Montana State University Books

Custer was a great military strategist, WA Clark was an honest man, The buffalo were not killed off by the white man, The Indians were murdering godless savages, Henry Plummer was a ringleader of desperadoes that killed 101 people in a year---------NOT! So much for the Hollywood style myths perpetuated by less than thorough historians. This book brilliantly debunks the Henry Plummer myth through careful reasearch, and demonstrates that the Vigilantes killed numerous innocent people (along with a few crooks) with nothing more than a desire to eliminate whoever got in their way. This is a well documented read that for the first time demonstrates that the truth indeed is more fascinating than the myth covering up the mob mentality of the Vigilantes. I grew up in Montana and looked at these Vigilantes as heroes. But after reading this brilliant delivery of the facts.....I find myself somewhat feeling burned by the history writers who self-servingly smeared everyone they hung (after they hung them).......including a verifiable honest hardworkding hispanic in Bannack that the Vigilantes referred to as the "Greaser". Of course there is author bias contained in the book, but behind the style and content of the authors are hard undeniable facts........facts that tell perhaps one of the most fascinating stories in the history of the west--a story untold until these two authors presented it. Read this book if you can get your hands on it. I did, and I am glad I did!! Was Henry Plummer a victim? Well if Custer was a Brillilant military strategist, then he was not. But only you can answer that question.

A very nice summary of the different water law regimes in the Western U.S., extremely well-organized and presented. Highly accessible to those who aren't lawyers and never intend to be.

Excellent international service, book delivered in just over a week to UK and in pristine condition. Great service

In the current miasmic atmosphere in public affairs created by the corrupting trinity of big money, indiscriminate television and instant opinion polls, it is salutary to recall those who have lent honor and distinction to public service by honest and relentless pursuit of the common good as they saw it. John and Catherine Morrison have provided such retrospect with their literary pantheon of remarkable Montanans titled "Mavericks," now published by the University of Idaho Press.

The lives, times, vicissitudes, triumphs and tragedies of nine leading actors in the drama of this state's first century are skillfully and accurately delineated in a single volume that is a handbook on our public affairs. Which is not to say that it even pretends to be objective. The authors are unabashed admirers of the Josephs Dixon and Toole, Ella Knowles and Jeannette Rankin, Tom Walsh and B.K. Wheeler, and Jim Murray, Mike Mansfield and Lee Metcalf, as far seeing, fearless progressives. This carefully researched and well organized book is at its best an insightful examination of Montana's populist-progressive tradition as illuminated by these players.

The list does not include Pat Williams, who sustained the tradition in the House of Representatives for 18 years without flinching. In his concise forward though, Williams adumbrates the Morrison's central theme, "...the golden thread of courage." These men and women were as diverse in their backgrounds, personalities, predilictions, and modus operendi as they could possibly be, yet they had one thing in common: when the chips were down and the issue really mattered, their convictions came first and they did the best they could with the rest of it.

The concluding paragraphs are the most intriguing in the book. The authors are relatively young and have not been prominent in public affairs. Yet their six page conclusion is as piercing and enlightened a statement on the state of the state and its future as we've seen. It is informed with an extraordinary sense of the importance, on the one hand, of leadership on the part of elected officials, but, on the other hand, the equal and ever more urgent importance of participation on the part of all of us. Well and deeply considered and elegently written, these few paragraphs are a much needed orientation as to where we are now and a beacon to the future.

Translated for the first time from the original Dutch into English, Montana 1911: A Professor And His Wife Among The Blackfeet presents the diary of Wilhelmina Uhlenbeck, the wife of anthropologist and linguist C. C. Uhlenbeck, who traveled to Montana to conduct fieldwork among the southern Piegan Indians. Her diary is reproduced in full, chronicling her perspective of the three-month stay, and also thoroughly supplemented with notes, an introduction to Blackfeet and their mythology, a biographical sketch of the couple, and a selection of the writings of C. C. Uhlenbeck that parallel the text from his wife's diary. Black-and-white vintage photographs illustrate this remarkable hands-on, up-close and personal perspective of Native American daily life and culture. Montana 1911 is a very highly recommended original source material for Native American Studies collections.

Originally published in 1925 as Volume I of Granville Stuart's classic Forty Years of the Frontier, this book is based on his reminiscences and journals. The opening chapter reviews his early years in Virginia, Illinois, and Iowa; the narrative proper begins in 1852 when the eighteen-year-old Stuart headed for California with his father and his brother James. ("There was not a habitation from the Missouri river until the small settlement of Salt Lake was reached; nor one from Salt Lake until the Sierra Nevada mountains were crossed.") The volume covers his experiences in California, including an account of the Rogue River War, and describes how - almost fortuitously - he was able to confirm rumors of gold in present-day Montana. Because they lacked equipment and supplies, the Stuart brothers were unable to cash in on their find until 1860; during the interim they were traders along the emigrant road near Fort Bridger. After 1860 Stuart became a permanent resident of Deer Lodge; in 1864, thanks in great part to his efforts, Montana became a United States territory.

"Here are the incidents and characters for the making of endless novels - pioneers, trappers, squaw men, braves, prospectors, vigilantes, gold seekers, cowboys and cattle barons, sketched against the tremendous scenic background of the high Rockies." - New York TImes

"The odyssey of a nineteenth-century Ulysses." - New York Evening Post

Also available in a Bison Book edition: Pioneering in Montana: The Making of a State, 1864-18887 (BB 648) Volume II of Forty Years on the Frontier.

Cover design by Jack Brodie

If you grew up gobbling down books about inspiring, independent women with pioneer spirit, you will enjoy reading this loving and learned biography of the author's grandmother born in 1865. Ms. Litz' research fleshes out the economic and social circumstances only slightly apparent in the books of our youth. Lillian Weston Hazen was a successful syndicated columnist in New York City in the late 1900s when she married a promising, rich Dartmouth graduate. The Depression of 1893 bankrupted them and dried up job prospects in the East. The only position her husband could find was bookkeeper for a mining company in a rough frontier town called Gilt Edge near Lewistown, Montana. Despite tremendous physical hardships and economic setbacks, they made a life for themselves and a surviving son where many were ground down and dropped out. Despite heavy ranch labor, Lillian carved out time to write and published in Scribners and some farming journals. Her lasting legacy will turn out to be the trunk of diaries and clippings that Joyce Litz found in 1949 following her death.

This account of the Vigilantes of Bannack and Virginia City is well documented and verifies, or, is verified by, Dimsdale's account of the vigilantes. My great-grandfather, Bob Dempsey, was a citizen of Bannack and had a ranch between Bannack and Virginia City. He was not involved with the members of Plummer's gang but somewhat on the fringe of things. My grandfather James Dempsey married Ellen LeCompte in Virginia City. Williams was the leader of the vigilantes but did not want his name used in the Dimsdale account. This account is accurate and can be verified by historical records available. Vi

This is a perfect book. Admittedly, the subject matter may not appeal to a broad audience, but any book so masterfully crafted must get a perfect score.

First, it is important to note that this book is less about roads than it is about landscapes and the meaning of changes to landscapes. The archives of the Montana Historical Society contain photos taken of road projects in the 1920s and 1930s. The federal government was just beginning to provide money for road construction at that time. These black-and-white photos show before and after views of how Montana was spending the money. Mr. Wyckoff selected a group of the photos and traveled the state during 2001-2003 re-photographing the scenes as closely as possible. In addition, he researched each scene by consulting people familiar with the history of the location, reviewing newspaper files, and finding other historical sources. It is obvious that gathering the material for this book required an enormous amount of time and work. The heart of the book is an introductory chapter, 58 two-page modules, and a closing chapter. There is also a Foreward written by William Cronon and what Mr. Wyckoff terms a Bibliographic Essay. Each part of the book is perfect in its own right, even the title.

Second, Mr. Wyckoff is a very good writer. Students at Montana State University must feel privileged to take a class in historical geography from Mr. Wyckoff.

The 27-page introductory chapter takes the reader through an overview of the field of re-photography and the science of historical geography. To illustrate, it analyzes two photos taken from the same spot near Fife, Montana, one showing the scene in 1922 and the other in 2001. The section also provides a sufficient overview of Montana history that a person unfamiliar with the state can easily understand the context of the modules that follow.

Each of the 58 modules has a pair of black-and-white photos taken about eighty years apart. The facing page of text analyzes the photos in terms of changes, or lack of changes, in the scene and what that might mean to the landscape itself or to the people who live there. The comments range from locally significant to those of import statewide or nationally. Some of the scenes are rural and Mr. Wyckoff points out changes in land use, crops, or the ecology of the area. For example, a large number of the photos show an increase in the number of trees on the landscape and the text discusses what happens in the absence of fire. Some shots are urban, such as the downtown scenes in Polson and Wibaux. The discussions highlight the differences that occur depending on whether the town is growing or not. Some modules describe the impact of railroads, mining, and other industries as they wax and wane. In some cases the roads of the 1920s have become interstate highways, and in other places they have returned to sagebrush or farmland. Often the text analyzes the changes in the broader context of Montana's economic, political, cultural, and ecological history.

The concluding chapter pulls together the implications of the changes and how trends established over the intervening eighty years might impact Montana in the future

I am giving the book as gifts or recommending it to people interested in Montana, particularly those familiar with the state's physical aspects. I also find myself recommending it to people with a general interest in history and as an example of how to develop a perfect book.

Informatively written by historian, archivist and educator Charles Mutschler, Wired For Success: The Butte, Anaconda & Pacific Railway, 1892-1985 is the exciting and enthusiastically recommended story of the Butte, Anaconda & Pacific Railway, how it became a pioneer electric railway system, and the impact it had on America from the late 1800's to the modern day. Black-and-white photographs combine with narrative description so real it transports the reader into a bygone era of railroading history.