Mississippi Books

Author Howard Ball provides us with a detailed analysis of the June 1964 murders of three civil rights workers (James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner) in Philadelphia, Mississippi. The author effectively sets the scene for what the volunteer workers can expect as they prepare to travel to Mississippi to register blacks to vote. Most Mississippians view them as interlopers who have no business upsetting their way of life. Michael Schwerner was the one the KKK targeted for elimination. The other two individuals just happened to be with him when the crime was committed. The racist judge meted out only perfunctory penalities considering the seriousness of the crime. The story is left undone because a mistrial was declared for the one who planned the crime, Edgar Ray "Preacher" Killen, because the one lone holdout was a woman who declared she "could never convict a preacher." In that case she should never have been on the jury in the first place. She has since said she "was sorry to let him go." This is a first rate book, and the author's follow up entitled "Justice in Mississippi" is about the June of 2005 murder conviction of Edgar Ray Killen.

Original version published by Paul Fessler in H-Net Book Review for H-GAGCS listserv

An academic's recommendation of a book as a "good read", however, can often be regarded as suspect by undergraduates and general readers. Perhaps our overexposure to dissertations and monographs have perverted our sense of what constitutes an enjoyable and easy to read book. To counteract such biases and perversions, I asked my wife to read Hauser's book. This book passed my wife's test. If only all books published by academic presses could boast such accessibility.

Originally published in Germany in 1950, My Farm on the Mississippi was clearly written for a non-academic audience. In this brief, very accessible book, Heinrich Hauser, an opponent of the Nazi regime and wartime German refugee, turns his three years from 1945-1948 on a Missouri farm near the German-American community of Wittenberg into an engaging adventure story. This book caught the eye of Curt Poulton, a historical geographer and translator at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, who translated this work into English. Poulton argues that Hauser, as a German living among a German immigrant community in the wake of World War II, offers invaluable commentary upon this 1940s "postimmigrant America" where immigrants' native language and customs were still alive.

In 1939, Hauser, a prolific writer of fiction and non-fiction, escaped from Germany with his Jewish wife and two children. After unsuccessfully trying his hand at farming in upstate New York and then at city life in Chicago, Hauser and his wife yearned for the romantic fresh air of the proverbial American heartland. With no prospects or firm destination, Hauser set off for St. Louis and points southward in an old 1928 Packard in search of his dream farm. South of St. Louis and just north of Cape Girardeau, Hauser and his wife began passing signs to "Stuttgart", "Dresden", "Altenberg", and "Wittenberg". In Cape Girardeau, Hauser spotted a "Dr. Schultz" and paid this German-speaking physician a visit to inquire about the region and the German-sounding places. Working through the German-American subculture, Hauser soon bought a farmstead south of the town of Wittenberg, Missouri on the Mississippi floodplain.

Hauser recounts how his wife Rita and son Huc struggled to make the farm a working proposition for the next three years. Most of the profits, however, were used to provide care packages and other aid to their German friends and relatives back home. During the rest of the time, his family survives horrific floods, raging forest fires, and a comic shipwreck. During the summers, his son Huc devised plans and adventures such as making a boat with an outboard motor in ways reminiscent of a Little Rascals episode. By 1948, however, low crop prices and homesickness convinced the reluctant Hausers to return to Germany and abandon their Missouri farm.

Nevertheless, Hauser offers a useful window into this German-American society on the banks of the Mississippi. As Hauser notes, it is this region's rural isolation that permitted its German culture and language to survive both World War I and World War II and beyond. Hauser knew he was among his own kind when he saw women working the fields---a practice Americans generally avoided. In the local bars, these German-Americans would add salt to modify the sweet American beers like Falstaff and Budweiser. When the war in Europe was over, Hauser's family celebrated with a crowd of itinerant German-American lumber workers playing "schottiches" and singing songs such as "Am Brunnen vor dem Tore" and sea tunes like "In Hamburg da bin ich gewesen". Also particularly interesting (and useful for immigration and ethnicity courses) are Hauser's recollected interactions between these German-Americans and the nearby African-Americans.

Just as Alexis de Toqueville's Democracy in America offers an outsider's critique of early nineteenth-century America, Hauser's observations present a valuable perspective of postwar America, its rural traditions and ethnic relationships. Hauser is an "outsider/insider" within the postwar German-American community. Though an outsider as a recent German refugee, he can speak the language (both linguistically and theologically). This allowed him to enter into the culture and bring a unique perspective to bear upon it.

Because this book was originally written for a German audience unfamiliar with many aspects of American society and culture, Hauser's narrative is particularly instructive to an American audience today. For many undergraduate students in particular, Hauser's emphasis on the basics of everyday American life proves more fascinating to American readers today than when it was originally published. Approaching the daily life of the post-World War II America from the cultural distance of a foreigner is in many ways similar to the approach of today's readers and students separated from that cultural landscape by the passage of fifty years. Thus, Hauser's cultural observations, which may have seemed less interesting to an American reader in the 1950s when the work was first published are met with a much different perspective.

Without Poulton's sparkling translation, however, these observations would have lost much of their power to English readers. Poulton's work arouses comparisons to other recent and notable translations such as W.C. Kuniczak's translation of Heinrich Sienkiewicz's monumental Trilogy beginning with the novel "With Fire and Sword" (popular Polish nationalist fiction written during the late 19th century-a useful assignment for courses dealing with 19th century European nationalism, by the way). Poulton remains faithful to Hauser's intent to provide his readers with an adventure story. So dependent upon narrative flow and colorful description, this value and attraction of this work would have been irreparably harmed by a poor translation.

Readers interested in this approach should also see the superb collection of immigrant letters in News from the Land of Freedom by Kamphoefner, Helbich, and Sommer (Cornell University Press, 1991).

I've enjoyed reading this book to my little boy, now 28 months old, most nights for nearly a year now. The text communicates the ideas about why church and religion are important in words he can understand, and the simple, colorful illustrations give us lots of opportunities to identify the birds, animals, and other objects. (When he's older, I'll be able to talk about the white doves and butterflies as ideas about Christianity.) -- Bill McClain

If you are researching the Upper or Lower Creek Indians or the Chickasaw Indians of the late 1600s to early 1700s, this is a book you simply have to have, so this new edition is heartily welcomed! Thomas Nairne was an Indian Agent devoted to the spread of English culture and goods throughout the southeast. He opposed the Spanish, who had the same goals, and successfully brought many southeastern Indian towns and confederations into South Carolina's field of influence. He was killed at the very beginning of the Yemassee War, in 1715, attempting to diffuse the powder keg of Indian anger at unscrupulous Carolinian traders (which was largely justified), and though it took a while, many of his viewpoints and plans for the Indian trade were eventually adopted by the United States. His map of the southeast, showing locations of Indian towns just after 1700, is, along with this book, one of the most important primary documents of the era. Unfortunately the map is reprinted so small in this edition that none of the detail can be seen.

Considering that some people I know submitted essays in this book, I think everyone should have a copy or two. Someone needs to feed them, starving as they are as professors.

While reading this book one can easily see why Overton Johnson and William Winter's personal narratives of the 1843 Great Migration to the Pacific is heavily cited in Oregon Trail literature. With wonderful descriptions of day to day activities, adventures and people experienced along the trail, there are also superb first-hand accounts of climate, landforms, agricultural and economical possibilities in Oregon and California. The chapter "Instructions to Emigrants" acted as a guide for future overlanders by explaining provisions, modes of transportation, clothing, firearms, character of Indians, etc., including a general estimate of mileage between campsites with available (or not available) wood, grass and water. This is a very readable, enjoyable and historical record of early pioneers traversing the continent. Excellent!

I bought this book before we took a driving trip that took us most of the length of Mississippi. I was able to read most of the book before we went, and read parts of it to my husband when we visited sites that were described and pictured in the book. It really has great information and wonderful color pictures. It has a lot about the several Indian cultures of Mississippi and what is left of them in terms of burial mounds and sites. There are places you can get out of the car and actually walk small parts of the original trace - it can give you the willies thinking about the feet that had passed there before you. There aren't many books devoted to the Natchez Trace, but this one is great. By all means, look at all the material that Amazon provides for this book and search inside it. You will not be disappointed if you like what you see.

Following a series of recommended drives throughout the Middle South from west to east, this compact little book provides an excellent listing of sights (including brief descriptions) that a reasonably intelligent reader might enjoy. I read it with highlighter in hand, marking the sights that appealed to me, an approach I recommend to others.

Mr. White appears to be an active bird-watcher (he apparently has written other books on that subject). Readers who share that interest will find this book particularly interesting, since he highlights the best bird-watching spots along the Gulf Coast.

Native American Legends Of The Great Lakes And The Mississippi Valley is an outstanding collection of legends, tales and myths drawn from the Native American peoples of the Great Lakes area, the Midwest, and the Mississippi River valley. This rich and diverse collection reveals the central beliefs and reflects the guiding principles of Winnebago, Ojibwa, Menominee, and other native tribes, providing the reader with insights into their outlook and aspirations. Native American Legends Of The Great Lakes And The Mississippi Valley is a welcome addition to personal, academic, and community library Native American Studies reading lists and reference collections.

As a Mississippian, I found this book fascinating. It reveals little known facts about native americans of Miss. and the south. For anyone interested in Native Americans or Mississippi history.