A hundred years ago the great prairie region now comprising the states of Kansas, Nebraska, and North and South Dakota was regarded as unfit for human habitation. As late as the middle of the last century the maps of the United States included it within 'The Great American Desert, ' and successive waves of migration passed it by for what seemed more hospitable lands farther west. But now these prairie states, so completely ignored at first, have become one of the richest sections of the land, the agricultural heart of the country, and the seat, moreover, of a distinctive culture within the general American frame. The background of this culture, the conditions, problems, and struggles of pioneer life on the Sod-House Frontier from 1854 to 1890, is the theme of this important and fascinating book.
A reassessment of the military's role in developing the Western territories moves beyond combat stories and stereotypes to focus on more non-martial accomplishments such as exploration, gathering scientific data, and building towns.
Great Plains Literature is an exploration of influential literature of the Plains region in both the United States and Canada. It reflects the destruction of the culture of the first people who lived there, the attempts of settlers to conquer the land, and the tragic losses and successes of settlement that are still shaping our modern world of environmental threat, ethnic and racial hostilities, declining rural communities, and growing urban populations. In addition to featuring writers such as Ole Edvart Rölvaag, Willa Cather, and John Neihardt, who address the epic stories of the past, Great Plains Literature also includes contemporary writers such as Louis Erdrich, Kent Haruf, Ted Kooser, Rilla Askew, N. Scott Momaday, and Margaret Laurence. This literature encompasses a history of courage and violence, aggrandizement and aggression, triumph and terror. It can help readers understand better how today's threats to the environment, clashes with Native people, struggling small towns, and rural migration to the cities reflect the same forces that were important in the past.
Writer and anthropologist C. Thomas Shay traces the key roles of plants since humans arrived in the northern plains at the end of the Ice Age and began to hunt the region’s woodlands, fish its waters, and gather its flora.
Addressing everything from the details of everyday life to recreation and warfare, this two-volume work examines the social, political, intellectual, and material culture of the American "Old West," from the California Gold Rush of 1849 to the end of the 19th century. What was life really like for ordinary people in the Old West? What did they eat, wear, and think? How did they raise their children? How did they interact with government? What did they do for fun? This encyclopedia provides readers with an engaging and detailed portrayal of the Old West through the examination of social, cultural, and material history. Supported by the most current research, the multivolume set explores various aspects of social history—family, politics, religion, economics, and recreation—to illuminate aspects of a society's emotional life, interactions, opinions, views, beliefs, intimate relationships, and connections between the individual and the greater world. Readers will be exposed to both objective reality and subjective views of a particular culture; as a result, they can create a cohesive, accurate impression of life in the Old West during the second half of the 1800s.
In recent years, Civil War veterans have emerged from historical obscurity. Inspired by recent interest in memory studies and energized by the ongoing neorevisionist turn, a vibrant new literature has given the lie to the once-obligatory lament that the postbellum lives of Civil War soldiers were irretrievable. Despite this flood of historical scholarship, fundamental questions about the essential character of Civil War veteranhood remain unanswered. Moreover, because work on veterans has often proceeded from a preoccupation with cultural memory, the Civil War’s ex-soldiers have typically been analyzed as either symbols or producers of texts. In The War Went On: Reconsidering the Lives of Civil War Veterans, fifteen of the field’s top scholars provide a more nuanced and intimate look at the lives and experiences of these former soldiers. Essays in this collection approach Civil War veterans from oblique angles, including theater, political, and disability history, as well as borderlands and memory studies. Contributors examine the lives of Union and Confederate veterans, African American veterans, former prisoners of war, amputees, and ex-guerrilla fighters. They also consider postwar political elections, veterans’ business dealings, and even literary contests between onetime enemies and among former comrades.
The course of daily life in the United States has been a product of tradition, environment, and circumstance. How did the Civil War alter the lives of women, both white and black, left alone on southern farms? How did the Great Depression change the lives of working class families in eastern cities? How did the discovery of gold in California transform the lives of native American, Hispanic, and white communities in western territories? Organized by time period as spelled out in the National Standards for U.S. History, these four volumes effectively analyze the diverse whole of American experience, examining the domestic, economic, intellectual, material, political, recreational, and religious life of the American people between 1763 and 2005. Working under the editorial direction of general editor Randall M. Miller, professor of history at St. Joseph's University, a group of expert volume editors carefully integrate material drawn from volumes in Greenwood's highly successful Daily Life Through History series with new material researched and written by themselves and other scholars. The four volumes cover the following periods: The War of Independence and Antebellum Expansion and Reform, 1763-1861, The Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Industrialization of America, 1861-1900, The Emergence of Modern America, World War I, and the Great Depression, 1900-1940 and Wartime, Postwar, and Contemporary America, 1940-Present. Each volume includes a selection of primary documents, a timeline of important events during the period, images illustrating the text, and extensive bibliography of further information resources—both print and electronic—and a detailed subject index.
