Book Notices

Presbyterian Missions and Cultural Interaction in the Far Southwest, 1850-1950.

By MARK T. BANKER (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993.xiv+225pp. $36.95.)

Starting in the late 1860s the Presbyterian church became increasingly interested in establishing missions among "exceptional people" in the United States Targeted as appropriate candidates for this helping hand were the Pueblo and Navajo peoples of New Mexico and Arizona, the Hispanics of New Mexico and southern Colorado, and the Mormons of Utah. By the late 1800s and early 1900s activity and enthusiasm peaked with twenty-eight missions spread throughout Utah and southern Idaho alone The author examines the effectiveness of these and other sites, emphasizing the problems of cultural interaction and adaptation.

Of particular interest to readers of Utah history are the sections of the book that discuss Presbyterian views of Mormonism, which became particularly pronounced during the years before polygamy ended With a twist of irony it is also instructive to note that while Mormon missionaries pressed forward into surrounding territories and foreign lands, their own home sanctuary was considered an important objective by other denominations Another important theme that runs throughout is the role that women played in supporting both the organization at headquarters and the teaching in the field.

This doctoral thesis turned book is a well-documented account recommended for scholars of religious history, women studies, and Mormon history.

Changing Military Patterns of the Great Plains Indians (17th Century through Early 19th Century).

By FRANK SECOY (1953; Bison Book Edition, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992. xviii + 112pp.Paper, $7.95.)

This revised doctoral dissertation is an intriguing study of the evolution of Plains Indian warfare between 1630 and 1830.Secoy looks at the advance of the horse frontier from the Hispanic Southwest and the gun frontier from French and English Canada as these material elements moved out onto the plains and eventually combined Changing tactics and equipment forged innovative forms of warfare and shifting alliances that in turn gave rise to a newset of values andaccompanying dynamics associated with nineteenth-century Plains Indian culture. This book, with an excellent introduction byJohn C Ewer, is recommended for students of Native American history and those interested in the mechanics of cultural change.

The Dispossession of the American Indian, 1887-1934.

By JANET A MCDONNELL (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991.xii+ 163 pp. $20.00.)

The Dawes Allotment Act of 1887 created a process that the federal government hoped would destroy Native Americans' tribal identity, remove the collective reservation land base, and encourage individual farming and stockraising practices. To the white population this act meant opportunities for more land to purchase or lease from Indian property owners The net result of this half-century policy was a "shriveling [Native American] landbase and an economically deprived people" (p. 121).

The topic of this book is important. Written in a scholarly manner, it argues that the effects of the DawesAct have continued, and white ownership of tribal lands prevents Indians from pooling their resources to lift themselves from poverty By studying the ramifications of past government policy, the reader better understands why reservations are still considered a viable lifestyle for Native Americans today

Saanii Dahataa/The Women Are Singing: Poems and Stories.

By Luci TAAHONSO. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1993 xiv + 94 pp Cloth, $1995; paper, $9.95.)

This collection of songs and poetry elucidates the thoughts of a modern Navajo woman and her experiences in today's society. Introspective and revealing, these works capture the author's longing for a simpler life centered around family, friends, and tradition. Many of these pieces have been published elsewhere Most are carefully crafted; and some are haunting in their appeal.

Shoshone Tales.

Edited by ANNE M. SMITH, assisted by ALDEN HAYES (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1993. xxxvi + 188 pp. $24.95.)

A companion volume to Ute Tales reviewed on pp 289-90 of this issue, Shoshone Tales features a foreword by Catherine S Fowler and an afterword by Beverly Crum. It contains thirtyfour Gosiute and seventy-nine Western Shoshone selections.

The Old Spanish Trail: Santa Fe to Los Angeles.

By LEROY R HAFEN and ANN W. HAFEN. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993.375 pp Paper, $12.95.)

Thanks to the Hafens the Old Spanish Trail that was once nearly forgotten hasbeen ensured ofits rightful niche in borderlands history Originally published in 1954, this classic study of the "longest, crookedest, most arduous pack mule route in the history ofAmerica" isnowavailable as a Bison Book.

Mother's Letters.

By ELIZABETH HAMPSTEN. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1993 xiii + 185 pp Cloth, $26.95; paper, $14.95.)

Following the death of her mother in 1970, the author, a professor of English attheUniversity ofNorth Dakota, Grand Forks, received a box of letters her mother had written from various world cities during her husband's years of diplomatic service The letters gave Hampsten new insights into her mother's life "separate from children." She uses the letters as a reference point to reflect on her own life in a series of autobiographical essays that focus on family relationships. The book expands the range of possibilities for those writing family and personal histories by providing an alternative to the usual chronological format. Moreover, Hampsten reflects on her life experiences in an engaging manner.

Marmalade and Whiskey: British Remittance Men in the West.

By LEE OLSON (Golden, Colo.: Fulcrum Publishing, 1993 xix + 234 pp Paper, $16.95.)

The younger sons of British aristocrats were often sent abroad to seek their fortunes with promises of remittances of money from home. Hundreds of these young men—precluded from inheriting the family estate by the rule of primogeniture— migrated to the American West Clement Bengough, for example, was reared and e ucated in luxury by his wealthy English family. Then as a younger son he migrated to America and by 1887 had become a rancher near Laramie, Wyoming. A lonely eccentric, he depended on regular remittances from his family to survive. Though remittance men sometimes became "wild" in the West—plagued by alcoholism, gambling, and scandalous love affairs—the author concludes that they gave the frontier an infusion of money and set lofty standards of dress, culture, and manners in fledgling communities from El Paso to Calgary.

Dictionary of the American West.

By WINFRED BLEVINS. (New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1993 xiv + 400 pp $35.00.)

Containing more than 5,000 terms and expressions, this dictionary not only defines words associated with the West but also includes the stories, lore, and history behind them The author perused the vocabularies of people typically left out of the lone cowboy western myth, and thus words borrowed from and created or in common use by Native Americans, African Americans, Hispanics, women, Mormons, French Canadians, immigrants, and missionaries will be found in this volume Blevins, a novelist, spent years poring over journals, biographies, memoirs, old newspapers, and reference works to compile his dictionary. He also consulted many authors and historians.

The result of Blevins's diligence is a book many aficionados of the West will want as a bedside companion as well as a reference work It invites browsing, and reading and pondering a few entries may take just enough time to fill the gap between sundown and sleep These examples will give the flavor of the work:

Corduroy (1) Logs (often split logs) laid across soft or wet spots in a road to make them passable for wagons. (2) A road that's been corduroyed It's also known as a hicketycrickety or hunker-chunker. Roads in yellowstone National Park were being corduroyed as late as the turn of the century.

Piloncillo In the Southwest, a cone of unrefined brown sugar. This treat was popular with Hispanics and pioneer Anglos. Borrowed from Spanish (where pilon means "sugarloaf'), it's pronounced pee-lohn-SEE-yoh

It is all wheat A Utah expression meaning "it's on the square, it's OK."

Brushwork Diary: Watercolors of Early Nevada.

By WALTER S LONG, MICHAEL J BRODHEAD, and JAMES C MCCORMICK (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1991 xv + 118 pp $24.95.)

Born in Baltimore in 1842, Long served in the Union army and ultimately came to Nevada where, during 1878-80, he made 64 postcard-size watercolor sketches of remote Nevada scenes. The paintings depict mines, street scenes, ajoss house, scenery, and interior views of offices, mines, cabins, and workshops He intended the sketches to depict his life in Nevada for Elizabeth Parker of Boston, the woman he loved but never married Because of his training as a civil engineer, Long produced sketches that—though not treasures of high art—do represent a unique visual documentation of Nevada Brodhead and McCormick have performed a service to history with this attractive presentation.

Mormon Lives: A Year in the Elkton Ward.

By SUSAN BUHLER TABER (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993. vii + 376 pp. $27.50.)

This unique cultural study presents a candid picture of what it is like to be a Mormon. Using oral histories collected from more than a hundred church members from diverse congregations in Maryland and Delaware, the author places them within narratives of church activities during a typical year These ordinary ward members reflect on agreements and disagreements with church practices, women's roles, missionary work and the growth of the church, relationships within the congregation, and individual testimonies

The book began as part of a larger project of the Elkton Ward in the industrial town of Elkton, Maryland. Richard L. Bushman, the ward's bishop and also a professor of history at the University of Delaware, along with his wife Claudia, a historian and executive director of the Delaware Heritage Commission, wanted to collect materials pertinent to life in a typical LDS ward for the use of future researchers Thus the Elkton Ward Record Year Committee was formed and many aspects of ward life recorded Taber worked on the oral history part of the project.

The collected materials were archived at Brigham Young University, but Bushman believed they had publication potential as well. At his suggestion Taber used the data to produce a portrait of life in the Elkton Ward, a microcosm of the LDS church outside Utah and a more typical Mormon way of life—far from church headquarters—than is commonly depicted The cumulative effect of each individual interviewee relating his or her spiritual quest within the Mormon framework might be compared to a musical composition full of idiosyncrasies and dissonances that somehow create an amazing whole.

Sheep May Safely Graze: A Personal Essay on Tradition and a Contemporary Sheep Ranch.

By LOUIE W ATTEBERY (Moscow: University of Idaho Press, 1992 xix + 132 pp Paper, $15.95.)

In 1867 when the U.S Department of Agriculture began keeping records, 54 million sheep and lambs were tallied. In 1986 the tally was 10.5 million With fewer and fewer examples of sheep ranching to be found, folklorist Louie W. Attebery examined the context of a contemporary Idaho sheep ranch and the traditions of three generations in an American livestock family named Soulen.

In following the season-to-season flow of a sheep ranching operation and the day-to-day tasks involved, Attebery noted the variability that occurs within tradition and demonstrates the dynamic nature of tradition. The movement of sheep from summer to winter ranges; shearing, lambing, marking, and associated activities; the life of a sheepherder; and the sheep and cattle "wars" are among the subjects deftly dealt with Numerous photographs document aspects of sheep raising and help the lay person gain a clearer idea of what is involved. This is a highly readable work on a subject of great significance in western history

The Wealth of Nature: Environmental History and the Ecological Imagination.

By DONALD WORSTER (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993 xi + 255 pp $25.00.)

Winner of the prestigious Bancroft Prize in American History for his landmark study Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s, Donald Worster brings together in his latest work a group of reflective essays on the mutual dependence of humans and the environment. He argues persuasively for a comprehensive approach to understanding the past as well as the future in environmental terms.

Chapter/essay titles include, for example, "History as Natural History," "Arranging a Marriage: Ecology and Agriculture," "The Kingdom, the Power, and the Water" (with kudos for Leonard J. Arlington's Great Basin Kingdom), "The Shaky Ground of Sustainable Development," and 'John Muir and the Roots of American Environmentalism"—representing about a third of the topics.

Using Aldo Leopold's approach— which stressed the importance of nature in determining human history— as a point of departure, Worster views history as a dialogue between humanity and nature He also reminds historians that environmental history is not limited in scope to rural and wilderness areas. Cities clearly have had a tremendous impact on the land.

Playing Cowboys: Low Culture and High Art in the Western.

By ROBERT MURRAY DAVIS (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992 xxiv + 168 pp $19.95.)

Davis begins by focusing on The Virginian and the origins of the western hero He then moves to a discussion of how novelists and filmmakers in the post-World War II era have used the western to discuss issues of ethics and aesthetics and how their works have affected popular cultural values Davis believes that the western is not primarily about escape or violence but, at its best, is about the courage of the hero to go beyond the established boundaries—to "reimagine" himself Although women appear in westerns, often as proponents of "civilization," the genre typically portrays a man's world and thus offers an important view of the American masculine mystique.

Frederic Remington's Southwest.

By JAMES K BALLINGER (Phoenix: Phoenix Art Museum, 1992 vi +94 pp.)

This is a handsome catalog that accompanied an exhibit of Remington's Southwest drawings and paintings in Phoenix and two other locations in 1992 Ballinger provides an insightful narrative to complement the visual images.

Owning Western History: A Guide to Collecting Rare Documents, Historical Letters, and Valuable Autographs from the Old West.

By WARREN R. ANDERSON. (Missoula: Mountain Press Publishing Co., 1993 vii + 118 pp Paper, $15.00.)

Warren Anderson, a professional collector/dealer and the proprietor of American West Archives in Cedar City, has used his years of experience to produce a guide for the uninitiated in the fast-growing field of collecting western American paper: stock certificates, bonds, mining claims, letters, bank drafts, deeds, receipts, and so on The guide provides step-by-step instructions in what to look for when examining old documents, whether they are from one's own family collection or offered for sale by others, and how to care for them properly Auction tips, ownership transferral options, and stories of fakes, forgeries, and theft add to the guide's usefulness as do the appendices, glossary, and photographs

Lee's Ferry: Desert River Crossing.

By W L RUSHO and C GREGORY CRAMPTON. (Salt Lake City: Cricket Productions, 1992. xii + 168 pp. Paper, $14.95.)

Founded byJohn D Lee in the early 1870s, Lee's Ferry served as the Colorado River's most famous crossing for over a half-century. Its colorful career affected thousands of lives and left an indelible mark on the literature, lore, and history of Canyon Country Revised and expanded over its initial 1975 printing, this attractive paperback is replete with photos and maps. It brings the history of the site to the present, includes a tour guide to historic sites of the area, tempts the reader with a nicely annotated bibliography, and in every respect reflects admirably on the reputation of the authors as two of the very best red-rock historians.

Fremont: Pathmarker of the West.

By ALLAN NEVINS (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1939, 1955, 1992. xiv + 689 pp. Paper, $19.95.)

Published in 1928 under the title of Fremont, the West's Greatest Adventurer, this study was the first worthy biography of John C Fremont Revised twice, it has stood the test of time and is now available as a Bison Book.

Students of the nineteenth-century American West will readily subscribe to the author's studied understatement that Fremont touched history at many points. Utahns will take special delight in reading of the fifth expedition, 1853-54, and the role played by settlers of Parowan in its ultimate success But of course it will always be the fourth expedition, 1848-49, with its incredible saga in the Southern Rockies, that dominates any account of Fremont the pathmarker The accomplished Nevins, who describes Fremont as "a personality brilliant, versatile, and adventurous [whose] career abounded in almost melodramatic alterations of good and bad fortunes," certainly does it justice.

Annie Oakley.

By SHIRL KASPER (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992 xvi + 288 pp $22.95.)

As a legendary figure Annie Oakley has had a popular image at odds with reality, largely because of the popular Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun. Ethel Merman enjoyed great success as Annie on stage, belting out hit songs like "You Can't Get a Man with a Gun" and "There's No Business Like Show Business." But brash Ethel Merman bears no resemblance to the historic Annie Oakley.

Although Annie was not a female version of that western male stereotype, the swaggering stranger in town who is handy with a revolver, neither was she a sweet young thing The historic Annie, reared in poverty and eager to leave it behind, was competitive and determined to succeed, and she did; but she was prim and proper, conservative, hard working, frugal, and proud of being accepted by the society of her time as a "lady."

A world-famous sharpshooter, she also radiated a natural charm that endeared her to audiences Her husband Frank Butler, a sharpshooter who initially shared a billing with Annie, realized her greater talents and devoted himself to her career at the expense of his own. Theirs was a love match that lasted forty-five years with Frank dying just eighteen days after Annie in November 1926.

Oakley starred in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show for seventeen years, capturing the fancy of countless ordinary folks as well as Sitting Bull and European royalty When she was not on stage she hunted, shot trap, and entered many shooting matches. During World War I she performed for U.S. troops, and in her retirement years taught many women how to use a gun. She simply loved to shoot.

George Wingfield: Owner and Operator of Nevada.

By C ELIZABETH RAYMOND (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1992. x +350 pp. $31.95.)

George Wingfield made his fortune in the gold fields of central Nevada Unlike the Comstock millionaires who chose to live in California, he preferred to remain in his adopted state where he dominated politics so thoroughly in the 1920s that both the Republican and Democratic parties marched to his tune.

Fiscally conservative but socially liberal, he turned down a chance to become a U.S senator and instead devoted his energies to charting the course of Nevada's economic and social development He recognized that mining and agriculture could not sustain the state and worked to develop a tourist-oriented economy by promoting good roads, luxury hotels, horse racing, legalized gambling, and lenient divorce laws Naturally such a man was controversial.

Elizabeth Raymond, associate professor of history at the University of Nevada, Reno, spent years organizing the Wingfield papers at the Nevada Historical Society Her highly readable biography presents a balanced account of the man revered as "Nevada's benevolent friend" and condemned as a "Sagebrush Caesar." Sixty-three pages of endnotes demonstrate the extent and depth of her research.