegner's intent and method in Wolf Willow. |
R |
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Merrill, Lewis, and Lorene Lewis |
Wallace Stegner |
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SU |
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Proust, Marcel |
Remembrance of Things Past |
New York: Random House, 1941 |
Stegner specifically invokes Proust at the beginning of Wolf Willow. A number of plains writers seem to agree with Proust that remembrance is key to identity, and that place is key to remembrance. Some, like Stegner, also adopt Proust's device of a sensory trigger. |
SU |
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Solomon, Robert H. |
"The Prairie Mermaid: Love-Tests of Pioneer Women" |
Great Plains Quarterly 4 (Summer 1984): 143-51 |
The resolution of the "Carrion Spring" chapter of Wolf Willow is unsettling to many; this article will make it more so. |
R |
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Stegner, Wallace |
The Big |
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Stegner’s first novel, which treats (as overt fiction) some of the same material as Wolf Willow. |
SU |
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Stegner, Wallace |
The Uneasy Chair: A Biography of Bernard DeVoto |
Garden City: Doubleday, 1974 |
There are times when Stegner, ostensibly describing DeVoto, seems to be writing autobiography instead of biography. The work is particularly useful for an understanding of the literary community from which Stegner wrote. |
SU |
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Stegner, Wallace, Ed. |
The Letters of Bernard De Voto |
Garden City: Doubleday, 1975 |
Following up on his biography of DeVoto, Stegner edited this selection of letters. |
SU |
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Stegner, Wallace, Ed. by Page Stegner |
Marking the Sparrow's Fall: Wallace Stegner's American West |
New York: Henry Holt, 1998 |
This is a handy collection of Stegner's writings dealing with his sentiments for and commitments to the American West—including several of his more droll pieces. The Wilderness Letter is here, for handy reference. "The Great Falls Year" fills in a biographical interlude particularly pertinent to the plains. My favorite is "Why I Like the West" ("I have always tried to look like Gary Cooper and talk like the Virginian."). |
TC |
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Wallace Stegner: A Writer's Life |
Video, Los Angeles: Stephen Fisher Productions and KCET Television, 1997 |
Appr. 60 min. A competent video biography that touches on all of Stegner's major works and themes. Robert Redford needs to learn how to pronounce "Saskatchewan," though, and there needs to be a law against any further use of those old clips from The Plow That Broke the Plains. |
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Wallace Stegner Environmental Center |
Wallace Stegner
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Biography, critical notes, and other miscellaneous materials on Stegner. |
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Webb |
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Baker, T. Lindsay |
A Field Guide to American Windmills |
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985 |
A major work on one of Webb's key case studies. |
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Barbour, Erwin Hinckley |
The Homemade Windmills of Nebraska |
Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 59 |
A fascinating trove of material folk culture that ties into Webb's thesis. |
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Carson, Gerald |
"The Great Plains Revisited" |
Timeline 8 (December 1991-January 1992): 46-63 |
An appreciative and competent introduction to Webb's work—a good first piece to read in order to capture the main ideas of Great Plains. |
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Dick, Everett |
The Sod-House Frontier, 1854-1890: A Social History of the Northern Plains from the Creation of Kansas & Nebraska to the Admission of the Dakotas |
New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1937 |
A classic history of plains settlement centered on one of Webb's great symbols of adaptation. |
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Dobie, J. Frank |
Out of the Old Rock |
Boston: Little, Brown, 1972 |
In this book of sketches Dobie treats Webb in a rambling, but illuminating, profile. |
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Dugger, Ronnie |
Three Men in Texas: Bedichek, Webb, and Dobie: Essays by Their Friends in the Texas Observer |
Austin: University of Texas Press, 1967 |
Is this a great exercise in masculine myth-making, or what? The middle section on Webb, however, contains a few gems of reminiscence such as John Fischer's sketch of Webb's "three heresies." |
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Flores, Dan L. |
The Natural West: Environmental History in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains |
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001 |
This work represents the reflective edge of historians' current thinking about the Great Plains environment. |
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Franz, Joe B., et al. |
Essays on Walter Prescott Webb |
Walter Prescott Webb Memorial Lectures, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1976 |
There are a few jewels (such as Webb in his BVDs) in the essay here by Eugene Hollon, but the most illuminating piece is the one by Walter Rundell, Jr., "Webb the Schoolteacher." |
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Furman, Necah Stewart |
Walter Prescott Webb |
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1976 |
The standard biography, and a competent one. Furman makes good use of Webb's personal correspondence, thus illuminating aspects of his personal life treated by no other writer. She is frank about some of his shortcomings, but not notably critical. |
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Furman, Necah Stewart |
"Webb, Walter Prescott" |
In The Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/WW/fwe6.html |
Handy summary biography by the author of a book-length bio of Webb. |
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Hart, Stephen S. |
"Critique: Geological Errors in Walter Prescott Webb's The Great Plains" |
Great Plains Research 9 (Spring 1999): 137-43 |
This critic, a geological engineer, bats about .600 in correcting Webb's errors (sometimes misreading what Webb said). Any knowledgeable reader from the region could produce a similar catalog of corrections. |
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Hollon, W. |
"Walter Prescott Webb: The Classroom Teacher" |
East Texas Historical Journal 25 (1987): 3-11 |
A tribute to Webb's intellect, with frank treatment of his classroom manner. |
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Hoy, James F. |
The Cattle Guard: Its History and Lore |
Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1982 |
An adaptation to the plains not treated by Webb, but it fits right in with his scheme of material adaptations. |
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Isern, Thomas D. |
Bull Threshers and Bindlestiffs: Harvesting and Threshing on the North American Plains |
Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991 |
Webb must not have known anything about wheat farming, because if he had, he would have dealt with this subject in Great Plains. |
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Isern, Thomas D. |
Custom Combining on the Great Plains: A History |
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1981 |
An adaptation to life on the plains that came after Webb's writing of The Great Plains. |
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Jacobs, Wilbur R., Jown W. Caughey, and Joe B. Frantz |
Turner, Bolton, and Webb: Three Historians of the American Frontier |
Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1965 |
These were indeed the big three in the estimation of the practitioners of Western Americana in the 1960s. This work provides sound, introductory surveys of the contributions (and to some extent, the personalities) of all three. |
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Jordan, Terry G. |
Trails to Texas: Southern Roots of Western Cattle Ranching |
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981 |
Jordan, who holds the Webb chair at the University of Texas, disagrees sharply with Webb over the origins of the range cattle industry. |
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Kraenzel, Carl Frederick |
The Great Plains in Transition |
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1955 |
By a sociologist, the greatest of the refiners of Webb's thesis. |
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Osgood, Ernest S. |
The Day of the Cattleman |
Minneapolis: Univesity of Minnesota Press, 1929 |
Fellow Turnerian and contemporary of Webb, Osgood wrote the classic treatise on the range cattle industry as a frontier phenomenon. |
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Owens, William A. |
Three Friends: Roy Bedichek, J. Frank Dobie, and Walter Prescott Webb |
Garden City: Doubleday, 1969 |
This is an invaluable work for recreating the social and intellectual (notice I did not say academic) context from which Webb's work emerged. Male friendships, intellectual kinships, letter-writing habits, hopes and dreams—this is the author's world. |
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Rundell, Walter, Jr. |
"Walter Prescott Webb: Product of Environment" |
Arizona and the West 5 (1963): 4-28 |
This sketch has been largely superceded by later biographers, but it uses some review material not featured by later writers. |
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Shannon, Fred A., et al |
An Appraisal of Walter Prescott Webb's The Great Plains: A Study in Institutions and Environment |
New York: Social Science Research Council, Bulletin 46, 1946. |
This is the famous hatchet job by Shannon, the invited critique that served only to bolster the stature of Webb's work. It includes the proceedings of a symposium devoted to the questions raised. The line-up was all-star—Hicks, Dale, Osgood, Wissler. Read the critique, the rejoinder, and the testy discussion—the blood was really up. A key statement from Webb was his appeal not to the scholarly fraternity but to the regional public for validation: "If the Plainsman finds here the biography of his own people, a fair story of their heroic and ofttimes tragic struggle with a naked land, he will speak convincingly to the court." |
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Sharp, Paul F. |
Whoop-Up Country: The Canadian-American West, 1865-1885 |
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1955 |
Sharp applies the Webb thesis to the Canadian-American border. |
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Tobin, Gregory M. |
The Making of a History: Walter Prescott Webb and The Great Plains |
Austin: University of Texas Press, 1976 |
This work by an Australian scholar is the best authority as to the formation of Webb's major work. Tobin surveys all the major social and intellectual influences on Webb, deals critically with his thought and method, and now and then offers wonderful flashes of insight—as on pp. 32-33, when he states the dilemma of the Humanities in a "raw community." |
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Utley, Robert M. |
"The Texas Ranger Tradition Established: Jack Hays and Walker Creek" |
Montana 52 (Spring 2002): 2-11 |
Utley revisits the mythic origins of the Rangers, which so fascinated Webb. |
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Webb, Walter P. |
"The American Revolver and the West" |
Scribner's Magazine 81 (February 1927): 171-78 |
Find here the genesis of ideas that would grow into Great Plains. In the latter part of the essay Webb reaches north up the plains from Texas—the cattle kingdom being the vehicle. |
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Webb, Walter P. |
"The American West: Perpetual Mirage" |
Harper's Magazine 214 (May 1957): 25-31 |
Late in life Webb, as shown by this article, still recognized environment as a shaping influence. This piece was a controversial one—prompting public reaction across the West—but its premise remains central to definition of the American West as a field of study. |
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Webb, Walter Prescott |
Divided We Stand: The Crisis of a Frontierless Democracy |
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This work, a curious hybrid of old-time sectionalism and twentieth-century liberalism, bolsters Dorman's argument that Webb and his generation of intellectuals invented regionalism as a check against the tyranny of the metropolis. |
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Webb, Walter Prescott |
The Great Frontier |
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1952 Reprint, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986 |
Webb considered this his second, and greater, master work. Here he turns the Turner thesis around to consider the effects of the frontier on global development. The research is thin, the analysis speculative, but it's full of interesting ideas. |
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Webb, Walter Prescott |
History as High Adventure |
Austin: Jenkins Garrett Foundation, 1969 |
This anthology of Webb's speeches includes not only the well-known title essay, and his essay on the historical seminar, but also some interesting semi-precious gems. Here Webb explains how he came to regard geography so highly and how the power of great hypotheses drove his work. Several pieces also take up the relationship between History as practiced in universities and History as taught in the public schools. |
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Webb, Walter Prescott. |
An Honest Preface and Other Essays |
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959 |
An excellent single source for getting to know the author of The Great Plains. Following a friendly introduction by Joe Frantz, this collection serves up Webb's puckish introduction of the critical Fred Shannon, his discussion of why historians can't write, his philosophy of the historical seminar, his account of reactions to his Harper's "Perpetual Mirage" piece, and best of all, his intellectual travel narrative, "History as High Adventure." |
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Webb, Walter P. |
"The Search for William E. Hinds" |
Harper's Magazine 223 (July 1961): 62-67 |
Here is Webb's own view of where he came from. You know from The Great Plains that he believes in passion for his subject. Here is his truly sentimental side. |
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Webb, Walter Prescott |
The Texas Rangers: A Century of Frontier Defense |
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1935 |
This work by Webb is the target of much later criticism for its racist stereotypes and its fixation on frontier violence. Leaving aside such easy shots, it is more illuminating to observe that this work is the only conventional monograph among Webb's books—it is a construction that he used once and then discarded—and to read it in conjunction with his comments on 19th-century German historians in his address to the AHA on the historical seminar. |
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West, Elliott |
The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, and the Rush to Colorado |
Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998 |
Among the finest recent works treating the historical environment of the Great Plains. |
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Wolfskill, George |
"In Retrospect: Walter Prescott Webb and The Great Plains: Then and Now" |
Reviews in American History 12 (June 1984): 296-307 |
A judicious assessment of Webb's work, including its fall from favor in the heyday of the New Social History. |
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