Missouri Books

Joel P. Rhodes (Associate Professor of History, Southeast Missouri State University) presents A Missouri Railroad Pioneer: The Life of Louis Houck, an extensively researched biography of business entrepreneur and self-taught railroader Louis Houck, who not only built an enterprise, but also brought art, culture, and formal education to all social classes. Though A Missouri Railroad Pioneer is at its heart an engaging glimpse into the life of a turn-of-the-century tycoon, railroad enthusiasts are sure to enjoy the insights into the evolution of America's railroad system. Written in plain terms for lay readers and historians alike, A Missouri Railroad Pioneer is a welcome addition to biography shelves.

I'm biased because I love this river, so I want students to learn about its history. This book discusses Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery trek along the Missouri in the early 1800s. Maps, historical photographs, reenactment photos, and current photographs enable the student to picture the time.

I have had the wonderful opportunity to have and use this cookbook since I was a child. There are some wonderful recipes, some dating back many years. This receipe collection is representative of the many Missouri Counties and covers many topics. Try the pickled peaches and the pepper relish, they were my grandmothers recipes and are truly wonderful. The buttermilk pancakes are the best along with many other wonderful favorites. There are even recipes from my great grandmother and great-great aunts! Cooks, chefs and homemakers all over the state have contributed their favorites. The author, a dear Aunt, is always remembered for her zest and love of home cooking. It's the best!

Book Review:

Missouri Shadows: a journey through the lesser known, the famous,
and the infamous, haunts of Missouri

Regular Haunted Times contributor Dan Terry has outdone himself with his second ghost book, which features Missouri hauntings statewide. This volume has 202 pages.

As the subtitle of the book suggests, a reader from anywhere in the nation will not be disappointed. It covers places and people that everyone has heard of, and more than likely knows something about. The author covers a different county or city in 18 of the 20 chapters of the book. Each one commences with a succinct history. The chapter on Hannibal, for instance, begins by noting two famous residents the town has had. Maggie Toben was born there, the woman who later became known as Molly Brown and survived the sinking of the Titanic. Samuel Clemens grew up there, and later became known as Mark Twain. Terry goes on to report on some of the haunted places of the town, including a summer house turned bed and breakfast where cigar smoke from the past can still be smelled in the room where Mark Twain stayed.

Other nationally-known topics in the book are St. Louis, General William S. Harney, General Nathaniel Lyon, and the 1861 Battle of Oak Hills, or Wilson's Creek. Along the way, the reader will be introduced to many other colorful places and people across this centrally-located state. Many of these people, though officially pronounced dead and buried, seem to not yet have an agreeable frame of mind for leaving their earthly abode.

- James Tate

One might think that a book on this topic could be dry. One would be wrong. This book is a fascinating read from cover to cover. In fact, it is best read with two book marks. So that you can read the reference notes as you go along. With dry wit the author clearly explains many topics.The racist roots of gun control, what are & are not considered weapons, topics of self defense, physical & emotional reactions involved. Every topic discussed is easy to understand, and his dry wit keeps the reading moving right a long. One to keep for sure, as it is not only a great read, but a great reference book!

These books are great for christian romance book lovers. The book includes short stories that are light hearted, fun and fast to read.

The definitive book for literary criticism fans of Langston Hughes, one of the country's most important and gifted writers.

I refer to this book ALL the time ... it is great! Steve Henry has done a tremendous job of giving you all the info you need to have lot of fun in the Ozark regions. A lot of the trails are ones I would have never found on my own. GREAT BOOK

A different way to consider some of the Murillo's paintings. A must for any spanish art lover.The book is an attempt to say something new. A no-nonsense book.A book to learn, for people really interested in art, not for those who pretend to care about it.

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).