In 1936, the Texas centennial was celebrated across the state. In The Frontier Centennial, Jacob Olmstead argues that Fort Worth’s celebration of the centennial represented a unique opportunity to reshape the city’s identity and align itself with a progressive future. Olmstead draws out the Frontier Centennial from its inception as a commemorative fair to theme park enshrining the mythic West to show the various ways centennial planners, boosters, and civic leaders sought to use the celebration as a means to bolster the city’s identity and image as a modern city of the American West.
Olmstead’s retelling of the Frontier Centennial looks at two distinctive processes. The first addresses the interplay of memory, identity, and image in the evolution of the celebration’s commemorative messages. Fort Worth’s image as a progressive western metropolis also impacted other areas, less central, to Frontier Centennial planning. Debates over how outsiders would interpret features of the...
The Great Western Trail (GWT) is a nineteenth-century cattle trail that originated in northern Mexico, ran west parallel to the Chisholm Trail, traversed the United States for some two thousand miles,...
Germans from Russia, Omaha Indians, and Vietnamese in Lincoln, Nebraska
by Kurt E. Kinbacher
Foreword by Timothy R. Mahoney
Price: $39.95
ISBN: 9780896728943
Pub Date: July 2015
Urban Villages and Local Identities examines immigration to the Great Plains by surveying the experiences of three divergent ethnic groups—Volga Germans, Omaha Indians, and Vietnamese—that settled...
On the prairies of North America, wind and water were pervasive, but whereas wind was tangible, water in quantity was hidden beneath the surface. The vast grasslands fed great herds of animals, which...
A Road to America’s Landscape, History, and Culture
by Markku Henriksson
Foreword by Susan A. Miller
Price: $39.95
ISBN: 9780896728257
Pub Date: January 2014
When Markku Henriksson was growing up in Finland, the song “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66” was one of only two he could recognize—in English or Finnish. It was not until 1989 that Henriksson would...
Some historians insist that Texas, with its heritage of slavery, segregation, and historic dependence upon cotton, is southern in character. Another group argues that the state is western, as evidenced by its cowboys, cattle drives, mountains, and desert. Still others brand it unique, having won its independence from Mexico during the Texas Revolution and existing as an independent republic for ten years prior to joining the Union. With its immense land area, its diverse environment, cultures, and colorful history, and its larger-than-life legends, Texas does indeed seem like “a whole other country.” Throughout its existence, the Lone Star State has juggled a complicated assortment of identities. Its multiple characteristics often confuse observers and scholars—to the point that some ignore it altogether. Award-winning historian Glen Sample Ely seeks to set the record straight. Taking a fresh look at what exactly Texas is and what it is not, his groundbreaking work tackles...
Photographs taken along the two-thousand-mile line that divides East from West explore the meanings inherent in the great “empty middle” between our coasts.
The Old West and westering are an American story—even when the story winds up in New York and the hero is only seventeen. Lured by the promise of rich Oregon farmland and intent on his independence from an overbearing father, young George Wend heads west. His journey is interrupted, however, when at the foot of the Bighorn Mountains he encounters Woody, a tired old mountain man who needs help. George promises that help, but his best is not enough. After Woody’s death, George reluctantly forsakes his own dreams and turns back east to bring Woody’s sister not only the gold his elderly friend has saved and hidden away but—more importantly—the stories of Woody’s life. George’s trip is anything but easy, as he must grapple with one difficulty after another. But George, true to his promise to Woody and to himself, is determined to win.
"The target audience for this book is middle and high school students. However, its information will appeals to a far broader audience. . . . .A useful introduction to trail travel and associated incidents."—Journal...
