Tour the heritage landscape of German-Russian Country (Emmons, Logan, and McIntosh counties of North Dakota) with a self-guided tour of heritage sites. Ashley, seat of McIntosh County, is the starting point for travelers in search of the history and culture of the Germans from Russia, in the incomparable landscape of the Missouri Coteau. "Touring German-Russian Country from Ashley, North Dakota," is a reliable guide that has been researched by scholars and piloted in the field.

Touring German-Russian Country from Ashley, North Dakota (Circulars)

Isern, Thomas D.

Travel

Center for Heritage Renewal

Bull Threshers and Bindlestiffs is a panorama on a continental canvas: the Great Plains of North America, stretching from Texas to Alberta. Onto this surface the author lays the large features of regional practice in the harvesting and threshing of wheat during the days before the combined harvester--harvesting with binder and header, threshing with bull thresher and steam engine. Into the picture he places the key figures who accomplished the task of gathering the grain--the farm men and women, the custom threshermen, and the bindlestiffs, or itinerant laborers. Affectionately he sketches the small details of folklife that comprised the everyday work and culture of the wheat belt--building shocks, loading racks, constructing stacks, pitching bundles into the separator, hauling water to the engine, drinking deep from the crockery water jug. Bull Threshers and Bindlestiffs is a profusely illustrated study of a complex, vigorous regional culture concerned with the production of wheat--a culture that centered around the annual harvest and declined with the advent of the combine. This is an examination of the interaction of culture, environment, and technology with import for the fields of agricultural history and regional history. More than that, with its grassroots research, its descriptions of tools and customs, and its lavish illustrations, it is a re-creation of a proud phase of regional life previously captured only in yellowed albumen photographs.

Bull Threshers and Bindlestiffs: Harvesting and Threshing on the North American Plains

Science & Math

Technology

University Press of Kansas

Bull Threshers and Bindlestiffs is a panorama on a continental canvas: the Great Plains of North America, stretching from Texas to Alberta. Onto this surface the author lays the large features of regional practice in the harvesting and threshing of wheat during the days before the combined harvester—harvesting with binder and header, threshing with bull thresher and steam engine. Into the picture he places the key figures who accomplished the task of gathering the grain—the farm men and women, the custom threshermen, and the bindlestiffs, or itinerant laborers. Affectionately he sketches the small details of folklife that comprised the everyday work and culture of the wheat belt—building shocks, loading racks, constructing stacks, pitching bundles into the separator, hauling water to the engine, drinking deep from the crockery water jug.\nBull Threshers and Bindlestiffs is a profusely illustrated study of a complex, vigorous regional culture concerned with the production of wheat—a culture that centered around the annual harvest and declined with the advent of the combine. This is an examination of the interaction of culture, environment, and technology with import for the fields of agricultural history and regional history. More than that, with its grassroots research, its descriptions of tools and customs, and its lavish illustrations, it is a re-creation of a proud phase of regional life previously captured only in yellowed albumen photographs.

History

Americas

Custom combining on the Great Plains: A history

Business & Money

Industries

University of Oklahoma Press

Custom Combining on the Great Plains: A History

Univ of Oklahoma Pr

Examines the social, political, and geographical history of Kansas from its pre-history to the present.

Kansas Land

Wilson, Raymond

Children's Books

Gibbs-Smith

The author of Dakota Circle has great hopes for the Great Plains, because despite a history of human and environmental tragedy, "eventually the land has its way with people, space becomes place, and viable, even elegant patterns of culture emerge. People stand more squarely on thier own feet, they speak for themselves, they build structures that back up their words, and they relate to one another in the fashion of a community. This is a work in progress." Confident in the regional future, historian and traveler Tom Isern is free to explore the delights of regional life--from fiberglass pheasants to Montana caviar--and to invite readers of Dakota Circle along for some excursions on the true plains.

Dakota Circle

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

North Dakota Inst for

Farming across Borders uses agricultural history to connect the regional experiences of the American West, northern Mexico, western Canada, and the North American side of the Pacific Rim, now writ large into a broad history of the North American West. Case studies of commodity production and distribution, trans-border agricultural labor, and environmental change unite to reveal new perspectives on a historiography traditionally limited to a regional approach. Sterling Evans has curated nineteen essays to explore the contours of “big” agricultural history. Crops and commodities discussed include wheat, cattle, citrus, pecans, chiles, tomatoes, sugar beets, hops, henequen, and more. Toiling over such crops, of course, were the people of the North American West, and as such, the contributing authors investigate the role of agricultural labor, from braceros and Hutterites to women working in the sorghum fields and countless other groups in between. As Evans concludes, “society as a whole (no matter in what country) often ignores the role of agriculture in the past and the present.” Farming across Borders takes an important step toward cultivating awareness and understanding of the agricultural, economic, and environmental connections that loom over the North American West regardless of lines on a map. In the words of one essay, “we are tied together . . . in a hundred different ways.”

Farming across Borders: A Transnational History of the North American West (Connecting the Greater West Series)

Meyers, Todd

Mumme, Stephen

Hooton, Laura

Hernández, Sònia

Weber, John

Raibmon, Paige

Bowman, Timothy P.

Hoganson, Kristin

MacFadyen, Josh

Morris, Peter S

Dunlop, Andrew

Dewey, Alicia Marion

Cobos, Rosa E

Caire-Pérez, Matt

McCollom, Jason

Kelley, Suzzanne

Carlson, Anthony

Anders, Tisa

Economics

Texas A&M University Press

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Books by Isern, Thomas D.