Phantoms of the Prairie

Phantoms of the Prairie PDF Author: John W. Laundré
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres
ISBN: 029928753X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
Last seen in the 1880s, cougars (also known as pumas or mountain lions) are making a return to the plains regions of the Midwest. Their comeback, heralded by wildlife enthusiasts, has brought concern and questions to many. Will the people of the region make room for cougars? Can they survive the highly altered landscape of the Midwest? Is there a future for these intrepid pioneers if they head even farther east? Using GIS technology, and historical data, among many other methods, Phantoms of the Prairie takes readers on a virtual journey, showing how the cougar might move over the landscape with minimal human contact. Drawing on his years of research on cougars, John W. Laundré offers an overview of what has been, what is, and what might be regarding the return of cougars to their ancestral prairie homeland.

Midwest Maize

Midwest Maize PDF Author: Cynthia Clampitt
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252096878
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Food historian Cynthia Clampitt pens the epic story of what happened when Mesoamerican farmers bred a nondescript grass into a staff of life so prolific, so protean, that it represents nothing less than one of humankind's greatest achievements. Blending history with expert reportage, she traces the disparate threads that have woven corn into the fabric of our diet, politics, economy, science, and cuisine. At the same time she explores its future as a source of energy and the foundation of seemingly limitless green technologies. The result is a bourbon-to-biofuels portrait of the astonishing plant that sustains the world.

The American Midwest

The American Midwest PDF Author: Andrew R. L. Cayton
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253112095
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
The American MidwestEssays on Regional History Edited by Andrew R. L. Cayton and Susan E. Gray Is there a Midwest regional identity? Read this lively exploration of the Midwestern identity crisis and find out. "Many would say that ordinariness is the Midwest's 'historic burden.' A writer living in Dayton, Ohio recently suggested that dullness is a Midwestern trait. The Midwest lacks grand scenery: 'Just cornfields, silos, prairies, and the occasional hill. Dull.' He tries to put a nice face on Midwestern dullness by saying that Midwesterners '[l]ike Shaker furniture... are plain in the best sense: unadorned.' Others have found Midwestern ordinariness stultifying. Neil LaBute, who makes films about mean and nasty people, said he was negative because he came from Indiana: 'We're brutally honest in Indiana. We realize we're in the middle of nowhere, and we're very sore about it.'" -- from Chapter Five, "Barbecued Kentuckians and Six-Foot Texas Rangers," by Nicole Etcheson. In a series of often highly personal essays, the authors of The American Midwest -- all of whom are experts on various aspects of Midwestern history -- consider the question of regional identity as a useful way of thinking about the history of the American Midwest. They begin with the assumption that Midwesterners have never been as consciously regional as Western or Southern Americans. They note the peculiar absence of the Midwest from the recent revival of interest in American regionalism among both scholars and journalists. These lively and well-written chapters draw on personal experiences as well as a wide variety of scholarship. This book will stimulate readers into thinking more concretely about what it has meant to be from the Midwest -- and why Midwesterners have traditionally been less assertive about their regional identity than other Americans. It suggests that the best place to find Midwesternness is in the stories the residents of the region have told about themselves and each other. Being Midwestern is mostly a state of mind. It is always fluid, always contested, always being renegotiated. Even the most frequent objection to the existence of Midwestern identity, the fact that no one can agree on its borders, is part of a larger regional conversation about the ways in which Midwesterners imagine themselves and their relationships with other Americans. Andrew R. L. Cayton, Distinguished Professor of History at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, is author of numerous books and articles dealing with the history of the Midwest, including Frontier Indiana (Indiana University Press) and (with Peter S. Onuf) The Midwest and the Nation. Susan E. Gray, Associate Professor of History at Arizona State University, is author of Yankee West: Community Life on the Michigan Frontier as well as numerous articles about Midwest history. Midwestern History and CultureJames H. Madison and Andrew R. L. Cayton, editors July 2001256 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4, index, append.cloth 0-253-33941-3 $35.00 s / £26.50 Contents The Story of the Midwest: An Introduction Seeing the Midwest with Peripheral Vision: Identities, Narratives, and Region Liberating Contrivances: Narrative and Identity in Ohio Valley Histories Pigs in Space, or What Shapes American Regional Cultures? Barbecued Kentuckians and Six-Foot Texas Rangers: The Construction of Midwestern Identity Pi-ing the Type: Jane Grey Swisshelm and the Contest of Midwestern Regionality "The Great Body of the Republic": Abraham Lincoln and the Idea of a Middle West Stories Written in the Blood: Race, Identity, and the Middle West The Anti-region: Place and Identity in the History of the American Middle West Midwestern Distinctiveness Middleness and the Middle West

Dance in a Buffalo Skull

Dance in a Buffalo Skull PDF Author: Zitkala-S̈a
Publisher: South Dakota State Historical Society
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 48

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Book Description
A prowling wildcat finds a surprise in an old dried-up buffalo skull. A group of mice are dancing the night away and not paying attention to the dangers around them. Does the wildcat spell doom for the mice, or will they escape to safety? Dance in a Buffalo Skull is an American Indain tale of danger and survival on the Great Plains.

Small-town Boy, Small-town Girl

Small-town Boy, Small-town Girl PDF Author: Eric B. Fowler
Publisher: SDSHS Press
ISBN: 0979894077
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
Milbank and Mitchell, dissimilar in size and separated by more than two hundred miles, have more in common than might appear at first glance. In the first half of the twentieth century towns such as Milbank and Mitchell formed hubs for commerce, social activities, and culture. Eric Fowler and Sheila Delaney looked at their communities from different viewpoints, but their childhood and young adult memories of South Dakota share common themes.

New Stories from the Midwest

New Stories from the Midwest PDF Author: Jason L. Brown
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253008182
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
New Stories from the Midwest presents a collection of stories that celebrate an American region too often ignored in discussions about distinctive regional literature. The editors solicited nominations from more than 300 magazines, literary journals, and small presses and narrowed the selection to 19 authors. The stories, written by Midwestern writers or focusing on the Midwest, demonstrate that the quality of fiction from and about the heart of the country rivals that of any other region. Guest editor John McNally introduces the anthology, which features short fiction by Charles Baxter, Dan Chaon, Christopher Mohar, Rebecca Makkai, Lee Martin, and others.

The Prairie People

The Prairie People PDF Author: James A. Clifton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 566

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Book Description
In addition to reprinting the full text of Clifton's extraordinary ethnohistory, this expanded edition features a new essay offering a narrative of his continuing professional and personal encounters, since 1962, with this enduring native community. -- ‡c From back cover.

Prairie Day

Prairie Day PDF Author: Laura Ingalls Wilder
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0064435040
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 34

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Book Description
Join Laura and her family on their journey across the flat Kansas prairie. There are gophers and rabbits to play with in the daytime, and a cozy camp awaits at night. Renée Graef's enchanting full-color illustrations, inspired by Garth Williams' classic artwork, bring Laura and her family lovingly to life in this ninth title in the My First Little House Books series, picture books adapted from Laura Ingalls Wilder's beloved storybooks.

Dictionary of Midwestern Literature, Volume 1

Dictionary of Midwestern Literature, Volume 1 PDF Author: Philip A. Greasley
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253108418
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 980

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Book Description
The Dictionary of Midwestern Literature, Volume One, surveys the lives and writings of nearly 400 Midwestern authors and identifies some of the most important criticism of their writings. The Dictionary is based on the belief that the literature of any region simultaneously captures the experience and influences the worldview of its people, reflecting as well as shaping the evolving sense of individual and collective identity, meaning, and values. Volume One presents individual lives and literary orientations and offers a broad survey of the Midwestern experience as expressed by its many diverse peoples over time.Philip A. Greasley's introduction fills in background information and describes the philosophy, focus, methodology, content, and layout of entries, as well as criteria for their inclusion. An extended lead-essay, "The Origins and Development of the Literature of the Midwest," by David D. Anderson, provides a historical, cultural, and literary context in which the lives and writings of individual authors can be considered.This volume is the first of an ambitious three-volume series sponsored by the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature and created by its members. Volume Two will provide similar coverage of non-author entries, such as sites, centers, movements, influences, themes, and genres. Volume Three will be a literary history of the Midwest. One goal of the series is to build understanding of the nature, importance, and influence of Midwestern writers and literature. Another is to provide information on writers from the early years of the Midwestern experience, as well as those now emerging, who are typically absent from existing reference works.

Early Midwestern Travel Narratives

Early Midwestern Travel Narratives PDF Author: Robert Rogers Hubach
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
ISBN: 9780814328095
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
First published in 1961, Early Midwestern Travel Narratives records and describes first-person records of journeys in the frontier and early settlement periods which survive in both manuscript and print. Geographically, it deals with the states once part of the Old Northwest Territory-Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota-and with Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska. Robert Hubach arranged the narratives in chronological order and makes the distinction among diaries (private records, with contemporaneously dated entries), journals (non-private records with contemporaneously dated entries), and "accounts," which are of more literary, descriptive nature. Early Midwestern Travel Narratives remains to this day a unique comprehensive work that fills a long existing need for a bibliography, summary, and interpretation of these early Midwestern travel narratives.