Pub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.1353/gpq.2023.a908052
Mark Asquith
Abstract: This article offers a reading of Savage's novel that explores the relationship between queerness and the Western. It contextualizes the novel within the shifting social mores of the sixties and shows how the popular character archetype of the "doomed homosexual" aligns with a vision of the "doomed West." It charts how Savage queers familiar Western signifiers—hands (barometers of manliness), the ambivalent symbol of the dog, and a rawhide rope (a symbol of control turned emblem of gay love). The argument is scaffolded by psychoanalytical readings, particularly Jung's concept of the "persona" and the "shadow" as a means of exploring repression and projection; Lacan's mirror stage as a source of confusion between the Ideal and the Horrifying; and Kristeva's work on abjection and visual trauma. It explores the importance of family in the shaping of identity; the despairingly limited role for women on the ranch; and how the masculine model of the cowboy might be inverted and challenged. References to Campion's recent movie of the book are included and offer alternative readings of key scenes.
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Pub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.1353/gpq.2023.a908057
Reviewed by: Borrowing from Our Foremothers: Reexamining the Women's Movement through Material Culture, 1848–2017 by Amy Helene Forss Susan Curtis Borrowing from Our Foremothers: Reexamining the Women's Movement through Material Culture, 1848–2017. By Amy Helene Forss. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2021. ix + 263 pp. Illustrations, photographs, notes, bibliography, index. $60.00 cloth. Employing a combination of artifact study, primary sources, and interviews, Amy Helene Forss contributes to our understanding of the 169 years of women's struggle for suffrage and equal rights. Forss selected thirty artifacts that highlight the diversity of the women involved in the movement and organized them in groups of three per chapter, explaining her symbolic choice to reflect the "ancient symbol of femininity, the triangle," and her examination of the past, present, and future of the movement (8). She further divides the book into three parts. Part 1 explores the history of the women's suffrage movement from its birth to the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Part 2 examines the work of Black and LGBTQ women to affect social change in the twentieth century. Part 3 highlights women's involvement in the legal sphere and the visual arts. In this section, Forss also considers an alternate viewpoint to the women's movement by including the work done by Phyllis Schlafly that effectively stopped the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment in 1982. Using material culture as a lens to broaden our understanding of this history, Forss provides a glimpse into the lived experiences of the diverse groups associated with these artifacts and their contributions to the women's movement. Unfortunately, all the artifacts' images are printed in black and white and grouped in the book's middle. Printing the images in col-or on heavier paper and moving them to their respective chapters would have given them the authority they deserve and encouraged a more intimate interaction between artifact and viewer. The power of the iconic baby blue T-shirts of the 1977 National Women's Conference torchbearers and the rich rosewood and smooth ivory components of Susan B. Anthony's 1888 gavel are lost in the black and white images. The appendix offers a convenient compilation of textual material important to the women's movement, including speeches given by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth, and Phyllis Schlafly. Forss also includes a listing of "foremothers" that will help readers put into context some of the lesser-known women discussed. With the exception of the pussyhats worn in the 2017 nationwide Women's March, none of the artifacts have a direct link to the Great Plains. However, the concise standalone chapters will appeal to readers who are interested in adding to their knowledge of the women's movement through the context of the artifacts that were created or used by the women involved in its history. Susan Curtis Department of Apparel, Merchandising, Interior Design,
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Pub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.1353/gpq.2023.a908050
Conrad Rudolph, Jason Weems
Abstract: This article establishes more clearly the character of a significant but not yet fully explained phenomenon of one of the most iconic episodes in American history. From 1839 to 1869, approximately 400,000 Euro-Americans made the overland passage from the Missouri River to the Pacific Coast, leaving behind hundreds of thousands of signatures inscribed onto the immense rock formations that were often used as landmarks along the way—the signature rocks—one rock alone being said in 1860 to have 40,000 to 50,000 signatures. This study identifies the various cultural dynamics of self-assertion motivating this mass signing, including a sense of trespassing, participation in a great historical movement, "vainglory," and, for the vast majority, the dynamic of tourism (traditional "curiosity" but also Romantic ideas of landscape and the sublime). Native American petroglyphs appear to have been respected within the context of emigrant signing practices, an attitude in keeping with "trespassers" claiming passage but not land. It was largely only with the first generation of settlers, those who did claim the land, that intentional dominance appears to have become a distinct factor in overwriting petroglyphs.
{"title":"Signing Dynamics of the Signature Rocks","authors":"Conrad Rudolph, Jason Weems","doi":"10.1353/gpq.2023.a908050","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gpq.2023.a908050","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: This article establishes more clearly the character of a significant but not yet fully explained phenomenon of one of the most iconic episodes in American history. From 1839 to 1869, approximately 400,000 Euro-Americans made the overland passage from the Missouri River to the Pacific Coast, leaving behind hundreds of thousands of signatures inscribed onto the immense rock formations that were often used as landmarks along the way—the signature rocks—one rock alone being said in 1860 to have 40,000 to 50,000 signatures. This study identifies the various cultural dynamics of self-assertion motivating this mass signing, including a sense of trespassing, participation in a great historical movement, \"vainglory,\" and, for the vast majority, the dynamic of tourism (traditional \"curiosity\" but also Romantic ideas of landscape and the sublime). Native American petroglyphs appear to have been respected within the context of emigrant signing practices, an attitude in keeping with \"trespassers\" claiming passage but not land. It was largely only with the first generation of settlers, those who did claim the land, that intentional dominance appears to have become a distinct factor in overwriting petroglyphs.","PeriodicalId":12757,"journal":{"name":"Great Plains Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135532890","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.1353/gpq.2023.a908058
Reviewed by: Years of Rage: White Supremacy in the United States from the Klan to the Alt-Right by D. J. Mulloy Elizabeth Theiss-Morse Years of Rage: White Supremacy in the United States from the Klan to the Alt-Right. By D. J. Mulloy. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2021. ix + 253 pp. Notes on sources, index. $35.00 cloth. White supremacy is not just hateful speech, it is also hateful actions. Simply look at the recent murders of nine people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 2015, one person [End Page 249] at the "Unite the Right" rally in 2017, and eleven people at the Tree of Life synagogue in 2018. The bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 killed 168 people, including nineteen children. There is no region of the United States that is immune from white supremacist activities, including the Great Plains. Why have we not moved past such racial and religious hatred? D. J. Mulloy helps us understand what is going on in the US today by tracing the ideas, people, and organizations promoting white supremacy, from the rise of the second Ku Klux Klan in 1915 to the rise of the alt-right in the 2010s. What society will put up with at any given time—the context within which white supremacy exists—changes. Across the past one hundred years, white supremacists have adapted to these changing political and social contexts, and there is little evidence to suggest they will be going away any time soon. White supremacists are not, now or one hundred years ago, a unified, cohesive group marching lockstep as they try to create a white nation. White supremacist beliefs—including the genetic inferiority of people of color, the superiority of European whites, and the role of religion—are contested even among white supremacists. Preferred strategies are contested as well. Mulloy discusses three strategies used in recent times, although they have been used across US history. One strategy is to use violence to bring attention to the goals of white supremacists in the hopes of starting a race war. A second strategy is to withdraw from society by creating separatist enclaves, and these militias and survivalists allow white supremacists to pursue their goals away from the public eye. The third approach that emerged from an emergency meeting convened in 1992 by Pastor Pete Peters, a native Nebraskan, in Estes Park, Colorado, was the mainstreaming of white supremacy views. While explicit racism and anti-Semitism were commonplace in American society in 1915, by the late 1900s the flagrant expression of white supremacist beliefs was no longer socially acceptable. Rather than being explicitly racist, white supremacists could gain traction in mainstream America by focusing on gun rights, religious freedom, and opposition to "government tyranny." The most recent era, the 2010s, highlights this third strategy and the rise of the alt-right. Mulloy is careful not to equate the alt-right with the Republican Party, and he points out that not a
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Pub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.1353/gpq.2023.a908053
Ashley C. Adams, Alec C. Edges
Abstract: The hidden histories of Black towns from post-Reconstruction, namely Nicodemus, Kansas, and Colonel Allensworth, California, can provide public awareness of the black experience. In this article, we draw upon previous research by the authors to further emphasize and compare designation outcomes related to representation, equity-based preservation planning, and maintenance backlogs issues. Key partners from both sites were interviewed and central preservation planning documents were analyzed. Key findings emphasized limited opportunities for community involvement, and historic structures preservation and maintenance work. Additionally, some action has been taken by the National Park Service and California State Parks to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion. Despite these efforts, there are still alarming indicators of systematic underrepresentation within both systems. Recommendations and best practices include increasing racial equity and diversity training, evaluating diversity hiring practices and public memory awareness, practicing inclusive partnership planning, redesigning maintenance backlog funding systems, engaging economic revitalization, practicing inclusive and digitally enhanced programming, and expanding virtual presence. Consideration of this study's recommendations could provide meaningful preservation change for the Nicodemus National Historic Site, Allensworth State Historic Park, and other similar African American historical locations.
{"title":"Historic Designation Planning for the Nicodemus National Historic Site and Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park: A Cross-Case Analysis of Representation in Public Memory, Equity-Based Preservation Planning, and Maintenance Backlogs","authors":"Ashley C. Adams, Alec C. Edges","doi":"10.1353/gpq.2023.a908053","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gpq.2023.a908053","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: The hidden histories of Black towns from post-Reconstruction, namely Nicodemus, Kansas, and Colonel Allensworth, California, can provide public awareness of the black experience. In this article, we draw upon previous research by the authors to further emphasize and compare designation outcomes related to representation, equity-based preservation planning, and maintenance backlogs issues. Key partners from both sites were interviewed and central preservation planning documents were analyzed. Key findings emphasized limited opportunities for community involvement, and historic structures preservation and maintenance work. Additionally, some action has been taken by the National Park Service and California State Parks to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion. Despite these efforts, there are still alarming indicators of systematic underrepresentation within both systems. Recommendations and best practices include increasing racial equity and diversity training, evaluating diversity hiring practices and public memory awareness, practicing inclusive partnership planning, redesigning maintenance backlog funding systems, engaging economic revitalization, practicing inclusive and digitally enhanced programming, and expanding virtual presence. Consideration of this study's recommendations could provide meaningful preservation change for the Nicodemus National Historic Site, Allensworth State Historic Park, and other similar African American historical locations.","PeriodicalId":12757,"journal":{"name":"Great Plains Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135533125","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
editing. Jenkinson is unclear about whether Roosevelt and Hornaday were true friends or just professional acquaintances, for example. There are also virtually no historical women in the entire book. Inconsistencies and omissions aside, Theodore Roosevelt: Naturalist in the Arena is a welcome addition to the Roosevelt historiography. Its interdisciplinary approach allows for diverse topics and points of view, grounded by their shared connection to the natural world and Roosevelt’s place within it.
{"title":"Inventing Custer: The Making of an American Legend by Edward Caudill and Paul Ashdown (review)","authors":"James E. Mueller","doi":"10.1353/gpq.2022.0027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gpq.2022.0027","url":null,"abstract":"editing. Jenkinson is unclear about whether Roosevelt and Hornaday were true friends or just professional acquaintances, for example. There are also virtually no historical women in the entire book. Inconsistencies and omissions aside, Theodore Roosevelt: Naturalist in the Arena is a welcome addition to the Roosevelt historiography. Its interdisciplinary approach allows for diverse topics and points of view, grounded by their shared connection to the natural world and Roosevelt’s place within it.","PeriodicalId":12757,"journal":{"name":"Great Plains Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44548171","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1353/gpq.2023.a897854
D. Titterington
have been helpful to have more context, maybe a few footnotes explaining key events and key people. I’m left to wonder what a reader who is not familiar with this topic will get out of this book. It serves especially fellow scholars interested in the Ghost Dance or Wounded Knee and, importantly, Lakota communities that still struggle with this difficult past. The main contribution of “All Guns Fired at One Time” is that it introduces these firsthand Lakota accounts to a new generation of readers.
{"title":"Making History: The IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts ed. by Nancy Marie Mithlo (review)","authors":"D. Titterington","doi":"10.1353/gpq.2023.a897854","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gpq.2023.a897854","url":null,"abstract":"have been helpful to have more context, maybe a few footnotes explaining key events and key people. I’m left to wonder what a reader who is not familiar with this topic will get out of this book. It serves especially fellow scholars interested in the Ghost Dance or Wounded Knee and, importantly, Lakota communities that still struggle with this difficult past. The main contribution of “All Guns Fired at One Time” is that it introduces these firsthand Lakota accounts to a new generation of readers.","PeriodicalId":12757,"journal":{"name":"Great Plains Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45440212","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1353/gpq.2023.a897849
R. Raines
Abstract:Locust outbreaks have occurred around the world throughout history. But they did not pose a serious problem in the United States until the explosion of westward settlement in the aftermath of the Civil War. An insect known as the Rocky Mountain locust, which became migratory when under environmental stress, was the culprit. Earlier outbreaks had created problems for farmers in the Great Plains, but the massive infestation in the mid-1870s caused extensive damage and threatened to halt the nation's expansion to the Pacific. An unlikely ally in the fight against the locusts came in the form of the network of weather observers belonging to the US Army Signal Corps. In conjunction with its mission for providing military communications, the Signal Corps became responsible for establishing and operating the US weather bureau from 1870 to 1891. Its national network of weather stations was well suited for providing reports on the locust outbreaks. Working with the commission of professional scientists formed to study the problem and find solutions, the Signal Corps' observers contributed vital information to support that effort. The partnership between the commission and the army represented an early attempt by the federal government to use applied science to tackle a national problem. Ultimately, the farmers themselves brought about the demise of the Rocky Mountain locust. By cultivating the locust's breeding grounds in the river valleys and using the land for grazing, the farmers drove the Rocky Mountain locust to extinction.
{"title":"Storms and Swarms: The Role of the US Army Signal Corps' Weather Observers during the Rocky Mountain Locust Plague of the 1870s","authors":"R. Raines","doi":"10.1353/gpq.2023.a897849","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gpq.2023.a897849","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Locust outbreaks have occurred around the world throughout history. But they did not pose a serious problem in the United States until the explosion of westward settlement in the aftermath of the Civil War. An insect known as the Rocky Mountain locust, which became migratory when under environmental stress, was the culprit. Earlier outbreaks had created problems for farmers in the Great Plains, but the massive infestation in the mid-1870s caused extensive damage and threatened to halt the nation's expansion to the Pacific. An unlikely ally in the fight against the locusts came in the form of the network of weather observers belonging to the US Army Signal Corps. In conjunction with its mission for providing military communications, the Signal Corps became responsible for establishing and operating the US weather bureau from 1870 to 1891. Its national network of weather stations was well suited for providing reports on the locust outbreaks. Working with the commission of professional scientists formed to study the problem and find solutions, the Signal Corps' observers contributed vital information to support that effort. The partnership between the commission and the army represented an early attempt by the federal government to use applied science to tackle a national problem. Ultimately, the farmers themselves brought about the demise of the Rocky Mountain locust. By cultivating the locust's breeding grounds in the river valleys and using the land for grazing, the farmers drove the Rocky Mountain locust to extinction.","PeriodicalId":12757,"journal":{"name":"Great Plains Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42495373","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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