This is the first book devoted to Montana's long history of industrial newspaper ownership and the consequences for democracy. The work also reveals the costs paid by owners and their journalists, whose credibility eroded as their increasingly constricted newspapers lapsed into ambivalence and indifference. The story offers a timeless study of the conflict between commerce and the notion of a free and independent press.
The publishing boom of the early twentieth century led to an entirely new vocation, that of art direction for editorial publications and advertising. In 1921, the recently formed Art Directors Club resolved to show that their profession involved more than just signage for selling products. Their exhibition of paintings and drawings, intended to prove their work worthy of artistic consideration, was judged by a jury that featured some of the era's most distinguished names in illustration and art, including Ashcan School painter Robert Henri; Charles Dana Gibson, creator of the "Gibson Girl"; and outstanding New York artist Joseph Pennell, among others. This reproduction of the exhibition's catalog offers a generous selection of more than 300 halftone images, accompanied by an appendix of the ads' corresponding sources. New to this edition are added pages of brilliant color reproductions of a selection of the best materials. Entries by leaders in the field include J. C. Leyendecker's ads for Arrow shirts, Maxfield Parrish's Mazda Lamp calendar pages, Franklin Booth's line art, and contributions by Norman Rockwell, Edward Penfield, N. C. Wyeth, and other luminaries. Students of art, illustration, and advertising as well as professional illustrators, historians, and anyone with an appreciation of advertising art will find this volume a richly evocative source of historic commercial art.
The years between 1875 and 1910 saw a revolution in the economy of the Flathead Reservation, home to the Salish and Kootenai Indians. In 1875 the tribes had supported themselves through hunting—especially buffalo—and gathering. Thirty-five years later, cattle herds and farming were the foundation of their economy. Providing for the People tells the story of this transformation. Author Robert J. Bigart describes how the Salish and Kootenai tribes overcame daunting odds to maintain their independence and integrity through this dramatic transition—how, relying on their own initiatives and labor, they managed to adjust and adapt to a new political and economic order. Major changes in the Flathead Reservation economy were accompanied by the growing power of the Flathead Indian Agent. Tribal members neither sought nor desired the new order of things, but as Bigart makes clear, they never stopped fighting to maintain their economic independence and self-support. The tribes did not receive general rations and did not allow the government to take control of their food supply. Instead, most government aid was bartered in exchange for products used in running the agency. Providing for the People presents a deeply researched, finely detailed account of the economic and diplomatic strategies that distinguished the Flathead Reservation Indians at a time of overwhelming and complex challenges to Native American tribes and traditions.
