Oklahoma Books

Came across this great book in my local Historical society genealogy library. The title intrigued me and I was not disappointed. For the beginner it a a virtual "how to" in tracing your roots. For the seasoned veteran, it contains all sorts of suggestions that I am sure every could use reminders of. Written in the form of letters between the author and one of her family members, it chronicles the steps in researching their family history. Not dry and lifeless as some of this type of book tend to be, it treats the subject with humour and makes the idea of starting your family search sound like fun! I recommend this book for everyone's genealogy library.

This is the comprehensive bible of turkey knowledge. I've relied on it to direct my research for articles on turkeys in the past and it continues to be significant in the research for the turkey section in my next book, How to Raise Poultry, to follow How To Raise Chickens: Everything You Need To Know (How to Raise...).

This is the standard book on the lead and zinc mines of the TriState area, meaning the area where Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma come together. Gibson was a professor at the University of Oklahoma and was originally from the area. I suspect this was his doctoral dissertation, based on the date. It is based both on documents, such as mining reports, and interviews he conducted with miners about 1950.

It has all the factual information about the mines you could ever want. It is so thorough that no one has ever felt the need to go back and redo the overall story of the mines, though there are books about other aspects of the mines, such as the strike of 1935 or the miner's health. Dr. Gibson died about twenty years ago.

When this book was written the mines were still operating, though starting to wind down. Today the U.S. government is still spending millions to clean up this area from the heavy metals left by the milling and smelting process, and the threat to the water left by the underground mining.

Gibson's sympathies are clearly with the miners and the Quapaw Indians whose land the mines are on, but he also viewed the mines as the inevitable progress of the business system in the United States and had great admiration for the skill, strength, and courage of the miners and mining engineers.

I have read several of Dr. Gibson's other books as well, and he writes very well, but readers should be aware that he is not that interested in amusing stories about the miner and the mule and such, or really in individual stories. He is more interested in systems and institutions, so if you want a book of funny stories about miners getting drunk and falling into mines, this is not the book for you.

This book will leave you in awe of how hard people worked to make a basic living as recently as the 1950s.

This is a wonderful book about Will Rogers from his wife's perspective. I feel I got to know more about Betty Blake Rogers, as well as getting more insight into her husband's character. It was quite interesting to get the family's view of life with Will. This book is a wonderful addition to my library of Will Rogers books, rounding out the public image from the other books, with a private viewpoint in this book.

Stumbled across this after reading many others about the people, period, and place which is why I was surprised at how lucid and interesting this book is. The author has worked beyond the obvious where most stop, done extensive and broad research, looked for historical context and setting, and surpassed most. Landon Jones's more recent biography on William Clark is similarly refreshing and riveting, if you enjoyed one you'll enjoy the other and be surprised at the differences. Shirley Christian's recent book on the Choteau fur trading dynasty, partners and pests of Clark's, "Before Lewis & Clark" is another one to seek out if you enjoyed this one.

"The Winds of Change on Croton Creek" is the warmest, most personal sort of recollection. It's a cherished memory more than nostalgia. It's generously intimate scrapbook, and a quilt work of personalities that tell the true life story of a girl born in 1917 in Roger Mills County, Oklahoma. These Oklahoma winds sweep up her family and carry them through some of the most interesting times in American history.

The story is so well written that it is almost impossible NOT to read the entire book in one setting. There is so much information in this story that there's something to rediscover in every reading. Clara King Davis' lush voice and journalistic narrative binds the vignettes of family life from the beginning on board the Mayflower to the present day.

It's easy to feel the warmth of a craftsman's gentle hand in these stories. It's all here - Oklahoma's rough and rowdy cowboy past, farm living, two world wars, politics, the Great Depression, the red scare, bumper crops, tornadoes, and the hardest of times, the Dust Bowl. This story is fresh because there is so much more than that here. This is the story of a family that joins together, survives and then overcomes even the harshest adversity.

That family continues to flourish in Oklahoma. In the forward, page xv, is a picture of two little girls on horseback. My grandmother is on the gray horse. Her cousin, and author of this book, Clara King Davis, is on the dark thoroughbred. The story of their adventures on horseback continues on page 124.

This book is a lot of fun to read. It is rare, but it is worth picking up a copy. You'll be glad you did.

I loved this book! Anyone that enjoys Jean Shepherd or Erma Bombeck should really enjoy this humorous look at raising a family in the 60's. This book kept me laughing from start to finish!

Wolf That I Am is both a lyrical account of a white mans struggle to understand American Indian culture and an intense personal journey of self-discovery and wisdom. The book recounts Fred McTaggart's experiences among the Fox tribe--Sac and Fox as they are commonly known--of Iowa in his attempt to collect and record folklore for his dissertation.

During this process, McTaggart slowly comes to the realization that Indian communities, due to a long history of all manner of abuse, are not always eager to become the object of academic study, regardless of the "good" intentions involved. Wolf That I Am should be standard reading for anyone planning research in American Indian communities or interested in American Indian studies in general.

Indeed, this book should be required reading for all Americans, many of whom continue to hold to fanciful idealizations, which not only dehumanize and demean the very people they purport to describe, but reinforces the Noble/Savage binary that has defined the relationship between Euro-Americans and Indians, which makes a free exchange of ideas all but impossible. As McTaggart shows, it is only through getting to know people of different cultures in an intimate and involved way that we can ever hope to truly understand and appreciate the great value of human cultural diversity. However, he could not achieve this subjectivity until he opened himself to the realities of American Indian life that is only attainable through a great deal of determination and care, which also allowed him to see the subtle prejudices with which he, and most Americans are raised.

While the path to understanding is often a difficult one, McTaggart demonstrates that such a holistic consciousness, free of heirarcical divisions and value judgement can be achieved if only we are willing to reassess our own beliefs. For as long one promotes in the self a willingness to open one's mind and heart to the sacred ways of others--in a way that grants their beliefs the respect and dignity that we would require for our own--the way to knowledge and wisdom will remain open to us.

If you liked Heckel's book "Marshals of Alexander", you will like this one too. Beth Carney writes good, short biographies of the important women that were around in Alexander's time. I might disagree on deatils with her view e.g. on Roxane, but this is a thorough, serious and especially very readable scholarly study. I have waited two years since its publication before I bought it. I wished I had not.

This is an excellent text for anyone who is interested in women's studies, the Depression Era, Native American Studies, and primary historical research. This book is also for anyone who desires a feeling of connection to the past. The voices captured by the interviews in this book show the reality of life in the early years of Indian Territory and Oklahoma. This book has the unique quality of exposing interviews of pioneering women and the issues they encountered.