Nebraska Books

The Giants didn't refuse to play the 1903 World Series - it was the 1904 World Series - the Boston Pilgrims and Pittsburgh Pirates played in the '03 Series (the first WS)...

Colish sheds reams of light on the understanding of knowledge before Aristotle's full influence on the Middle Ages. For those who find themselves trapped in unsuccessfully trying unravel the "ontological argument" of Anselm, Colish presents another way of looking at his theory of knowledge using grammar rather than a post-Cartesian rationalism. Her description of rectitude and its relevance for language in the Middle Ages clarifies many common misconceptions. Superb!

Treva Adams Strait spent her childhood on her family's homestead in western Nebraska. Although she had to live away from home in order to finish high school, she became a teacher at the age of eighteen. Over the next fourteen years she taught in five different country schools, acting not only as teacher but janitor, social worker and community leader. The number of pupils ranged from six to thirty-six in grades one through eight. During the balance of her twenty-eight year teaching career she taught in Germany for the United States Armed Forces and instructed mentally handicapped and retarded children in California.
--- excerpt from book's back cover

This is a collection of fascinating horse trading, swapping and swindling stories collected during The Federal Writers Project, a part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which in turn was one of FDR's relief programs during the Great Depression.

In the 1930's Government employed writers were still able to interview Civil War Veterans, Oregon Trail Riders, individuals who remembered the Indian Wars, and, for the purposes of this book, horse traders who made their living by travelling and trading horses before the days of the automobile. This book is a collection of the best of those stories.

Back then, due to lack of cash, no cars or trucks or other convenient transportation, and the isolation of the farms in rural Nebraska, travelling horse and mule traders with stock to swap were an important and usually welcome part of rural life. With the trader came the chance to hear some news, socialize, match wits and perhaps come out on top of a swap with some "boot" or hard-to-get cash.

These stories exude the sense of the male ego, of matching wits, and the I-did-it-to-you-first challenge that was a part of swapping stock back then. While buying a used car today may instill fear and loathing in the buyer, back then it was a two way street-both parties thought they had a chance of coming out on top and tried their best to do so. The challenge of the trade was a way of life and all parties knew the rules: watch out!

The Glossary may be worth the price of the book by itself. It not only includes terms used in trading, but also describes in simple terms the many diseases and conditions you don't want your horse or donkey to have. Another part of the book warns about and elaborates on tricks used to cover these things up. Interestingly, these pointers were part of The People's Home Library, an information source that provided advice to the public on lots of things, including how not to be had on a horse trade.

This book is funny, colorful, nostalgic and entertaining. Tall tales or not, it is well worth the reading.

Hats off to Dr. Bradley, whose interpretive, integrative, and deductive abilities are obviously surging, at this early point in his career. Never before have I read anything about De Maistre that pierced so painfully, to the point of seeing his logic as it applies to us all. It made me proud, and ashamed. Compelling.

So good, I couldn't put it down!

The story of the Muh-he-kan-nuk, or the Mahicans (but better known as Mohicans), is a story of triumph through hardship. Now in Wisconsin, this native American people migrated from their home in the Berkshires of Western Massachussetts via a brief stay in New York state. This is their story, how they lived when the European immigrant population began to grow and encroach on their lands, and how they openly embraced Christianity, in spite of how they were often treated by "the white man" -- who were mostly protestant Christians. More fascinating is how the Stockbridge Indians, in spite of their treatment by the white settlers, have been very supportive of the American experience and have a long history of fighting patriotically in wars for the United States' cause from the very beginning.

After a brief ancient history of the amazing people called the Muh-he-kan-nuk, Frazier tells the story of the early 18th-century Chief Konkapot and his delegation to the Massachussetts Bay Colony requesting that a missionary be sent to teach them about the Christian religion. A teacher, Mr. Timothy Woodbridge, and the missionary Rev. John Sergeant, were commissioned to go and live among the Mahicans to teach them the Christian faith and English civilization. The story is fascinating, and Frazier reports very realistic and deals honestly with both the good and the bad that were both a result and a backlash of the missionary endeavors. Most people know the popular history that the Rev. Jonathan Edwards spent part of his time as a missionary to the Stockbridge Indians before his fatal presidency at Princeton. But very few realise that he was not the first to work among them. John and Abigail Sergeant were my 6th- or 7th- generation grandparents through my paternal grandmother, so this story is of particular interest to me. The occasion for Edwards' arrival in Stockbridge was two-fold: firstly, he had been oustered by his congregation at Northampton, Connecticut, and secondly, the pastor of the Mahicans John Sergeant had died of tuberculosis.

Many modern historians blame missionaries for proselytizing native Americans, but this story shows that the Stockbridge Indians, through Chief Konkapot, requested the assistance of the Christian European American settlers in an effort to preserve their culture. Likely, if it was not for the missionary and educational work among the Mahicans, the white settlers may well have taken far more advantage of the Indians than they already had, as unfortunately history all-to-often reveals. For the times, Woodbridge and Sergeant showed great interest in preserving the native culture, while introducing Western European Christianity to them. Also, Edwards, quite the remarkable intellectual genius, composed a grammar of the Mahican language (a reprint is available here at Amazon). While often patronizing to a fault, perhaps their efforts to "anglicize" the Indians in the long run helped this tribe to learn to survive amidst encroachment, as well as served to preserve their indigenous culture. Frazier seems to present this argument well, thoroughly dealing with the downside of the white man's influences of the times.

I highly recommend this book to all who have an interest in Colonial American history, the development and history of American Religion, and especially the history and plight of our Native American citizens, who are equal under the law, but who in sad reality have been snubbed throughout the history of our imperfect nation. Rather than aggrandizing my great-grandfather or the other missionaries and educators who tried to help this people in a less-than-perfect and infantile American civilization, Frazier's book is an overdue tribute to the legacy and national courage of the Mahicans of Stockbridge, to whom a great debt of gratitude is owed.

-Andrew Kercher

Well written and researched book. Reading this book not only helps one understand the history of Monacan Indian nation but provides another window into understanding American history - especially from another perspective. Seeing references to some of my ancestors only heightened the joy of the read. This book is a great read for anyone desiring to broaden their own understanding of the period, the era and the people of colonial America.

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