Wide-Open Town
Wide-Open Town

Author: Diane Mutti Burke

Publisher: University Press of Kansas

Published: 2018-11-29

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 0700627065

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Kansas City is often seen as a mild-mannered metropolis in the heart of flyover country. But a closer look tells a different story, one with roots in the city’s complicated and colorful past. The decades between World Wars I and II were a time of intense political, social, and economic change—for Kansas City, as for the nation as a whole. In exploring this city at the literal and cultural crossroads of America, Wide-Open Town maps the myriad ways in which Kansas City reflected and helped shape the narrative of a nation undergoing an epochal transformation. During the interwar period, political boss Tom Pendergast reigned, and Kansas City was said to be “wide open.” Prohibition was rarely enforced, the mob was ascendant, and urban vice was rampant. But in a community divided by the hard lines of race and class, this “openness” also allowed many of the city’s residents to challenge conventional social boundaries—and it is this intersection and disruption of cultural norms that interests the authors of Wide-Open Town. Writing from a variety of disciplines and viewpoints, the contributors take up topics ranging from the 1928 Republican National Convention to organizing the garment industry, from the stockyards to health care, drag shows, Thomas Hart Benton, and, of course, jazz. Their essays bring to light the diverse histories of the city—among, for instance, Mexican immigrants, African Americans, the working class, and the LGBT community before the advent of “LGBT.” Wide-Open Town captures the defining moments of a society rocked by World War I, the mass migration of people of color into cities, the entrance of women into the labor force and politics, Prohibition, economic collapse, and a revolution in social mores. Revealing how these changes influenced Kansas City—and how the city responded—this volume helps us understand nothing less than how citizens of the age adapted to the rise of modern America.

The Kansas Beef Industry
The Kansas Beef Industry

Author: Charles L. Wood

Publisher: University Press of Kansas

Published: 2021-10-08

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 0700631798

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book relates the modern development of the Kansas beef cattle industry, combining both the history of production—including specific business problems and the significant work in upbreeding—and an examination of the marketing aspects of the industry that became so important during the twentieth century. Sharpest focus is on the period 1890 to 1940, after the Western beef industry had passed through the transition from using the expansive, open-range method of beef production to the more rational and organized methods of today. Wood presents a detailed discussion of the history of upbreeding. He points out the little-known fact that the fine-blooded animals—especially Herefords—that moved out from the Midwest were probably more important in stocking the ranges of the Plains and the Southwest than the many thousands of Longhorns driven from Texas. He emphasizes the interregional aspect of beef production and the unique role played by Kansas. On the threshold of the Great Plains, Kansas received cattle from both the Midwest and the Southwest for many years—upbred cattle moving South, and stocker cattle moving from the South or Southwest into Kansas for additional maturing before being shipped to the Midwest for fattening or for slaughter. Wood also looks closely at the relationship of cattlemen to government and to big business—railroads, stockyards, and packers. He sees the cattlemen as agricultural producers and business managers, rather than as romantic, self-reliant giants of the earth. Taking issue with the popular myth that cattlemen were and are ruggedly individualistic and disdainful of outside help, Wood discusses the cattlemen’s repeated demands for aid, especially during the 1930s. Included in the book is the history of the Kansas Livestock Association, which the author credits as being one of the most significant stock associations in the West during this century. Wood sets the KLA’s growth within the context of the larger organizational revolution in the nation’s business world. A concluding chapter surveys major developments after World War II, including the development of feedlots and irrigation, the new cross-breeding, decentralization of packers, and the advent of trucking to replace railroads. There has been scant information on these topics in the general literature of the Great Plains.