Adapting to the Land
Adapting to the Land

Author: John F. Freeman

Publisher: University Press of Colorado

Published: 2022-01-03

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1646422058

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Adapting to the Land examines the extent to which Colorado agriculturists adapted to or stretched beyond the limits of land and water. Historian John F. Freeman and horticultural scientist Mark E. Uchanski document the state’s agricultural history and provide context for the shift away from traditional forms of agriculture to the use of synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides—and, most recently, to more values-driven practices to support the burgeoning popularity of natural and organic foods. This shift has resulted in the establishment of the global organic food processing and distribution industry, which has roots in Colorado. Ancestral Puebloans farmed and grazed within the limits of nature. Early settlers adjusted their cultivation methods through trial and error, while later agriculturists relied on research and technical advice from the Colorado Agricultural College. As part of wartime mobilization, the federal government prompted farmers to efficiently increase yields. To meet the demand for food and fiber scientific and technical innovations led to the development of new plant cultivars and livestock breeds, advances in mechanization, and widespread use of synthetic amendments. Increasing concern over soil fertility and the loss of irrigation water to urbanization contributed to more changes. Despite, or perhaps because of, what we see today along the Front Range, Colorado may still have a chance to slow or even reverse its seemingly unrestrained growth, creating a more vibrant, earth-friendly society in which agriculture plays an increasingly significant part. Scientific discoveries and innovations in regenerative cultivation are clearing the path to a more sustainable future. Adapting to the Land adds an ecological and horticultural perspective to historical interpretations of recurring agricultural issues in the state and tracks the concept of stewardship, suggesting that spiritual beliefs continue to contribute to debates over acceptable agricultural practices and the effects of urbanization upon the land. This book will be a key resource for students, scholars, and general readers interested in agricultural and Colorado history, sustainability, and rural sociology.

The Woolly West
The Woolly West

Author: Andrew Gulliford

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Published: 2018-06-13

Total Pages: 594

ISBN-13: 1623496535

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Winner, 2019 National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum Western Heritage Award for the Best Nonfiction Book Winner, 2019 Colorado Book Awards History Category, sponsored by Colorado Center for the Book In The Woolly West, historian Andrew Gulliford describes the sheep industry’s place in the history of Colorado and the American West. Tales of cowboys and cattlemen dominate western history—and even more so in popular culture. But in the competition for grazing lands, the sheep industry was as integral to the history of the American West as any trail drive. With vivid, elegant, and reflective prose, Gulliford explores the origins of sheep grazing in the region, the often-violent conflicts between the sheep and cattle industries, the creation of national forests, and ultimately the segmenting of grazing allotments with the passage of the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934. Deeper into the twentieth century, Gulliford grapples with the challenges of ecological change and the politics of immigrant labor. And in the present day, as the public lands of the West are increasingly used for recreation, conflicts between hikers and dogs guarding flocks are again putting the sheep industry on the defensive. Between each chapter, Gulliford weaves an account of his personal interaction with what he calls the “sheepscape”—that is, the sheepherders’ landscape itself. Here he visits with Peruvian immigrant herders and Mormon families who have grazed sheep for generations, explores delicately balanced stone cairns assembled by shepherds now long gone, and ponders the meaning of arborglyphs carved into unending aspen forests. The Woolly West is the first book in decades devoted to the sheep industry and breaks new ground in the history of the Colorado Basque, Greek, and Hispano shepherding families whose ranching legacies continue to the present day.

A Bushel's Worth
A Bushel's Worth

Author: Kayann Short

Publisher: Torrey House Press

Published: 2013-07-22

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 1937226204

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NAUTILUS BOOK AWARD WINNER "A heartfelt meditation on farm, food, and family…a love story of the land and a life spent caring for it." —HANNAH NORDHAUS, author of The Beekeeper's Lament In this love story of land and family, Kayann Short explores her farm roots from her grandparents' North Dakota homesteads to her own Stonebridge Farm, an organic, community–supported farm on the Colorado Front Range where small–scale, local agriculture borrows lessons of the past to cultivate sustainable communities for the future.

Colorado
Colorado

Author: Carl Abbott

Publisher: University Press of Colorado

Published: 2013-06-15

Total Pages: 596

ISBN-13: 1607322277

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Since 1976, newcomers and natives alike have learned about the rich history of the magnificent place they call home from Colorado: A History of the Centennial State. In the fifth edition, coauthors Carl Abbott, Stephen J. Leonard, and Thomas J. Noel incorporate recent events, scholarship, and insights about the state in an accessible volume that general readers and students will enjoy. The new edition tells of conflicts, shifting alliances, and changing ways of life as Hispanic, European, and African American settlers flooded into a region that was already home to Native Americans. Providing a balanced treatment of the entire state’s history—from Grand Junction to Lamar and from Trinidad to Craig—the authors also reveal how Denver and its surrounding communities developed and gained influence. While continuing to elucidate the significant impact of mining, agriculture, manufacturing, and tourism on Colorado, the fifth edition broadens and focuses its coverage by consolidating material on Native Americans into one chapter and adding a new chapter on sports history. The authors also expand their discussion of the twentieth century with updated sections on the environment, economy, politics, and recent cultural conflicts. New illustrations, updated statistics, and an extensive bibliography including Internet resources enhance this edition.

Homesteading Women
Homesteading Women

Author: Julie Jones-Eddy

Publisher: Macmillan Reference USA

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13:

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"The popular image of the settling of the American West has primarily been of cowboys, soldiers, miners, and trappers--the white men. In Homesteading Women: An Oral History of Colorado, 1890-1950 Julie Jones-Eddy brings to light the reality of the frontier through the oral testimonies of some of the women whose strength and perseverance were essential to the establishment of families, farms, and communities in the West." "Homesteading Women is a compilation of Jones-Eddy's interviews with 47 women between the ages of 55 and 95--some married, some mothers, some employed, but all survivors of the rigors of homesteading in a demanding and, at times, hostile environment. The interviewees vividly recall frontier attitudes toward childhood, marriage, pregnancy and birth, work, health care, daily life, and death. Some of the women worked in the home, while others had roles in the fields alongside the men in addition to their domestic duties. Maintaining the home--whether it be a tent, a dugout, or a log cabin--was strenuous work, as the women had to cope with cold, altitude, and isolation, haul fuel and water, tend livestock, make preserves, soap, lard, and clothes, and generate cash with their "butter and egg" money. Outside the home, traditional gender lines were often blurred as women performed arduous tasks in caring for farm animals and working the land." "Jones-Eddy provides many of her questions along with the interviewees' answers, thereby preserving the dialogue that elicited their responses. The result is an especially warm and personal account of an era and a way of life now gone by." "Homesteading Women includes a chapter by Professor Elizabeth Jameson, coeditor of The Women's West. Jameson places the oral testimonies within a greater historical context and highlights the significant contribution these women made not only to their communities but to women's history in general."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Class and Community in Frontier Colorado
Class and Community in Frontier Colorado

Author: Richard Hogan

Publisher:

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13:

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'A significant contribution to historical sociology that shows how economic/class relations within frontier communities determined the shape of the political system.' -Scott G. McNall

American Harvest
American Harvest

Author: Marie Mutsuki Mockett

Publisher: Graywolf Press

Published: 2020-04-07

Total Pages: 445

ISBN-13: 1644451166

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An epic story of the American wheat harvest, the politics of food, and the culture of the Great Plains For over one hundred years, the Mockett family has owned a seven-thousand-acre wheat farm in the panhandle of Nebraska, where Marie Mutsuki Mockett’s father was raised. Mockett, who grew up in bohemian Carmel, California, with her father and her Japanese mother, knew little about farming when she inherited this land. Her father had all but forsworn it. In American Harvest, Mockett accompanies a group of evangelical Christian wheat harvesters through the heartland at the invitation of Eric Wolgemuth, the conservative farmer who has cut her family’s fields for decades. As Mockett follows Wolgemuth’s crew on the trail of ripening wheat from Texas to Idaho, they contemplate what Wolgemuth refers to as “the divide,” inadvertently peeling back layers of the American story to expose its contradictions and unhealed wounds. She joins the crew in the fields, attends church, and struggles to adapt to the rhythms of rural life, all the while continually reminded of her own status as a person who signals “not white,” but who people she encounters can’t quite categorize. American Harvest is an extraordinary evocation of the land and a thoughtful exploration of ingrained beliefs, from evangelical skepticism of evolution to cosmopolitan assumptions about food production and farming. With exquisite lyricism and humanity, this astonishing book attempts to reconcile competing versions of our national story.