Thursday, April 30, 2009

30 Years Of Man's Life Disappear In Mysterious 'Kansas Rectangle'

I found this article on The Onion's website. I thought it was appropriate having just read Frazier's book.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/30_years_of_mans_life_disappear_in


CHICAGO—The so-called "Kansas rectangle," a desolate and featureless region covering 82,277 square miles in America's mysterious Great Plains, has been a source of speculation among paranormal investigators for decades. Though the questions surrounding its existence have never been answered, one thing is certain: The life of former Chicagoan Kevin Corcoran suddenly vanished into the eerie region 30 years ago this week, never to return.

Lost Man

The last time Kevin Corcoran was seen being active.

According to his friends and family, Corcoran, a bright and energetic young man of 18, was last seen driving into the Rectangle in a Plymouth Duster on the afternoon of May 8, 1978. Surveillance footage shows him stopping at a gas station near the border to buy fuel and snacks at 4:15 p.m. Although his trip was only supposed to last the summer, he was never seen or heard from again.

The last known communication from Corcoran was sent from somewhere within the Rectangle, and made reference to plans to marry a large blond woman and enroll in a local technical college. Records indicate the message was received from 37 degrees 42 minutes north latitude and 97 degrees 20 minutes west longitude—but when searchers attempted to investigate that location, they found nothing but a tiny town with zero signs of life.

"Who knows if my son will ever return to civilization," said Corcoran's father, Dennis, now 76. "Some have reported seeing a pale and dead-eyed specter of him, trudging to and from a small office-supply firm every day, but they could just be legends. We don't know."

Acquaintances of Corcoran say they warned him that once he entered the Rectangle, he would never make it back out, but he did not listen, and was drawn there to investigate tales of cheap tuition. It wasn't until Corcoran failed to show up in the summer of 1978 for an annual camping trip, however, that the reality of his disappearance began to sink in.

"I knew then he wasn't coming back," friend Craig Wilkins said. "He got sucked into this alternative reality, and he can't get out. I'll never see my friend again."

Kansas Rectangle

The mysterious region has, according to some accounts, swallowed thousands of potentially interesting and active lives.

As haunting as his story may be, Kevin Corcoran is only one of hundreds of people who, for unknown reasons, have had years or even decades of their lives utterly fade away in the mystifying region. Still, most cases lack any hard evidence: The few known photos from inside the Rectangle show only a flat, blank emptiness, stretching unremarkably to the horizon.

What happens in the lives of those who venture within remains a mystery.

Matthew Hume, a researcher at the University of Chicago who studies the Rectangle, said the bizarre phenomena associated with the region might never be fully understood.

"As best we can tell, those who go beyond the area's borders for too long are knocked off course by the low external pressure to succeed," Hume said. "But after that, it's as if they fall off the face of the earth. There are cases of an entire Greyhound bus full of people entering the Rectangle and vanishing into obscurity."

Experts estimate that several million tons of consumer goods disappear into the region per year. Yet, almost nothing, save for the odd Sunday morning church broadcast, is ever detected coming back out.

Still, some travelers have returned to tell their tales. The most frequent occurrence reported by those who have survived the Kansas Rectangle is extreme disorientation and an unsettling perception of time distortion.

Boulder, CO resident Ned Frome entered the Rectangle in 2005 while en route to visiting family in St. Louis.

"I had been driving for hours, but it was as though I hadn't moved at all," Frome said. "I had no idea which direction I was going in. No matter where I looked, everything was exactly the same and before long, normal navigation was almost impossible."

"I'll never go in there again," Frome added with a shudder. "I felt like I was going insane."

Kyle Manheim, a photocopier salesman from Minneapolis who was once inside the Kansas Rectangle for two weeks on business, said he could not clearly remember any events from the time period.

"There isn't a single thing I can recall that would be worth mentioning," Manheim said. "I know I was there, but that's about it. It's like those 14 days never happened."

While many strongly believe in the eerie, soul-destroying powers of the Kansas Rectangle, the dearth of concrete evidence has drawn its share of skeptics.

"If you look at the statistics, there's nothing going on in that area that doesn't happen every day in the rest of the country," said Stephen Finney, a long-haul trucker who is familiar with the region. "What happened to Kevin Corcoran could have happened in Iowa, Indiana, or even Michigan.

"It's just a myth," Finney added. "This whole 'Kansas' place people talk about simply does not exist."

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

The Great Plains, Final Reading Assignments

Devil's Tower 2
Picture: Devil's Tower, Wyoming

Class.

You are should be up to around page 170 by this Thursday. In any case, the book should definitely be finished by Tuesday. We will have our final class discussion next Tuesday on the book.

Enjoy.

Denny

New Course for Next Fall (I Will Teach It)

Iowa Powwow Opening
Picture: University of Iowa Powwow, 2009.

History of Homesteading

Homesteading is often described as one of the most significant experiences in the history of westward expansion and European settler-states. This course's objective is to comparatively examine the history of homesteading in the United States, Canada and Australia and its far-reaching effects upon landscape and people. We will think critically about this history by studying secondary sources, historical novels and film. Students will be expected to participate in class discussions, write and present two shorts paper and complete two exams.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Pictures from Pikes Peak in Iowa

Here are a few pictures from Pikes Peaks. It is within 5 minutes of Effigy Mounds so if anyone decides to check that out, this place is very similar and free!!!










Sunday, April 26, 2009

Final ID Terms List

The Good Life

Hey Folks. This is the final list for your study purposes. I added 20 terms to the last version. I will add no more. All terms are from lecture, class, flim or readings. Ask if you have any questions. This should be pretty easy if you have been keeping up with the readings and studying the older list.

On Tuesday we will discuss the Final more. You will take the IDs test on the last day of class. It will be just like it was with the Midterm.

The List

Stephen Long
Great American Desert
Lewis and Clark
Frederick Jackson Turner
“The Significance of the Frontier in American History”
Germ Theory of Settlement
Oregon Trail
Mormon Trail
Bozeman Trail
Fetterman Massacre
Grattan Massacre
Sand Creek Massacre
Wounded Knee
Plains Indian Wars
Fort Laramie
Open Range Cattle
Hereford
Abilene
Red Cloud
Wyatt Earp
Wild Bill Hickock
Dodge City
Deadwood
The Black Hills
George Armstrong Custer
Code of the West
Vigilantism
William Jennings Bryant
The Homestead Act of 1862
The Kinkaid Act
1868 Fort Laramie Treaty
Cheyenne
Lame Deer
Dull Knife
Cheyenne Outbreak
The Dust Bowl
“Okie”
Fort Robinson
1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty
Bear Butte
Trickster
Waylon Jennings
James Malin
Climax Theory of Ecology
The New Deal
“Buffalo Commons”
CRP
Karl Marx
Ogallala Aquifer
Zebulon Pike
Billy the Kid
Jim Bridger
George Armstrong Custer
Little Bighorn
Fort Union
North Platte
“Black Blizzard”
Soil Conservation

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Hiking Trip on Sunday is Cancelled, Severe Weather All Day Tomorrow

Field trip is cancelled. Sorry for the late notice, but I was hoping we could squeeze it in between weather fronts. Not going to happen. Spread the word.

Indian Mounds

Friday, April 24, 2009

Great Plains

Merriman Speedway Auto Races

Effigy Mounds Weather.

Iowa Moon

Wow. What bad luck. It seems like the weather has taken a turn for the worse (again). As of now, the trip is still on. These forecasts change so often I'm sure it will adjust again.

We will go if only showers are in the forecast. If it is cold and a downpour- I will cancel Saturday night.

Fyi Folks.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Monday, April 20, 2009

A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir


http://newbooksinhistory.com/?p=308

A blurb by our own History Departmen's Marshall Poe on Don Worster's latest book.

Go Support Our Classmate Mirri May, 4, 2009 at the Mill


Mirri at the Mill!!!!!!! :D
the first real show- EVER!
Host: Mirri and the Mill
Type: Music/Arts - Performance
Network: Global
Start Time: Monday, May 4, 2009 at 11:15pm
End Time: Tuesday, May 5, 2009 at 12:15am
Location: The Mill, Iowa City
Street: burlington st.
City/Town: Iowa City, IA
View MapGoogle
MapQuest
Microsoft
Yahoo
Email: mirri888@yahoo.com

DescriptionMirri plays at open mike night at the Mill at 11:30ish for a half an hour Monday May 4th AND YOU WANT TO BE THERE!!!! I will have CD's for 5$ if u care.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

The Great Plains



Video: I searched Youtube to see if there was any material on his book- I found this instead. Does this video relate to anything we have discussed this semester? More importantly, how does it relate to Frazier's The Great Plains.

For Thursday make sure you have read the first 64 pages of Ian Frazier's The Great Plains.

Paper Due Date Reminder and Update on Reading Assignment



Picture: An Educational Moment from Thursday's Field Trip to the Old Capitol Museum

Paper is due the Tuesday after this week.

You should also be finished with The Dust Bowl by this Tuesday the 23rd. Technically, you should have finished it last week but on Tuesday we will have our last class discussion on the book. Pay special attention to the final chapters and conclusion. For Thursday you will have a reading assignment for our next book, The Great Plains by Ian Frazier.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Homestead Reference in Today's Wall Street Journal



Picture: Iowa City on April 17, 2009

OPINION: DECLARATIONS APRIL 17, 2009 Goodbye Bland Affluence
Get ready for authenticity chic.
By PEGGY NOONAN
Article
more in Opinion »Email Printer Friendly Share:
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A small sign of the times: USA Today this week ran an article about a Michigan family that, under financial pressure, decided to give up credit cards, satellite television, high-tech toys and restaurant dining, to live on a 40-acre farm and become more self-sufficient. The Wojtowicz family—36-year-old Patrick, his wife Melissa, 37, and their 15-year-old daughter Gabrielle—have become, in the words of reporter Judy Keen, "21st century homesteaders," raising pigs and chickens, planning a garden and installing a wood furnace.


APMr. Wojtowicz was a truck driver frustrated by long hauls that kept him away from his family, and worried about a shrinking salary. His wife was self-employed and worked at home. They worked hard and had things but, Mr. Wojtowicz said, there was a "void." "We started analyzing what it was that we were really missing. We were missing being around each other." So he gave up his job and now works the land his father left him near Alma, Mich. His economic plan was pretty simple: "As long as we can keep decreasing our bills we can keep making less money."

The paper weirdly headlined them "economic survivalists," which perhaps reflected an assumption that anyone who leaves a conventional, material-driven life for something more physically rigorous but emotionally coherent is by definition making a political statement. But it didn't look political from the story they told. They didn't look like people trying to figure out how to survive as much as people trying to figure out how to live. The picture that accompanied the article showed a happy family playing Scrabble with a friend.

Their story hit a nerve. There was a lively comment thread on the paper's Web site, with more than 300 people writing in. "They look pretty happy to me," said a commenter. "My husband and I are making some of the same decisions." Another: "I don't know if this is so much survivalism as a return to common sense." Another: "The more stuff you own the harder you have to work to maintain it."

To some degree the Wojtowicz story sounded like the future, or the future as a lot of people are hoping it will be: pared down, more natural, more stable, less full of enervating overstimulation, of what Walker Percy called the "trivial magic" of modern times.

The article offered data suggesting the Wojtowiczes are part of a recent trend. People are gardening more if you go by the sales of vegetable seeds and transplants, up 30% over last year at the country's largest seed company. Sales of canning and preserving products are also up. Companies that make sewing products say more people are learning to sew. I have a friend in Manhattan who took to surfing the Web over the past six months looking for small- and farm towns in which to live. The general manager of a national real-estate company told USA Today that more customers want to "live simply in a less-expensive place."

More Peggy Noonan
Read Peggy Noonan's previous columns.

And click here to order her new book, Patriotic Grace.Some of this—the desire to live less expensively, and perhaps with greater simplicity—seems to key off what I am seeing in Manhattan, a place still generally with more grievances than grief, and with a greater imagination about how badly things are going to go than how bad it is right now. Many think that no matter how much money is sloshing through the system from Washington, creating waves that lead to upticks, the recession is really a depression. We won't "come out of it," as the phrase goes, for five or seven years, because the downturn is systemic, global, and because the old esprit is gone. The baby boomers who for 40 years, from 1968 through 2008, did the grunt work of the great abundance—work was always a long-haul trip for them, they were the first in the office in 1975 and are the last to leave the office to this day—know the era they built is over, that something new is beginning, something more subdued and altogether more mysterious. The old markers of success—money, status, power—will not quite apply as they have. They watch and work as the future emerges.

In New York some signs of that future are obvious: fewer cars, less traffic, less of the old busy hum of the economic beehive. New York will, literally, get dimmer. Its magical bright-light nighttime skyline will glitter less as fewer companies inhabit the skyscrapers and put on the lights that make the city glow.

A prediction: By 2010 the mayor, in a variation on broken-window theory, will quietly enact a bright-light theory, demanding that developers leave the lights on whether there are tenants in the buildings or not, lest the world stand on a rise in New Jersey and get the impression no one's here and nobody cares.

The New York of the years 1750 to 2008—a city that existed for money and for all the arts and delights and beauties money brings—is for the first time going to struggle with questions about its reason for being. This will cause profound dislocations. For a good while the young will continue to flock in, for cheaper rents. Artists will still want to gather with artists—you cannot pick up the Metropolitan Museum and put it in Alma, Mich. But there will be a certain diminution in the assumption of superiority on which New York has long run, and been allowed, by America, to run.

More predictions. The cities and suburbs of America are about to get rougher-looking. This will not be all bad. There will be a certain authenticity chic. Storefronts, pristine buildings—all will spend less on upkeep, and gleam less.

So will humans. People will be allowed to grow old again. There will be a certain liberation in this. There will be fewer facelifts and browlifts, less Botox, less dyed hair among both men and women. They will look more like people used to look, before perfection came in. Middle-aged bodies will be thicker and softer, with more maternal and paternal give. There will be fewer gyms and fewer trainers, but more walking. Gym machines produced the pumped and cut look. They won't be so affordable now.

Hollywood will take the cue. During the depression, stars such as Clark Gable were supposed to look like normal men. Physical perfection would have distanced them from their audience. Now leading men are made of megamuscles, exaggerated versions of their audience. That will change.

The new home fashion will be spare. This will be the return of an old WASP style: the good, frayed carpet; dogs that look like dogs and not a hairdo in a teacup, as miniature dogs back from the canine boutique do now.

A friend, noting what has and will continue to happen with car sales, said America will look like Havana—old cars and faded grandeur. It won't. It will look like 1970, only without the bell-bottoms and excessive hirsuteness. More families will have to live together. More people will drink more regularly. Secret smoking will make a comeback as part of a return to simple pleasures. People will slow down. Mainstream religion will come back. Walker Percy again: Bland affluence breeds fundamentalism. Bland affluence is over.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Effigy Mounds Field Trip: Weather Update

Hi Folks. We will not go to Effigy Mounds this weekend. Right now, the weather on Sunday is not looking good. We will go next weekend for sure though- it tenatively has a perfect forecast.
http://weather.yahoo.com/forecast/USIA0536_f.html



www.nps.gov/efmo

Folks.

The final head count will occur on Thursday, weather permitting. Be willing to commit one way or the other that day. Ideally, at least, seven people will go. You cannot beat 3 extra credit points folks. No write up is required either, if you go on the Effigy trip.

Any remaining movie reviews people will write I will hold to a very high standard, so don't expect that you can pick up other points easily.

Art History Lecture: Iowa and the Prairie Schools


1 Point Extra Credit if you go and write it up.

http://www.art.uiowa.edu/newsdetail.php?more=1096

"Identity and Architecture: Iowa and the Prairie Schools," lecture by Richard Guy Wilson, visitor in Art History
Thursday, April 16, at 5:30 pm, in Room E105, Adler Journalism Building
Richard Guy Wilson holds the Commonwealth Professor’s Chair in Architectural History at the University of Virginia (Thomas Jefferson’s University) in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he is also Chair of the Department of Architectural History. His specialty is the architecture, design and art of the 18th to the 20th century both in America and abroad.
He was born in Los Angeles—-the home of everything new—-and grew up in a Rudolph Schindler house, the leading modernist, designed for his parents. He received his undergraduate training at the University of Colorado and MA and Ph.D. at the University of Michigan. He taught at Michigan and Iowa State University before coming to Virginia in 1976.

Wilson has received a number of academic honors, among them a Guggenheim fellow, prizes for distinguished writing, and in 1986 he was made an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). He received the outstanding professor award at the University of Virginia in 2001. He has directed the Victorian Society’s Nineteenth Century Summer School since 1979 that has been located in Boston, Philadelphia and currently Newport, RI. He has served as an advisor and commentator for a number of television programs on PBS, C-Span, History channel and A&E; he appeared on most sixty-seven segments of America’s Castles.

He is the author or joint author of 14 books that deal with American and modern architecture. Among the most recent include books on Thomas Jefferson’s design of the University of Virginia, and principle author and editor of the Society of Architectural Historians book. He has been the curator and author for major museum exhibitions such as The American Renaissance, 1876-1917, The Art that is Life: The Arts and Crafts Movement in America, The Machine Age in America, 1918-1941, and The Making of Virginia Architecture.




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Phone (319) 335-1771 or Email art@uiowa.edu for more information.
Please email art@uiowa.edu with questions and comments on this web site.
Copyright © 2000 - 2009. The University of Iowa. All rights reserved.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

University of Iowa Powwow Today!



Picture: Dancer at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, 2004 (remember Fort Robinson from Old Jules . . . ?)

See email I sent to for information on extra credit if you attend. There are more than one "grand entries" today. I am going to try and make the noon grand entry. It is free with your student ID.

http://www.uiowa.edu/~events/04-10-09-powwow.html

Friday, April 10, 2009

Hey class so about Effigy Mounds... I was wondering if anyone would be up for going a week from tomorrow (Saturday the 18th).  We could leave around nine or something or whatever works.  I just thought the blog would be a good place to decide.

Woody Guthrie's "Talkin Dust Bowl Blues"

I think this song will fit nicely with Worster's use of literature and history in The Dust Bowl. The second video has some good pictures from the period too.



Thursday, April 9, 2009

Swearengen was from Iowa!



Video Caption: Scene from Deadwood (beware bad langauge). David Milch, the creator of Deadwood, went to graduate school at the University of Iowa. While much of it is soap opera-ish, there are some valid historical themes and issues developed in the series. Specially of interest is the portrayal in several of the characters of what some call the "Code of the West." This scene is an example of that.

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/WE-GemSaloon.html

Be skeptical about the source for much of this information, but it is very interesting. Sounds alot like some of the scenes in Old Jules that we read. Many of the Americans that emigrated to the Dakotas and the Black Hills, like Swearingen, were from Iowa. This fact is probably most explainable by Iowa's relatively close geographical proximity to the Dakotas.

OLD WEST LEGENDS

Al Swearengen & the Notorious Gem

Theater

Ellis Alfred Swearengen and his twin brother Lemuel were born in Oskaloosa, Iowa on July 8, 1845. The twins were the oldest of eight children, raised by parents Daniel and Keziah Swerengen until they were adults in Iowa.



Al, as he was known, arrived in Deadwood in May, 1876 as one of the earliest non-mining men in the area. By the end of the week he had a temporary dance-hall up and running. Arriving with his wife Nettie, she soon left him in September and later divorced him claiming spousal abuse. Swearengen would marry two more times while in Deadwood, both marriages resulting in divorces and similar claims of abuse.

Swearengen soon replaced his temporary dance-hall with a permanent building called the Cricket Saloon, a very small tavern that the newspapers referred to as a “hall” due to its narrowness.


For entertainment, Swearengen offered “prize fights” in a 5’x5’ space, though no prizes actually existed. The non-professionals engaged in the matches were generally normal working miners who were persuaded by Swearengen to participate.

On April 7, 1877, Swearengen opened the Gem Variety Theater that was described in the Black Hills Daily Pioneer as being “neat and tastefully arranged as any place of its kind in the west.” The Gem Theater soon provided the entertainment starved camp with comedians, singers and dancers, as well as continuing its display of “prize fights.” However, the theater was mostly a masquerade for its primary purpose as a brothel, which soon gained a reputation for its debasement of the women who were pressed into service there.

Al Swearengen recruited women from the east by advertising jobs in hotels and promising to make them stage performers at his theater. Purchasing a one way ticket for the women, when they arrived, the hapless ladies would find themselves stranded with little choice other than to work for the notorious Swearengen or be thrown into the street. Some of these desperate women took their own lives rather than being forced into a position of virtual slavery. Those who stayed were known to sport constant bruises and other injuries.


With the entertainment provided and numerous women, the Gem prospered and soon became the camp’s chief attraction. Drawing its support from many so-called leading citizens, the saloon was left alone by the authorities.



In the front of the theater were a bar and many seat for spectators. The rear of the building held several small curtained rooms where the Gem's “painted ladies” entertained their customers. On its balcony, the Gem band was said to have played every night, while the girls beckoned to potential customers to com forth. Once inside, the women charged their customers 10¢ for a dance, 20¢ for a beer and $1 for a bottle of wine. As to charges for the "other," it remains unknown.



In addition to the many girls, Swearengen's staff included Dan Doherty, who acted as general manager, Johnny Burns, who was in charge of the girls, and several bouncers. These men were said to have been as brutal to the girls as Swearengen, with beating of the women being a commonplace practice.


Though a popular spot amongst the rowdy miners of the camp, the Gem quickly gained a reputation as a violent saloon where gunshots flying through its interior became commonplace. Sometimes aimed between men in drunken fights, the bullets were just as often aimed at the girls themselves. At one time a Gem prostitute named Tricksie shot a man through the front of his skull after having taken a beating from him. However, the man didn’t immediately die. The doctor was called in who put a probe through the man’s head, amazed that he survived the gunshot at all. He died about thirty minutes later.



Where was Marshal Seth Bullock while all this was going on at the notorious theater? Reportedly, Bullock and Swearengen agreed to draw an imaginary line on Main Street that marked what was referred to as the “Badlands” and the rest of the town. From then on, Swearengen controlled lower Main Street, and Sheriff Bullock controlled upper Main Street.
In the early summer of 1879, the Gem suffered a fire, but the damage was quickly repaired and rebuilt. Just three months later, in September, 1879, the entire town of Deadwood suffered a disastrous inferno that claimed some 300 of its buildings, including the Gem Theater.

Swearengen again rebuilt, this time from the ground up, resulting in a bigger and better theater. When the new Gem was opened in December, 1879 The Daily Times touted it to be the finest theater building ever proposed for Deadwood.

Continuing to prosper, the Gem averaged a nightly profit of $5,000, sometimes even reaching as high as $10,000. But, for Swearengen, it was not to last. In 1899, the Gem suffered its final destructive fire and Swearengen called it quits, leaving Deadwood for good.

After its final demise in 1899, the newspaper had this to say of the Gem:



"harrowing tales of iniquity, shame and wretchedness; of lives wrecked and fortunes sacrificed; of vice unhindered and esteem forfeited, have been related of the place, and it is known of a verity that they have not all been groundless."

The Gem was one of the longest continuously-operating entertainment venues in Deadwood; however, after its demise, the Gem was referred to in the press as the "ever-lasting shame of Deadwood," "a vicious institution," and a "defiler of youth and a destroyer of home ties."

Five years later, in 1904, a drunk and penniless Swearengen was killed while trying to hitch a ride on a Colorado train like a common tramp.

After the Gem burned in 1899, another fire, six months later, destroyed the adjacent buildings leaving a large vacant lot. In 1921, the site became the location of Deadwood's first gas station. Today, the location of the Gem Theater is the site of the Mineral Palace Casino.

For more information on the Gem Theater, Deadwood, and its notorious characters, visit the Adams Museum at 54 Sherman Street, Deadwood, South Dakota, 605-578-1714.

The Black Hills of the Great Plains of South Dakota and Wyoming






Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868
Custer's 1874 Expedition
The Black Hills War

Deadwood
Custer City

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Great Plains Ghost Story

http://www.villiscaiowa.com/the_victims.html

Cloud Seeding


Remember our discussion in class about "rainmakers" and "sky pilots" . . . ?

Well, this just goes to show that the more things change the more they stay the same:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D97ECHLG1&show_article=1

See you Thursday. Make sure you finish Old Jules.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

My Antonia

discussion question

Do you believe the characters in this book? do they come off as real life people or do you believe they have been augmented in some way by Mari's writing?

Monday, April 6, 2009

High Winds and Sun...

In an effort to raise awareness about the New Deal, the US Resettlement Administration sponsored a short documentary in 1936. Written and directed by Pare Lorentz, The Plow That Broke the Plains attempted to capture life on the Great Plains during the Dust Bowl as well as explain how uncontrolled farming practices led to the disaster. Famous for its cinematography and score, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". I’ve included it here:

The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936)

http://www.archive.org/details/plow_that_broke_the_plains

Pare Lorentz would go on to make two more important Depression-era documentaries: The River (1938) and The City (1939). I’ve included them as well.

The River (1938)

http://www.archive.org/details/TheRiverByPareLorentz

The City (1939)

Part 1

http://www.archive.org/details/CityTheP1939

Part 2

http://www.archive.org/details/CityTheP1939_2


Homestead Land Record Patents


Hi Folks.

Thanks to Phil for the great post. That had several interesting topics in it.

In case anyone is interested, you can search some Homestead records online at this website. Simply enter your zip, choose a state and search any last name you wish to. I am sure that many of you will find if you search your family tree that you have some Old Jules-esque relatives . . . perhaps.

If you can't think of any relatives to search- try out Sandoz for Nebraska. Its interesting.

http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/Logon/Logon_Form.asp

See you tomorrow.

Megafauna, Fires, and Black Blizzards

The stories that I linked to on my April 1st post are two of several NPR pieces having to do with the Great Plains. I’ve posted three more here, including a great one on the Dust Bowl.

Re-Wilding the Great Plains

Talk of the Nation, August 19, 2005 · Guest: Josh Donlan, doctoral candidate in Cornell University's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in Ithaca, N.Y.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4806987

This interview is with a researcher, in the vain of Manning, who proposed to reintroduce descendents of Pleistocene era lions and elephants in order to undo human Plains damage. He published this proposal in the journal Nature. The entire article, "Pleistocene Rewilding: An Optimistic Agenda for Twenty-First Century Conservation," can be found here: http://www.eeb.cornell.edu/donlan/donlan/Reprints.html

I’ve included his abstract at the very end of this post.*



Park Service Maps the Great Plains Fire History

Morning Edition, November 2, 2006 · Sarah McCammon of Nebraska Public Radio reports.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6421573

We’ve talked a good deal about prairie fires in this class. This story discusses how researchers can read history from nature.



Plains Farmers Learn from Past as Aquifer Depletes

All Things Considered, August 11, 2007

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12595774&ft=1&f=1007

This story gives a great description of Dust Bowl life and what farmers are now doing to avoid another agricultural catastrophe.




*Pleistocene Rewilding: An Optimistic Agenda for Twenty-First Century Conservation

Abstract: Large vertebrates are strong interactors in food webs, yet they were lost from most ecosystems after the dispersal of modern humans from Africa and Eurasia. We call for restoration of missing ecological functions and evolutionary potential of lost North American megafauna using extant conspecifics and related taxa. We refer to this restoration as Pleistocene rewilding; it is conceived as carefully managed ecosystem manipulations whereby costs and benefits are objectively addressed on a case-by-case and locality-by-locality basis. Pleistocene rewilding would deliberately promote large, long-lived species over pest and weed assemblages, facilitate the persistence and ecological effectiveness of megafauna on a global scale, and broaden the underlying premise of conservation from managing extinction to encompass restoring ecological and evolutionary processes. Pleistocene rewilding can begin immediately with species such as Bolson tortoises and feral horses and continue through the coming decades with elephants and Holarctic lions. Our exemplar taxa would contribute biological, economic, and cultural benefits to North America. Owners of large tracts of private land in the central and western United States could be the first to implement this restoration. Risks of Pleistocene rewilding include the possibility of altered disease ecology and associated human health implications, as well as unexpected ecological and sociopolitical consequences of reintroductions. Establishment of programs to monitor suites of species interactions and their consequences for biodiversity and ecosystem health will be a significant challenge. Secure fencing would be a major economic cost, and social challenges will include acceptance of predation as an overriding natural process and the incorporation of pre-Columbian ecological frameworks into conservation strategies.

UICB Brownell Lecture on the History of the Book


UICB Brownell Lecture on the History of the Book
April 16, 8pm
Tippie Auditorium, W151 Pappajohn

Paul F. Gehl, Custodian of the John M. Wing Foundation on the History of Printing at the Newberry Library, Chicago

“Writing the History of the Book On Line”
Book history has become a hot topic in many academic departments, just as we are witnessing the triumph of digital scholarship in all the same fields. Maybe it is time to retire the category of "books about books" in favor of something digital. In this talk, Paul F. Gehl, Custodian of the John M. Wing Foundation on the History of Printing at the Newberry Library, Chicago, will describe his efforts to put his own most recent original research -- about Renaissance schoolbooks -- on line. During his lecture he will ask the audience to help him evaluate the project, for which he has great ambitions. First, can a scholarly monograph too specialized for print publication find any audience on line? And then, can the research behind the monograph be made useful for non-specialists through digital publication?
A reception in the Anderson Galleria will follow the lecture.

Paul Gehl will also attend the Book Studies Workshop to discuss the role of libraries in book history and book arts.
April 16, 1pm – 3pm
29 North Hall

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Throughout her characterization of her father in Mari Sandoz's novel "Old Jules" she paints a complex picture of who he is both in the context of him both in his family and as a frontiersman settling on the great plains. There is a duality of attitudes she adapts towards him as both a symbol of the west, and as a individual: flawed, determinate, and willful. In essence, she constructs him as a real human being and through the tale of his life shows life in the West in American History.

Old Jules is portrayed as a harsh but self-made man, unyielding in the face of the opposition the West offers and reactionary in support of what he has worked so hard to build. He is a shrewd business man and amasses a prime homestead spot and works very hard to build a life for himself, and eventually, his family. His personality is strong and confrontational to say the least, but this is shown to stem from his desire to work the land. He takes pride in what he accomplishes, which we see in the things he shows his various wives when they first come out to see him. He plants fruit trees, collects stamps, and builds a wooden house out on the prairie, all things that while might seem simple and trivial to a woman arriving from Europe, are evidence of hard work and dedication in the West.

While Old Jules is a symbolic figure of the self-made western settler, his relationship with his family casts a less favorable light on him and skews the complete construction of him as a heroic figure. Rather this construction complicates the image of what makes a hero in western literature and challenges social constructs of the romantic west. Through her representations of her father as a farmer and his goals, it is clear that Mari Sandoz does love him, but it is a complicated love due to the sometimes violent nature of his relationship with his wife and children. We see little tenderness in their interactions, and this can challenge the reader's sympathy towards Old Jules as a character. However he was a real person and is constructed neither a complete saint or a demon but a man, and above all else in the end, he is Mari's father, flawed though he may be.

Discussion Question:

How do the construction of events that take place in Old Jules portray local government and legal systems of the Old West? At what point are these constructs consistant with previous notions you had? At what points are they challanged?

Friday, April 3, 2009

Paper Topic #2


Picture: Cody, Nebraska in the Sandhills of Nebraska in 2009.

Picture: Old Family Photograph of Cody, Nebraska.

Paper Assignment #2
History of the Great Plains
Due Date: April 23, 2009

Paper Topic Choices (Choose one of the following):

1) Devise, develop and defend an argument that explores thematic connections between the works, The Dust Bowl and Old Jules.
2) Pick a historical topic of your choosing related to our reading this semester and the history of the Great Plains. Before beginning work on your topic have it pre-approved by me.



Requirements:
• This paper must be 4-5 pages, typed, double-spaced, written in 12-point New Times Roman font, printed in black ink, and stapled.
• I do not accept papers via e-mail. You must print the paper yourself and bring it to class on time.
• This paper must have an argument that draws on specific information in the books mentioned in the topic. Do not base your argument on mere conjecture.
• This paper must be proof read and professional. Papers with spelling errors, incorrect grammar, and incorrect word usage will receive a lower grade. If your paper has more than three ‘typos,’ grammatical errors or awkward sentences it will be impossible for you to earn a grade higher than “B.”
• If you have questions concerning grammar, structure, thesis statements, etc. you may contact the History Writing Center (303 Schaeffer Hall, 335-2584).
• This paper should be turned in on time. Late work will be penalized.
• Penalties for plagiarism are severe. This paper must be your own work and must contain your own ideas communicated in your own words.
• The internet is not a substitute for actually reading the course materials or paying attention during class. I do not accept any websites as sources. In these essays I expect to see original thought and knowledge of the assigned material.

The Dust Bowl


Picture: Donald Worster, University of Kansas professor and author of The Dust Bowl.

Folks.

Below you will find the reading assignment due dates for The Dust Bowl. I thought maybe some of you would like to get an early start reading our next book. It is an excellent read. There are several charts and pictures in this book that you should pay close attention to.

April 14: Read to Page 63.
April 16: Read to Page 146.
April 21: Read to Page 254.

University of Nebraska Press Hurt Book Sale, April 25, 2009


http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/pages/HurtBookSale.aspx

UNP HURT BOOK SALE APRIL 24

The Friends of the University of Nebraska Press will sponsor the Spring Hurt Book Sale Friday, April 24, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Press warehouse. The warehouse is located on R Street between 8th and 9th in the historic Haymarket district in Lincoln. The sale will offer a large selection of books at greatly reduced prices.

Come and discover a variety of history titles, including those about the Lewis and Clark expedition, the Civil War, and the West; captivating books ranging in subject from sports to science fiction; and classic Nebraska works by such as Willa Cather, Mari Sandoz, John G. Neihardt, Wright Morris. You'll find the books of Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, and an array of titles from our popular line of Bison Books. Paperbacks are $2 each, and hardcovers are $4 each. Or, fill a bag for $12.

For further information on the book sale call 402-472-1660.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Old Jules Reading Reminder for Next Week


Picture: Old Family Photograph from Sand Hills

Folks.

Just a reminder that you are expected to be completely finished with reading Old Jules by next Thursday. I know some of you are already done, but everyone should have finished the book by next Thursday for our class discussion purposes.

On Tuesday we will continue today's discussion of the book.

Terms for Final List



Here is a list of study terms for the semester thus far. A few of these may have yet to pop up, but most have been mentioned in lecture, power points or the reading. On the final anticipate that there will also be a map on which you have to match your term with a geographical location.

Stephen Long
Great American Desert
Lewis and Clark
Frederick Jackson Turner
The Significance of the Frontier in American History
Germ Theory of Settlement
Oregon Trail
Mormon Trail
Bozeman Trail
Fetterman Massacre
Grattan Massacre
Sand Creek Massacre
Wounded Knee
Plains Indian Wars
Fort Laramie
Open Range Cattle
Hereford
Abilene
Red Cloud
Wyatt Earp
Wild Bill Hickock
Dodge City
Deadwood
The Black Hills
George Armstrong Custer
Code of the West
Vigilantes
William Jennings Bryant
The Homestead Act of 1862
The Kinkaid Act
1868 Fort Laramie Treaty
Discussion Question-

How does the attitude and goals of life in Old Jules differ from those of modern times?

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

The Homestead Act Redux

Picture: Daniel Freeman, one of the first people to file a claim under the Homestead Act of 1862


Several years ago NPR did two stories on the New Homestead Act, a congressional effort to rejuvenate dying rural areas of the Great Plains. Both stories reference the original Homestead Act and the first settlements. They are interesting supplements to Old Jules.


Reviving the Great Plains with Homesteading - David Welna

Weekend Edition Sunday, July 27, 2003 · The 1862 Homestead Act provided 160-acre parcels of land to settlers willing to populate the Western United States. With many original homestead towns dying, two senators have proposed new homestead legislation to revive the Great Plains. NPR's David Welna reports from the Capitol.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1358765

The New Homestead Act - Howard Berkes

Weekend Edition Sunday, July 27, 2003 · New Bill Aims to Repopulate Dying Towns Across the Great Plains

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1342240