Iowa Books

My father was born in Northwestern Minnesota in 1922. He obtained this book and spent hours reading and re-reading the stories. For those who enjoy stories of mid 20th century farm life, I cannot recommend this book highly enough!

I live in Oh and bought the book in OH. I have not figured out how to tell which state the book is for. I can tell you that everything matches with what I know. It is excellent! It includes lots of good practical information. I grow Blueberry, Red and Black Raspberries plus the garden vegtable and fruit plants.

This welcome collection brings together research by anthropologists, historians, and indigenouos scholars who offer a comprehensive overview of the social and political dynamics of contemporary Ecuador. Contributors document practices of Andean, Amazonian, and Afro-Ecuadorian peoples as they struggle to address pressing issues in their personal lives. Whitten puts papers in context by providing a preface, a thorough introduction, and an epilogue updating the Ecuadorian political situation to 2003. The editor also provides a glossary and a useful appendix containing background information on Ecuador. Chapters by Rachel Corr, William T. Vickers, Michael A. Uzendoski, and Diego Quiroga are outstanding. Recommended. Stephen D. Glazier, University of Nebraska

Peter Rosendahl captured the feelings of struggles and efforts by first generation immigrants eeking out a living on farms in Minnesota. His cartoons which were printed in 3 consecutive Norwegian language newpapers of more than 500 comic strips is in fact the longest continuously run comic strip in this country. Rosendahl ended his life by his own hand shortly before the US got involved in WWII, when his children and their peers no longer embraced his home culture and language of Norway and when it was illegal to gather to promote bi-partisan discussions of the fate of the USA. He questioned the two party disputes and wanted people to get along. His cartoons reflect the idiocy of conflict and they make you laugh outloud!

Winner of the 2006 Barnard Hewitt Award for Excellence in Theatre History, The Most American Thing in America: Circuit Chautauqua as Performance by Charlotte M. Canning (professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance, University of Texas, Austin) is part history, part evaluation of the Circuit Chautauquas, the iterant branch of an adult education movement created to spread culture and entertainment across America, particularly isolated rural areas. The Chautauquas flourished, despite some conflicts - their African-American members were in danger when they toured areas rife with KKK members and sympathizers - filling a much-needed role until the Great Depression, when the rise of radio and movies eclipsed them. Their performances included lectures, music, occasional political debate, and much more. Theatre historians have long neglected the Circuit Chautauquas because they didn't quite fit the mold of established theatre; Canning seeks to remedy this omission through an in-depth history examining not only the Circuit Chautauquas as performers, but also as facilitators of American community and democracy. Highly recommended.

This anthology is an excellent selection of sports poems, somewhere around 140 or so. The table of contents is alphabetic by poet's name and there is an index arranged by sport. There are poems about the big sports, baseball, football, boxing. Also poems on running, surfing, race car driving, hunting, fishing. One poem each on rodeo, skiing, wrestling, scuba diving. Even a poem on bowling.

There's a long (more than 3 page) poem by B.H. Fairchild about baseball called "Body and Soul" which I loved and I'm not much of a baseball fan. It's a rich and complex narrative, tells a story I can sit and read over and over again. There's a football poem by Adrian Louis, "At the House of Ghosts" that's about a man looking back on his football days 20 years past. I liked this one even though I've never watched a football game in my life.

There's much to like here even with the sports you may not be a fan of or be familiar with, because the editor has chosen the poems well. They range from poems that get into the specifics of an activity like weight lifting or running, to poems that take a step back and look at the place of a sport in our culture or just tell a good story.

"`Piper' was to become synonymous with an industry that was just aborning. Piper history in a large sense would be the history of the so-called `light plane' manufacture, not only in the United States but around the world."(6-7) In 1937, William T. Piper "who was to earn the sobriquet, `the Henry Ford of aviation'" with his Cubs seemed on the threshold of bringing the Winged Gospel's dream to reality.

The Cub was the inspiration of Bill Piper and Gilbert C. Taylor. It was simple to manufacture. Few skilled workers or precision tools were required moderating the cost of production. With its high wing, semi-cantilever, two place tandem cockpit, its appearance seemed ordinary for 1930, but looks were deceiving. It had a "sturdy steel framework, ...[and] tubular steel struts, not flexible cables like the Aeronca, to supplement the anchorages of the wings to the fuselage. Wing spars were made of Oregon spruce. To absorb landing impacts, rubber `shock cord' served as springs. It was cheap but it worked."(24)

The Continental Motors A-40, a four cylinder, horizontally opposed engine rated at 40 hp, powered the prototype for licensing and initial production. The later J 3 sported such improvements as more power, upholstered seats, basic instruments, brakes and a tail wheel, and, its now trademark, yellow color.

A fire set Piper back when his Bradford, Pennsylvania plant burned on St. Patrick's day in 1937. Insurance only covered five percent of the $200,000 loss. This was only one of the many setbacks in his long struggle to develop and market an affordable airplane.

When war clouds loomed on the horizon, Roosevelt commanded the Civil Aeronautics Authority to train pilots in what became known as the Civilian Pilot Training program. "Three of each four airplanes used were Cubs."(72) It was therefore not an unreasonable assumption for Piper to wholeheartedly embrace the prospects for the future of general aviation and he "led the optimists in forecasting a boom in the postwar years,"(120) But he debunked the hopes of "unredeemed dreamers. `Visions of an airplane in most garages,' he warned in February 1954, `are unfounded. But light planes will be big business.'"(121)

For the first eighteen months following the cessation of hostilities and with returning war veterans, Piper's optimism seemed justified. A record number of planes were being built and production seemed incapable of satisfying demand. That rosy outlook changed almost overnight, when with incomprehensible suddenness in early 1947, the aircraft market collapsed.

There were many causes, but "the stark single biggest reason, on which all else impinged, was that the product had not changed in sixteen years. The fabric-skinned light planes coming out the factory doors were, essentially, fair weather machines suited only for around-the-airport flying."(135) Piper's stock collapsed and the company joined the industry in a nose dive. Many manufacturers would never recover, but Piper survived by reorienting its business plan.

"It forced a soul searching, a reassessment. If the age of the wings-for-everyone that the manufacturers had been trumpeting did not exist, then where lay the markets for their products? Indeed, was there a market at all? If the lightplane was to fill a niche in the spectrum of transportation, it would have to undergo major change. It would have to be fast. It must have range. It would have to offer the buyer an alternative to [the] commercial airliner. It would have to take off with a reasonable assurance of getting where it was going, the weather almost notwithstanding. It could not carry Mickey Mouse instrumentation."(162)

The market demanded a light plane more versatile than the industry had previously provided but it was not to be for a mass market. It would be an aircraft more costly to produce, therefore restricting its usefulness to a small number of more affluent consumers. High costs and limited demand, the two pronged nemesis of the Winged Gospel, derailed Piper's dream of ubiquitous personal air transportation in the post war era as it had done in the 1930s.

Even as the dream of personal air transportation for everyone was elusive, perhaps no one articulated the idea of an affordable airplane better than William T. Piper.

Now in a fully revised second edition, Mushrooms and Other Fungi of the Midcontinental United States is a full-color field guide to wild mushrooms and fungi found in the midcontinental region of Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, Missouri, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. Each of 248 species is illustrated with an excellent color photograph (which almost always shows both the tops and the undersides of sample fungi), and its cap, gills, stalk, and annulus are all described in meticulous detail, along with information with regard to where each species is most likely to be seen, and its edible or toxic characteristics. An additional section devoted to commonly encountered slime molds rounds out this superb reference, written by emeritus professor of biology Donald Huffman. Useful to professional biologists and amateur nature lovers alike, Mushrooms and Other Fungi of the Midcontinental United States is a first-rate, enthusiastically recommended resource.

This is one of the best tree identification books I have ever seen. Excellent pictures of foliage, form, leaves and branch structure.
Very informative and even though it was published in 1990, it's still relevant.

It would be hard to improve on this work. The reader will enjoy Rothgebs in-depth account of his war time experiences in the states and overseas. Student pilots should enjoy his lighter moments in pilot training flying taildraggers. His meeting in theater with notables including Lindbergh, and ace Richard Bong is also detailed. Thanks to Lindbergh pilots learned to lean their fuel mixture to extend their range and total flying time. Combat flying the P38, P47, and then a C47 "Gooney Bird" one learns how versatile and just plain gutsy these pilots are. Rothgeb was truly "a man amongst men". We owe them all a great debt.