Purebred and Homegrown: America’s County Fairs

Visit America’s county fairs as they are vividly evoked through the images, stories, and voices of the people who make them happen—4-H kids, fair managers, pie judges, farmers and ranchers, rodeo queens, entertainers, food vendors, midway pitchmen, and assorted local characters. Illustrated throughout with stunning color photographs, Purebred and Homegrown is an affectionate and thoughtful look at the history of county fairs, and their tradition and persistence today, despite the diminished number of Americans who earn their living from agriculture. Author-photographers Drake Hokanson and Carol Kratz traveled 40,000 miles across America from Maine to Alaska, from Georgia to California, visiting ninety county fairs in thirty-five states. By day they interviewed, observed, and photographed; at night they camped among the carnies and the teens showing sheep, under the rollercoaster, and next to the chicken barn. The story they tell goes beyond the stereotype of fairs as quaint anachronisms obsessed with giant pumpkins and instead reveals the county fair as an important institution that helped define us as a nation of free-thinking, self-reliant, community-focused people. They present the nearly 200-year-old county fair as a fountainhead of American ideals and rural life, as a place of reunion, and as perhaps the most traditional of all American celebrations. Best Books for Special Interests, selected by the American Association of School Librarians, and Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the Public Library Association

Arts & Photography

Hokanson, Drake

Kratz, Carol

Photography & Video

University of Wisconsin Press

The Pilot and the Landscape: America from the Air (American Land Classics)

Travel

Langewiesche, Wolfgang

Reference

The Johns Hopkins University Press

Ten years after its original publication, Drake Hokanson's best-selling book continues to inspire readers to leave the interstate for a road less traveled, but one that still fuels the American preoccupation with the open road.In his new introduction to this tenth anniversary edition, Hokanson revisits the Lincoln Highway and finds it changed€”much for the better€”since the original publication of this book. Most notably, he calls attention to the reinvigorated Lincoln Highway Association and its efforts to preserve what is left of the old road. Hokanson finds more and more tourists traveling the road€”not only Americans but foreigners as well€”by car, bus, and motorcycle on journeys not to any particular destination, but simply to see America.

The Lincoln Highway: Main Street Across America

Engineering & Transportation

Automotive

Univ of Iowa Pr

Ten years after its original publication, Drake Hokanson's best-selling book continues to inspire readers to leave the interstate for a road less traveled, but one that still fuels the American preoccupation with the open road.
In his new introduction to this tenth anniversary edition, Hokanson revisits the Lincoln Highway and finds it changedâ€”much for the betterâ€”since the original publication of this book. Most notably, he calls attention to the reinvigorated Lincoln Highway Association and its efforts to preserve what is left of the old road. Hokanson finds more and more tourists traveling the roadâ€”not only Americans but foreigners as wellâ€”by car, bus, and motorcycle on journeys not to any particular destination, but simply to see America.

In Reflecting a Prairie Town Drake Hokanson takes a prolonged look at a common place in an uncommon fashion. He presents Peterson, Iowa, through a singular combination of words and images, a remarkable synthesis of history, geography, direct observation, climatology, botany, oral history, archaeology, agricultural science, literature, geology, photography, and even a bit of astronomy. This vernacular landscape study is lavishly illustrated with photographs taken by the author, including stunning panoramic views.
The fundamental truth of experience on this continent has always lain in the challenges and opportunities of space. Place mattered because we were so few before the immensity of the land. But place at the same time rooted us in that immensity. Even now our appreciation for place is not quite dead; locked in our urban environments we continue to crave a “view,” be it of mountains, forests, or prairies. These “views” crop up unexpectedly as photographic murals in office buildings or posters in dentists' offices. It is to this stifled sense of the importance of place that Hokanson speaks; he invites us to remember and to be revitalized.
The magic of Reflecting a Prairie Town is the revelation that Peterson, Iowa, is a small town that is also uncannily large. In capturing the essence of this one place Hokanson helps us to understand our own worlds better—he asks the simple questions many of us would like to ask were we given the opportunity. To enter this book is to come back to a place we have never really seen before.

Reflecting a Prairie Town: A Year in Peterson (American Land & Life)

University Of Iowa Press

Ten years after its original publication, Drake Hokanson's best-selling book continues to inspire readers to leave the interstate for a road less traveled, but one that still fuels the American preoccupation with the open road.
In his new introduction to this tenth anniversary edition, Hokanson revisits the Lincoln Highway and finds it changed—much for the better—since the original publication of this book. Most notably, he calls attention to the reinvigorated Lincoln Highway Association and its efforts to preserve what is left of the old road. Hokanson finds more and more tourists traveling the road—not only Americans but foreigners as well—by car, bus, and motorcycle on journeys not to any particular destination, but simply to see America.

The Lincoln Highway: Main Street across America

History

Americas

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hokanson, Drake. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Hokanson, Drake