The Annals of Iowa

Review of: "Lincoln's Sense of Humor" by Richard Carwardin

Wahlgren Summers, Mark

Lincoln's Sense of Humor

Review of "Before Dred Scott: Slavery and Legal Culture in the American Confluence, 1787-1857" by Anne Twitt

Mergenthal, Rebekah M.K.

Book Reviews and Notices      197 
in the former Illinois Country and the emergence of agriculture as the 
region’s dominant economic activity.  
 The transformation from furs to farms is the book’s organizing 
theme, but, as Reda skillfully demonstrates, the transition was neither 
direct nor easy. His story is multifaceted and complex, boasts a dis-
parate cast of characters, is well documented, and reflects current 
scholarship. His emphasis on the local perspective offers a richness of 
detail absent from more generalized accounts. Among other things, 
he makes a compelling case for the importance of local and regional 
history. Readers with an interest in the history of the Midwest will 
find much to like in this well-written book. 
 
 
Before Dred Scott: Slavery and Legal Culture in the American Confluence, 
1787–1857, by Anne Twitty. Cambridge Historical Studies in American 
Law and Society. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. xiii, 
285 pp. Map, charts, tables, appendix, index. $49.99 hardcover. 
Reviewer Rebekah M. K. Mergenthal is associate professor of history at 
Pacific Lutheran University. Her research explores the accommodations 
and exclusions among the variety of racial and ethnic groups in the lower 
Missouri River valley during the first half of the nineteenth century. 
Anne Twitty’s Before Dred Scott is a legal history of the freedom suits 
filed in the St. Louis Circuit Court, where the particular legal culture 
enabled some slaves to bring suit. The most common grounds the 241 
plaintiffs used were prior residence in a free territory or state, previ-
ous emancipation, or free at birth. Most did not ultimately gain their 
freedom (40.2 percent won freedom and 46.5 percent did not, with the 
rest unknown), and most slaves in the region did not file such suits. 
However, Twitty shows that careful reading of the cases can illumi-
nate how regular people “made savvy use of the law,” often for their 
own goals (21). These lawsuits were filed in St. Louis, but, because of 
the mobility of slaveholders and their slaves, they illuminate a broader 
region, one encompassing the convergences of the Ohio, Mississippi, 
and Missouri Rivers. Twitty does not explicitly discuss Iowa, although 
its eastern end is included on her map of the “American Confluence” 
region (4). Still, her ideas about the unclear boundary between slavery 
and freedom, and its legal ramifications, could certainly resonate with 
the study of antebellum Iowa.  
 In three chapters in the first section of Before Dred Scott, Twitty 
shows the “ambiguity” (56) between slavery and freedom in the region, 
the way some slaves learned “to use formal law to their own ad-
vantage” (94), and the limited antislavery perspectives of their lawyers. 
198      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
The four richly detailed chapters in the second section each focus on a 
specific example drawn from the freedom suits and illustrate in par-
ticular the general points made in the first section. (Twitty’s structural 
choices do lead to some looping back and repetition.) Chapter 4 traces 
the physical and legal journeys of the slave Maria Whiten, illuminating 
how small slaveholders “used the law to fashion their own identities 
and the identities of others” (138), an emphasis echoed in chapter 6. 
Chapter 5 more directly showcases a slave’s own initiative through the 
story of Vincent, a slave in Kentucky who was hired out in Illinois. 
“By conducting an ongoing battle” about the location and shape of his 
labor, Vincent “carved out a kind of independence for himself” (178), 
of which filing a suit was only part. Chapter 7 juxtaposes the freedom 
suits of Polly Wash in the 1830s and ‘40s with the slave narrative writ-
ten by her daughter near the end of the century (Lucy A. Delany, From 
the Darkness Cometh the Light, or Struggles for Freedom, [1891?]) to explore 
how slavery was remembered in the area. This intriguing chapter 
opens up Before Dred Scott to repercussions after that case, which would 
have been interesting to analyze more broadly, especially in terms of its 
regional implications. The book culminates in a conclusion that focuses 
directly on the Dred Scott case. By placing this crucial case in the context 
of her previous discussion, Twitty is able to show that it was “utterly 
unexceptional” (237) because of the similarities to other suits, and also 
that Judge Roger B. Taney’s decision signaled a “death knell” (239) for 
the long-standing legal culture of the American Confluence region. 
 Twitty helpfully engages the broader literature on slave agency, es-
pecially Walter Johnson’s Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave 
Market (1999), which grounds her analysis and provides important 
context. There is also a growing historical literature focusing on the 
St. Louis Circuit Court freedom cases. Twitty references several works, 
although she does not fully set up the historiographical debates and 
differences between them. She does, though, critique the breadth of 
Lea VanderVelde’s conclusions in Redemption Songs: Suing for Freedom 
before Dred Scott (2014) as incorrectly focusing on the “transhistorical 
sublime motives” instead of “the fine-grained contexts in which those 
motives and rationales were deployed” (22), which are Twitty’s focus. 
Yet, because Before Dred Scott focuses so narrowly on the St. Louis free-
dom suits, it is not as broadly compelling and regionally illuminating 
as Matthew Salafia’s recent work, Slavery’s Borderland: Freedom and 
Bondage along the Ohio River (2013). However, Twitty is an able guide 
to the details and implications of the St. Louis freedom suits, and her 
book provides important evidence of how regular people engaged 
with and utilized formal law on the antebellum frontier. 
Book Reviews and Notices      199 
Looking for Lincoln in Illinois: A Guide to Lincoln’s Eighth Judicial Circuit, by 
Guy C. Fraker. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. xiii, 130 
pp. Illustrations, maps, appendix, bibliography, index. $21.95 paperback. 
Reviewer John A. Lupton is the executive director of the Illinois Supreme 
Court Historic Preservation Commission. He was formerly an assistant 
editor on The Papers of Abraham Lincoln and has written extensively 
about Lincoln as a lawyer. 
Guy Fraker’s new book is the third in a series that offers guided tours of 
Lincoln sites in Illinois. Specifically, Fraker leads us around central Illi-
nois on the Eighth Judicial Circuit during the height of Lincoln’s circuit-
riding practice. The guide provides valuable information about high-
ways, roads, and streets, including a key to different types of markers 
and wayside exhibits. Many illustrations show readers the people and 
places Lincoln experienced. Fraker demonstrates that Lincoln’s time on 
the circuit served two important purposes: building a substantial law 
practice while also creating a network of political operatives.  
 Fraker does not delve into scholarly issues related to Lincoln’s law 
practice, but this book is not meant for that. The purpose is to hold 
the reader’s hand while Fraker points out many Lincoln sites in a very 
well-done driving and walking tour of Lincoln’s circuit law practice. 
The book provides tidbits about some of Lincoln’s cases and personal 
interactions—not enough to know full details, but enough to whet the 
appetite. As a result, a larger “For Further Reading” section would 
have been helpful to direct readers to some of those cases. Surprisingly 
absent were the two Papers of Abraham Lincoln publications on 
Lincoln’s law practice. The four-volume book edition, particularly, has 
two in-depth tours of Lincoln’s circuit. Minor quibbles aside, Fraker 
succeeds in giving readers a taste of what life was like on the circuit 
with Lincoln, whose practice mirrored that of many attorneys in the 
Midwest. 
 
 
Making an Antislavery Nation: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Battle over Freedom, 
by Graham A. Peck. Urbana, Champaign, and Chicago: University of 
Illinois Press, 2017. ix, 264 pp. Maps, appendix, notes, index. $34.95 
hardcover. 
Reviewer Stephen Hansen is emeritus dean and professor of history at 
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. He is the author of The Making 
of the Third Party System: Voters and Parties in Illinois, 1850–1876 (1980). 
In this study of the rise of antislavery politics, Graham A. Peck uses 
Illinois as the context for examining the political conflict over slavery 
from the Northwest Ordinance in 1787 to the election of Abraham 


English

Before Dred Scott: Slavery and Legal Culture in the American Confluence, 1787-1857

Morgan, Emily Kathryn

Striking Images:
Photographs of Iowa
Packinghouse Labor Conflict, 1948–1960

Review of: "A Great State Fair: The Blue Ribbon Foundation and the Revival of the Iowa State Fair," by William B. Friedricks

Kramme, Michael

Book Reviews and Notices      107 
Walsh provides historical context before detailing Ray’s role in helping 
both populations. In the case of the “boat people,” Ray was moved by 
Ed Bradley’s 60 Minutes television report. Ray and five other governors 
visited Khmer camps in October 1979. On the day they visited Sa Khaeo, 
50 people died (135). 
 Governor Ray was Christian enough to have compassion for refu-
gee populations, conservative enough (by 1970s standards) to be strate-
gic about resettling them in a fashion palatable to Iowans, and savvy 
enough to anticipate and blunt criticism. Ray’s Iowa SHARES (Sends 
Help to Aid Refugees and End Starvation) program, launched over the 
1979 Thanksgiving weekend, invited Iowans to buy a “share” in hu-
manity for $2.20, the price of a bushel of corn. Ray’s goal of $115,000 
was nearly quadrupled, a sign of his moral and political leadership. By 
1980, Ray was playing a crucial role in the creation of the Refugee Act 
of 1980, which guaranteed three years of federal support to states for 
the refugees they welcomed. 
 Walsh dedicates chapters to the perspectives of refugees and the 
sponsors who worked and lived alongside them. These chapters fit very 
comfortably in the broader literature of immigration and Southeast 
Asian refugee history. Shedding little new thematic light for scholars, 
they are nonetheless indispensable in the telling of this specific story. 
Walsh’s book is as much about refugee agency as it is about Ray’s leader-
ship; the short shrift given those accounts in this review does not reflect 
their importance to our understanding of this subject. 
 Weaving oral history with state records and broader historical lit-
erature into a first-rate yet accessible, short narrative, Matthew Walsh 
effectively makes the case for Robert Ray’s greatness and Iowa’s unique 
role in the resettlement of Southeast Asian refugees. 
 
 
A Great State Fair: The Blue Ribbon Foundation and the Revival of the Iowa 
State Fair, by William B. Friedricks. Des Moines: Business Publications 
Corporation, 2017. x, 178 pp. Illustrations, note on sources, notes, index. 
$20.00 paperback. 
Reviewer Michael Kramme is professor emeritus of theater at Culver Stock-
ton College in Canton, Missouri. His most recent books are The Governors 
of Iowa, The Schaffner Players, and Images of America: Washington, Iowa. 
William B. Friedricks begins his book by acknowledging several recent 
books about the Iowa State Fair, explaining that his focus is on the story 
of the Iowa State Fair Blue Ribbon Foundation. He begins by giving a 
brief history of the fair. The first two fairs were held in Fairfield. Later 
fairs were held in Muscatine, Oskaloosa, Iowa City, Dubuque, Burling- 
108      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
ton, Clinton, Keokuk, and Cedar Rapids before moving permanently to 
Des Moines in 1879. During the first two decades of the twentieth cen-
tury, the Fair Board erected several Beaux-Arts buildings, including 
Exposition Hall, Machinery Hall, Administration Building, Agriculture 
Building, Livestock Pavilion, Women’s and Children’s Building, and 
livestock barns. Through the years, additional buildings, both perma-
nent and temporary, were added to the grounds. 
  In 1980 the Women’s and Children’s Building (1914) was in great 
disrepair. It would have taken $700,000 to renovate the structure. The 
Fair Board did not have enough funds for the project, so the building 
was razed. Many of the fair’s other iconic buildings were also in disre-
pair, including the Administration, Agriculture, and Varied Industries 
buildings, the grandstand, and the 1920s Ye Old Mill. This was a wake-
up call for the preservation of other buildings on the fairgrounds.  
 The Fair Board formed the Iowa State Fair Foundation. Its purpose 
was specifically to raise money for the fair and fairgrounds. After a slow 
start, it was reformed in 1993. Soon the Blue Ribbon Foundation was 
incorporated with John Putney as its first director, a position he held for 
several years. The first major success came in 1997, when Des Moines 
businessman Bill Knapp agreed to donate one million dollars. Other do-
nations followed, and the foundation’s coffers grew. 
 Members of the foundation began to educate legislators about the 
program. Many legislators were unaware that the state owned the fair-
grounds. After much lobbying, the legislature agreed to several funding 
requests. A series of events and special programs followed, including 
the “Corndog Checkoff” passed by the legislature, allowing citizens to 
contribute to the fair on their state income tax forms. Other campaigns 
included “Treasure Our Fair” and “Rebuilding the Dream.” “The Corn-
dog Kickoff,” a pre-fair party, became an annual event. 
 As the improvements continued, the fair’s popularity increased to 
over one million visitors each year. After only a decade, the foundation 
helped raise an amazing $53 million for the fair’s facelift. At the time of 
the book’s publication, the foundation had raised over $135 million. As 
a result of the success of the Blue Ribbon Foundation’s continuing ef-
forts, the Iowa State Fair and its grounds have been transformed from 
a shabby embarrassment to a major part of Iowa’s proud heritage. 
 Friedricks’s book on the foundation is well illustrated, although a 
map of the fairgrounds would have been a good addition. He includes 
detailed documentation and a thorough index. The book might not be 
of interest to the average fair enthusiast, but it would be enjoyed by any-
one interested in a behind-the-scenes story of the restoration of the fair-
grounds and its return to former glory and a bright future. 


A Great State Fair: The Blue Ribbon Foundation and the Revival of the Iowa State Fair

Review of: "Finding Bix: The Life and Afterlife of a Jazz Legend," by Brendan Wolfe

Norling, C. A.

90      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
hone his writing skills in terms of the working-class subject matter he 
later used in his novels. 
 Prout brings to his topic the unusual perspective of a corporate ex-
ecutive: he was from 2000 until 2013 the vice-president of government 
and public affairs for FMC, the Fortune 500 Corporation he joined in 
1979. However, when Coxey’s Crusade for Jobs was published in 2016 the 
author was visiting professor of political science at Marquette Univer-
sity. He does not reveal how or why he became interested enough in 
the Coxey phenomenon during his time as a business executive to write 
a book about it, yet Prout clearly has produced a highly informative and 
entirely satisfying study of the contribution of Coxey’s “Industrial 
Army” to the history of American protest.  
 By the way, the author includes 24 pages of highly informative chap-
ter notes; however, they appear densely compressed by type so small that 
my aging eyes needed a magnifying glass to study them. Yet it would 
be a mistake for serious readers to ignore them: the notes contain valuable 
additional details on the Coxey phenomenon and its context in Gilded 
Age America.  
 
 
Finding Bix: The Life and Afterlife of a Jazz Legend, by Brendan Wolfe. Iowa 
City: University of Iowa Press, 2017. ix, 235 pp. Illustrations, notes, index. 
$24.95 paperback. 
Reviewer C. A. Norling is a graduate student in musicology at the Univer-
sity of Iowa.  
Simultaneously pitied and idolized, jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke ac-
quired an increasingly discordant legend after his premature death in 
the summer of 1931. The 28-year-old Davenport native, a noted alco-
holic, was likely at the peak of his career when he succumbed to sudden 
and still highly debated causes. Despite having worked for both Jean 
Goldkette and the presumed “King of Jazz,” Paul Whiteman, Beider-
becke was scarcely a public figure in his own time. The ensuing dec-
ades, however, saw heightened admiration for and musical imitation of 
his recorded solos, bringing about a decidedly cult-like “Bixophilia.”  
 More than a biographical profile of a famous musician, Brendan 
Wolfe’s Finding Bix chronicles the author’s navigation through a subject 
fraught with misinformation and polarizing opinions. Including topics 
of discography, bibliography, myth-making, and musical canonization, 
Wolfe presents a synthesized reinterpretation of what he calls the 
“Great Bix Myth” (11). He also updates the Beiderbecke discourse with 
new interviews and accounts from internet forums. Although not an 
ideal source for historians and music scholars—Wolfe himself is “not 
Book Reviews and Notices      91 
normally a huge fan of academic papers” (103)—the book’s light, acces-
sible nature is perfect for casual readers and jazz enthusiasts. 
 Perhaps of greatest interest to readers of the Annals of Iowa is the 
book’s overt connection to the Hawkeye State. A text by an Iowan, about 
an Iowan, and published by the University of Iowa Press may inherently 
reflect its surroundings, yet Finding Bix provides more than mere refer-
ences to Iowa. With a particular focus on Davenport, Wolfe recontextu-
alizes the famously agricultural state in terms of regional modernity and 
challenges the established story of a seemingly provincial cornetist’s 
“emerg[ence] from the cornfields” (11). By no means a “cultural back-
water,” claims Wolfe, Davenport was not “entirely the caricature that 
many historians and biographers have rendered” (22). A prominent 
river and railway center since the mid-nineteenth century, it was a thriv-
ing industrial metropolis during Beiderbecke’s formative years. Much 
like New Orleans, Davenport, with its historically intemperate sensibili-
ties toward alcohol and adult entertainment, created its own burgeoning 
jazz scene that attracted musicians on the Mississippi’s riverboat circuit. 
Wolfe’s subsequent presentation of Beiderbecke’s early performance op-
portunities and musical encounters in Iowa mocks the flawed percep-
tions of previous biographers, a theme that recurs throughout the book. 
 Finding Bix is not without concerns, however. With mostly short, 
sporadic chapters, the book lacks an effective organizational cohesion. 
The modest page count, encompassing nearly 50 discrete chapters, is 
forced into sections that are too brief for adequate development. The 
resulting string of arguments is regularly interrupted and left open-
ended, thus stifling rhetorical momentum and requiring repeated back-
tracking. Instances of disconnected thoughts could have been mitigated 
by longer, sustained chapters with plainly defined criteria. Secondarily, 
Wolfe’s writing, while refreshingly lively and conversational, suffers 
from hyper-colloquial idioms that distort his otherwise clear authorial 
voice. Phrases such as “artsy-fartsy” (25), “up pops a band of Johnny-
come-latelies” (85), and “gotten all Hoagy Carmichael about it” (10), 
even when used sarcastically, color the text as unnecessarily campy.  
 Critiques notwithstanding, Finding Bix is an entertaining narrative 
that addresses the ambiguous and rather convoluted nature of jazz his-
toriography. By organizing dissonant sources and, at times, subverting 
prior inaccuracies, Wolfe formulates a new, personal sketch of the late 
jazz musician. Readers will undoubtedly glean valuable historical con-
texts for Beiderbecke’s life and musical output, Iowa’s urban develop-
ment, and the ever-mythologizing culture of jazz fandom. “Bix is a spec-
ter,” claims Wolfe, “flitting in and out of the snaps and pops of a wax 
record. . . . He is a shadow” (8).  


Finding Bix: The Life and Afterlife of a Jazz Legend

Review of: "The Fighting Sullivans: How Hollywood and the Military Make Heroes," by Bruce Kuklick

Thompson Hajdik, Anna

102      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
knowledge joyfully. These are not the pedantic notes of a critic, but the 
enthusiastic comments of a supportive scholar. No one with interest in 
the region should skip his footnotes. They testify volubly to the fact that 
descriptive writing and scholarly analysis have, in fact, continued in 
and about the Midwest even as it moved to what Lauck regretfully 
characterizes as “the ragged edge” of American culture. 
 
 
The Fighting Sullivans: How Hollywood and the Military Make Heroes, by 
Bruce Kuklick. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2017. xi, 212 pp. 
Maps, illustrations, notes, bibliographical essay, index. $27.95 hardcover. 
Reviewer Anna Thompson Hajdik is a full-time lecturer in the English De-
partment and Film Studies program at the University of Wisconsin–White-
water. She is the author of “ ‘You Really Ought to Give Iowa a Try’: Tourism, 
Community Identity, and the Impact of Popular Culture in Iowa” (Online 
Journal of Rural Research and Policy, 2009). 
Bruce Kuklick brings together various elements of biography, commu-
nity history/memory, and the broader currents of twentieth-century 
American history through the lens of the “Fighting Sullivans,” five 
brothers who lost their lives together on the USS Juneau during the 
naval battle of Guadalcanal in November 1942. But this is far from a 
simple story. Rather, it is fraught with contradiction and controversy 
and lays bare the many tensions between nation and region, family and 
community, and even propaganda and truth. Ultimately, as Kuklick 
writes in his introduction, it is a book that “shows how narratives of the 
heroic are constructed and why we need them” (3).  
 Kuklick’s work is at its strongest when he places the Sullivans’ story 
in context with such topics as the shifting fortunes of the American war 
effort in 1943–44, Hollywood’s influence on the home front, and the 
postindustrial decline of Waterloo, Iowa. Chapters 8–11 are especially 
valuable, as Kuklick traces the history of Hollywood’s treatment of the 
Sullivan family, turning to such rich archival sources as correspondence 
among movie executives, the film’s director (Lloyd Bacon), various 
screenwriters, and family matriarch Alletta Sullivan. Script treatments 
and various promotional materials also prove to be especially rich ar-
chival documents. Ultimately, the film became much more of a home-
front story, centering on an idyllic family and its strong Catholic faith, 
in stark contrast to the reality of the actual Sullivan family. As Kuklick 
argues, the persuasive power of Hollywood was much greater in the 
1940s than it is now, shaping “morality, politics, and attitudes towards 
social problems” (96).  
 Much of the Sullivans’ story takes place in Waterloo, Iowa, the fam-
ily’s hometown. The author chronicles the family’s working-class exist- 
Book Reviews and Notices      103 
ence, heartbreak, and tragic notoriety from the early twentieth century 
to the present against the backdrop of the rising and declining fortunes 
of that blue-collar, industrial city. The book is a bit weaker when the au-
thor sets out to uncover just who the “real Sullivans” were, concluding 
ultimately and perhaps somewhat unconvincingly that prior to their 
entry into the war the majority of folks in Waterloo who actually knew 
them saw the five men as either unambitious louts or mischievous 
hoodlums. The reality of course is lost to history, as most of the Sulli-
vans’ contemporaries are now gone. Kuklick’s actual evidence proves 
thin, consisting mostly of the town’s admittedly anemic response to the 
brothers’ deaths soon after the sinking of the USS Juneau. A more nu-
anced and balanced portrayal of the Sullivan brothers might have been 
appropriate. Still, Kuklick’s discussion of Waterloo’s response to the 
brothers’ collective sacrifice decades later is fascinating and worthy of 
attention.  
 In the 1990s, for example, Waterloo rode a wave of World War II 
nostalgia that resulted in the founding of a multimillion-dollar veterans 
museum named for the brothers. A highly engaged group of World 
War II veterans from across the country, along with more limited sup-
port from the city, helped make this possible. Steven Spielberg’s release 
of the World War II drama Saving Private Ryan (1998) furthered the 
legend of the Sullivan family’s collective sacrifice. Meanwhile, the city 
itself had hit some hard economic times, as postindustrial decline accel-
erated after the 1960s and resulted in the closure of meatpacking plants 
and other associated businesses. As Kuklick notes, “In the first part of 
the twentieth century, when the town was up, the family was down; 
at the end of the century, when Waterloo was down, the Sullivans were 
up” (166).  
 Ultimately, The Fighting Sullivans is a valuable work of cultural 
history. It spotlights a story that suffers tremendously from decades of 
calculated mythmaking and attempts to unpack and deconstruct those 
myths. It would be especially relevant as a text for courses that focus on 
Iowa history, World War II, or twentieth-century American history. 
 
 
Teacher Strike! Public Education and the Making of a New American Political 
Order, by Jon Shelton. The Working Class in American History Series. 
Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2017. xii, 274 pp. Notes, bibliog-
raphy, index. $95.00 hardcover, $27.95 paperback, $25.16 ebook. 
Reviewer John W. McKerley is a research associate at the University of 
Iowa Labor Center. He is researching the Keokuk teachers strike of 1970 and 
the origins of Iowa’s Public Employment Relations Act. 


The Fighting Sullivans: How Hollywood and the Military Make Heroes

Review of: "The Great War Comes to Wisconsin: Sacrifice, Patriotism, and Free Speech in a Time of Crisis" by Richard L. Pife

Lindaman, Matthew

434      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
 In this new guide to decoding the symbolism found on grave mark-
ers, longtime Iowa historians Loren Horton and Michael Zahs draw on 
their experience exploring the midwestern cultural landscape. In sepa-
rate chapters, they examine different symbols, from doves and gates to 
trumpets and urns, before looking at what particular types of flora, 
crosses, and military emblems mean. All of these are well illustrated 
with photographs and biblical references. A nod to Jewish and Muslim 
iconography, perhaps when looking at hands, stars, or moons, might 
have hinted at other traditions. The authors also explore the materials 
used for markers and add two interesting chapters on zinc monuments 
(called “White Bronze”) and Andera iron crosses cast in Spillville, both 
commonly found around the state. A glossary of cemetery terms and a 
bibliography of nineteenth-century books on funerary symbolism com-
plete the book.  
 Other works, such as Douglas Keister’s Stories in Stone (2004), delve 
into this topic more exhaustively, often with an eastern focus, but this 
field guide is a valuable resource for any midwesterner interested in read-
ing the historic landscape and deciphering this lost language of symbols.  
 
 
The Great War Comes to Wisconsin: Sacrifice, Patriotism, and Free Speech in 
a Time of Crisis, by Richard L. Pifer, with Marjorie Hannon Pifer. Madison: 
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2017. 296 pp. Illustrations, map, 
notes, index. $26.95 paperback. 
Reviewer Matthew Lindaman is professor of history and chair of the history 
department at Winona State University. He is the author of Fit for America: 
Major John L. Griffith & the Quest for Athletics and Fitness (2018). 
Coinciding with the centenary remembrance of America’s entry into the 
Great War, Richard L. Pifer provides a thorough account of how numer-
ous individuals, ethnic groups, and institutions in Wisconsin negotiated 
the first “total war” of the twentieth century. His goal was to capture 
“the essence of the home front experience” in all its complexities (1). As 
a result, the book does not contain a strong thesis but rather a strong 
central message: that “the experience of Wisconsin’s people during 
World War I suggests that fighting a major war, particularly a ‘total war’ 
requiring mobilization of the entire society is a complex and risky busi-
ness” (240). Of course, that held true nationwide but was particularly 
acute in the Badger State, which hung its hat on the tradition of mid-
western isolationism, contained multiple ethnic groups, and boasted a 
strong Progressive wing of the Republican Party, along with an active 
Socialist Party.  
Book Reviews and Notices      435 
 The author’s appreciation of Wisconsin’s diversity shines through-
out the book. That diversity included a rich agricultural and industrial 
heritage, immigrant groups such as German Americans and Scandina-
vian Americans, and a palette of political ideas ranging from moderates 
to progressives and socialists. The sum of these threads made the mo-
saic fabric of Wisconsin productive and strong while ever evolving. An 
open attitude toward diverse opinions and a tolerance for new or com-
peting ideas was the key, but that tradition was put under threat as 
America entered the war.  
 Chapter one of the book begins with an overview of Wisconsin in 
1914, detailing the main agricultural and economic engines, the variety 
of ethnic groups, and the diversity of political actors, including Robert M. 
La Follette from the Progressive wing of the Republican Party and Victor 
Berger, a key player in the Socialist Party, which rested on strong sup-
port out of Milwaukee. This background chapter is key to understand-
ing how the evolving nature of each group, institution, or individual 
was challenged once America entered the war. 
 The remainder of the book is divided into four chapters, each of 
which could be a stand-alone article or merit a separate book. Chapter 
two covers the immediate lead-up to and America’s entry into what 
was previously viewed as a European conflict. Chapter three moves 
through a step-by-step review of the wartime experience of the 32nd 
Division, a division containing the largest concentration of Wisconsin 
troops. Both chapters are supported by a diverse and creative selection 
of primary sources. For example, to discern the pulse of a section of 
Wisconsin’s populace during the build-up to America’s entry, Pifer 
uses constituent letters sent to U.S. Representative John Esch, while di-
ary entries and letters home provide a lens through which one can view 
the soldier experience and its impact on families on the home front. 
 Chapter four surveys life on the home front. Here the author does 
an outstanding job of providing a succinct review of the national con-
text before moving on to how any given issue played out in Wisconsin. 
This chapter also includes the nastiness associated with home front vig-
ilantes, anti-immigrant (especially anti–German American) sentiment, 
and the associated threat to civil liberties, thus offering the opportunity 
to compare with similar events taking place in other neighboring states 
such as Minnesota and Iowa. 
 Chapter five provides an excellent summary of Wisconsin politics 
during the war. It is also the chapter that brings the book together as 
Pifer studies six prominent Wisconsin politicians and how they negoti-
ated the politically charged atmosphere of wartime Wisconsin. He ar-
436      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
gues that four of the politicians—Governor Emanuel Philipp, Milwau-
kee’s Socialist mayor Daniel Hoan, founding member of the Socialist 
Party of America Victor Berger, and Senator Robert M. La Follette—
“gave voice to reason” as “they tried to lead with humanity and respect 
for people and the law (238), attributes the author underscores as im-
portant for a democracy and the overall reputation of the state as “the 
war demonstrated the frightening fragility of civil liberties” (3). 
 Pifer, retired from his position as Director of Reference and Public 
Services for the Library-Archives Division of the Wisconsin Historical 
Society, credits his wife, Marjorie Hanon Pifer, as a historical analyst for 
the book. Together, they mined the archives of Wisconsin for a rich va-
riety of primary sources, including photographs and political cartoons. 
The cartoons alone merit a separate book and make theirs all the more 
fascinating while underscoring the visual nature of war on the home 
front. The book will appeal to readers interested in World War I home 
fronts but also to those interested in the history of civil liberties, immi-
gration, and politics in the upper Midwest.  
 
 
Letters from the Boys: Wisconsin World War I Soldiers Write Home, by Carrie 
A. Meyer. Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2018. viii, 223 pp. 
Illustrations, notes, index. $19.95 paperback. 
Reviewer Matthew J. Margis is a historian at the U.S. Army Center of Mili-
tary History in Washington, D.C. He earned a Ph.D. in history from Iowa 
State University in 2016 with a dissertation on the evolution of the National 
Guard during the Progressive Era. 
The United States experienced a renewed interest in World War I dur-
ing the centennial of American entrance into the war. Carrie Meyer’s 
Letters from the Boys tells the story of the Wisconsin doughboy experi-
ence through their own words. She reproduces a series of letters pub-
lished from 1917 to 1919 in two Wisconsin newspapers (the Independent 
Register and the Brodhead News). 
 Part one of the book recounts the experiences of various soldiers 
in the 32nd Division who volunteered for service in the Wisconsin Na-
tional Guard, from their enlistment through the postwar occupation of 
Germany. Part two follows Roger A. Skinner, who enlisted in the am-
bulance corps in 1917. Skinner’s experience as an ambulance driver was 
different from that of his counterparts in the 32nd Division, but his rel-
atively long tour of duty covers the whole of American belligerency and 
provides an overview of the changing nature of the war. 
 The letters throughout the book discuss the monotony of camp life, 
the dangers and harsh conditions of trench warfare, interactions with 


The Great War Comes to Wisconsin: Sacrifice, Patriotism, and Free Speech in a Time of Crisis

Review of: "Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder" by Caroline Frase

Fry, John J.

322      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
Hull’s family without distraction is exacerbated by erratic endnote form 
and by lack of index, bibliography, or, especially, family genealogies. 
 On the book’s last page, Hull recalls his Grandpa Louis Freeman: 
“The day before he died, my wife and I brought our one-year-old son 
to meet his great-grandfather for the first time. I remember him waving 
good-bye to us out his apartment window and feeling sadness at his 
isolation with Grandma gone, no garden or fruit trees to tend, just wait-
ing alone” (428). That is a nugget worth digging for. 
 
 
Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, by Caroline 
Fraser. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2017. xii, 625 pp. Illustrations, 
map, notes, index. $35.00 hardcover. 
Reviewer John J. Fry is professor of history at Trinity Christian College, 
Palos Heights, Illinois. He is the editor of Almost Pioneers (2013) and is 
writing a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder with particular attention to her 
religious faith. 
The Library of America published a two-volume edition of Laura Ingalls 
Wilder’s eight Little House books in 2012. Caroline Fraser was the editor 
of that edition, and she has been writing about Wilder since the 1990s. 
Prairie Fires is the culmination of years of research and careful thought. 
It is by far the most complete and exhaustive biography of Wilder yet 
written, an accomplishment recognized when it was awarded the 2018 
Pulitzer Prize for Biography. 
 Fraser has read just about everything there is to read by and about 
Wilder, including all of Wilder’s published books and unpublished 
manuscripts, and all of the books and articles that have been written 
about Wilder. She also appears to have read all of the works by Wilder’s 
daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, as well. That must have been a herculean 
task: Lane kept a diary, typed reams of letters to friends, published 
dozens of articles in newspapers and magazines, and wrote a number 
of books. Eighty of the Prairie Fires’s 600 pages are footnotes.  
 But the book strives to do more than just chronicle the lives of Wilder 
and Lane. It sets their lives in the contexts of American national history. 
Fraser provides detailed descriptions of the Dakota War of 1862, the 
Homestead Act, and the settlement of the upper Midwest by white 
Americans. She explains how those events both shaped and were re-
flected in Wilder’s life and works. The book also considers how World 
War I, the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and World War II affected 
Wilder’s writing of the Little House books (they were published be-
tween 1932 and 1943). John Miller’s book Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder 
(1998) does some of this contextualization, but Fraser’s work is more 
Book Reviews and Notices       323 
comprehensive. She also has the benefit of nearly 20 more years of Wil-
der scholarship. 
 In a nutshell, Fraser’s interpretation of the settlement of the northern 
Midwest and Great Plains is that thousands of families created an en-
vironmental catastrophe. In many places the land and climate could 
not sustain small farmers, but they attempted to settle there anyway, 
spurred on by advertising and pseudo-scientific ideas (like “rain follows 
the plow”) that led to marginal existence and misery. Family members 
took jobs in town or relied on the support of others, including churches, 
local communities, and state governments. But government leaders fre-
quently withheld support, and those who took it were often ashamed. 
 Fraser also attempts to understand how both Wilder and Lane 
thought. She allows their own words to speak for themselves but also 
provides her own interpretations of their actions. She is more sympa-
thetic to Wilder than to Lane. Wilder is depicted as a woman hardened 
by misfortune but determined to make it on her own, one who loved 
nature and everything in it and who ultimately created a literary master-
piece for children. Her detailed descriptions, her feel for her own life and 
for her characters, and her love for her father all make the Little House 
books juvenile classics. By hard work she secured her family’s economic 
security. 
 The book’s depiction of Lane is much less positive. Throughout she 
is described as mixing the truth and fiction: in her articles for “yellow” 
newspapers during the 1910s and 1920s, in her fictional “biographies” of 
great men, in her work with her mother’s life story, and in her personal 
correspondence. She was never able to manage money, and she suffered 
from depression and perhaps deeper mental illness. By the end of her 
life she had let her libertarian ideology take over her understanding of 
reality. Fraser gives Lane credit for editing and improving the Little 
House books, making them publishable and memorable, but she sees 
Wilder’s writing as driving the books’ popularity and staying power. 
 The book is divided into three parts that describe the life created by 
Wilder’s family in the upper Midwest, the life she and her husband cre-
ated together in Missouri, and the life that she and Lane created in print. 
This is a helpful organization, though the book might have benefited 
from more explicit explanation of this division of Wilder’s life. The tone 
of the prose can also be somewhat abrasive. Fraser has little patience for 
those in the past who opposed government support for those in finan-
cial need. At times that impatience extends to large numbers of Ameri-
cans in the past whom she sees as misguided. The reading experience 
would be improved by more empathy for those living in rural areas and 
small towns and those with traditionalist worldviews. 
324      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
 These are minor points, however, in comparison to the accomplish-
ment that the book as a whole represents. Prairie Fires is a monument to 
Fraser’s years of working in the archives and thousands of hours thinking 
about how best to understand the sources. It will be the last word on 
Wilder’s and Lane’s lives for years to come. 
 
 
Billy Sunday, The Baseball Evangelist: The Story of a Remarkable Life, 1862–
1935, by Craig A. Bishop. Collierville, TN: InstantPublisher, 2016. 100 
pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography. $20.00 hardcover. 
Reviewer David Brodnax Sr. is professor of history at Trinity Christian Col-
lege. He is the author of “ ‘Will They Fight? Ask the Enemy’: Iowa’s African 
American Regiment in the Civil War” (Annals of Iowa, 2007). 
In the late 1800s and early 1900s Iowa produced what may have been a 
disproportionately large number of professional baseball participants, 
including seven Hall of Famers. Perhaps the most famous of them all 
achieved his greatest fame off the diamond. The life of Billy Sunday, 
who was born the orphaned son of a Civil War veteran and went from 
a middling major leaguer to America’s leading Christian evangelist, is 
the focus of this self-published book by ministry leader and politician 
Craig A. Bishop.  
 The book consists largely of photographs and quotes from news-
paper articles about Sunday’s travels and speeches interspersed with 
Bishop’s descriptions of his life based on newspaper articles and maga-
zine biographies. This is followed by information about Billy Sunday 
landmarks, a brief account of Billy Graham (who was converted by men 
who knew Sunday), and interviews of fellow evangelicals who knew 
Sunday or his associates or whose deceased friends and family mem-
bers did. 
 Although Bishop states that his goal is to “tell the story of a man 
who had a profound influence in our life and culture in America,” he 
also injects his religious and political viewpoints into the past world in 
which Sunday lived (5). All historical scholarship reflects the values of 
its authors, but this is usually implicit. Bishop, on the other hand, asserts 
that theological liberals issued “false teachings” and that “Roosevelt’s 
views of a large federal government were dangerous, socialist and anti-
American” (61–62). He also theorizes that after Emma Goldman gave an 
anti-Sunday speech, “perhaps God had an answer” because the build-
ing in which she spoke caught fire but collapsed before the homes of 
nearby Christians were damaged. Bishop concludes, “Would this be a 
miracle from God? Coincidence?” (52–53). He is certainly entitled to 
these beliefs, but his explicit mention of them further highlights the 


Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder

Review of "Fixin the Poor: Eugenic Sterilization and Child Welfare in the Twentieth Century" by Molly Ladd-Taylo

Rembis, Michael

Book Reviews and Notices      215 
That theory is based largely on the recollection of South African navi-
gator T. E. “Fred” Shaw. Spragg’s detailed timeline of RAF move-
ments in the vicinity of Miller’s flight and fact-checking of anecdotal 
evidence supporting Shaw’s claim thoroughly debunk this theory and 
its underlying assumptions.  
 Glenn Miller Declassified will, of course, be of interest to scholars of 
military history and American music. But it is also an excellent re-
source for understanding broadcasting (both of music and spoken 
word) during World War II. Furthermore, Glenn Miller Declassified will 
be of interest to scholars of Iowa and the Midwest, as Miller was a na-
tive son of Iowa whose musical mind was shaped by the band culture 
of the interwar American heartland.  
 
 
Fixing the Poor: Eugenic Sterilization and Child Welfare in the Twentieth 
Century, by Molly Ladd-Taylor. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University 
Press, 2017. xi, 275 pp. Illustrations, tables, map, graph, appendix, notes, 
index. $54.95 hardcover and ebook. 
Reviewer Michael Rembis is associate professor history and director of 
the Center for Disability Studies at the University at Buffalo (SUNY). He 
is the author of Defining Deviance: Sex, Science, and Delinquent Girls, 1890–
1960 (2011). 
Molly Ladd-Taylor has written a superb history of sterilization in Min-
nesota that has far-reaching implications for the study of both the his-
tory of eugenics in the United States and the history of the practice of 
sterilization throughout the country. Using a mix of archival sources, 
such as state institution records, the Social Welfare History Archives, 
and the collections of organizations such as the Eugenic Record Office, 
the Women’s Welfare League of Minneapolis, and the Association for 
Voluntary Sterilization, as well as published works, such as the memoir 
of Mildred Thomson, who ran the state’s sterilization program for al-
most 35 years (1925–1959) and was instrumental in the creation of the 
Minnesota Association for Retarded Children (MARC) in 1950, Fixing 
the Poor tells the deeply researched and carefully argued story of ster-
ilization in a state that has not been known for its history of eugenics. 
 Because Minnesota’s circuitous path through eugenic sterilization 
(1925–mid-1970s) was not as clearly lit as the more direct experiences 
of some states, such as California, North Carolina, or Virginia, it pro-
vides a unique and valuable opportunity to show how eugenics and 
sterilization were enmeshed as much with state welfare systems as they 
were with prevailing racialized, gendered, and class-based assumptions 
about proper or “fit“ citizenship. As Ladd-Taylor argues throughout 
216      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
the book, “Although historians [of eugenics] have focused on the sur-
geon’s knife, sterilization was just one aspect of a protracted and often 
callous crusade to ‘fix’ the poor” (117). 
 Building on a U.S. eugenics historiography that has been growing 
over the past 30 years, Ladd-Taylor uses her own meticulous research 
and thoughtful approach to write a long history of eugenic steriliza-
tion that stretches from the child welfare and “mother saving” inter-
ventions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, through 
mid–twentieth-century efforts to “normalize” “mentally retarded” 
citizens and selectively sterilize women of color, to the early twenty-
first–century sterilization of women prisoners. Her study shows that 
“in Minnesota [and in certain other locations throughout the country], 
worries about bad heredity and preventing the birth of ‘socially inad-
equate offspring’ were secondary to the more prosaic—and, sadly, 
more enduring—concerns about sex, illegitimacy, ‘bad’ parenting, 
overcrowded public institutions, and the cost of relief” (144). 
 Fixing the Poor is divided into six chapters, with an introduction 
and conclusion. In the introduction, Ladd-Taylor situates the story of 
eugenic sterilization in Minnesota within an expanded understanding 
of the history of eugenics made possible by detailed studies of this 
troubling and often deceptively mundane past both in the United 
States and abroad. The reach of eugenics extended well beyond the 
worst abuses of expert power and state control into the fabric of public 
welfare systems like the one created in Minnesota. Although many 
historians have focused on the abuses of eugenics, Ladd-Taylor inten-
tionally focuses on what she calls a “best-case scenario” in Minnesota 
—the state sterilized 2,350 people out of a total of more than 63,000 
Americans sterilized, and surgical sterilization remained “voluntary” 
in Minnesota—precisely because it reveals the ways the logics of 
eugenics insinuated themselves into twentieth-century social welfare 
policies and practices, often in damaging and discriminatory ways. 
Ladd-Taylor sees eugenics as something more ordinary and perhaps 
more powerful than a desire to create a “master race.” She is one of a 
handful of historians whose reading of the history of eugenics is 
importantly and rightly influenced by the history of disability and of 
disabled people in the United States as well as the disability rights 
movement. As Ladd-Taylor contends, “Eugenic sterilization was never 
only about ‘race betterment’ or social engineering; from the beginning, 
state sterilization policies [like the one in Minnesota] were rooted in a 
chronically underfunded and locally variable public welfare system 
that pathologized persistent poverty and disparaged welfare-dependent 
individuals as mentally incompetent and undeserving” (225–26). 
Book Reviews and Notices      217 
 Readers of the Annals of Iowa may take a special interest in the care 
with which Ladd-Taylor explains the importance of migration and 
settlement to (and within) Minnesota, as well as the state’s colorful 
social and political history in telling the story of eugenic sterilization 
in one upper midwestern state. I highly recommend this book for use 
in undergraduate courses in Minnesota history and in the history of 
eugenics and for graduate students and experts in the field as well as 
general readers interested in learning more about this deeply nuanced 
and troubling past. 
 [For a fascinating account of eugenics and sterilization efforts in 
Iowa, see Amy Vogel, “Regulating Degeneracy: Eugenic Sterilization in 
Iowa, 1911–1977,” Annals of Iowa 54 (1995), 119–43.—Ed.] 
 
 
Mexicans in Wisconsin, by Sergio M. González. Madison: Wisconsin His-
torical Society Press, 2017. People of Wisconsin Series. 144 pp. Illustra-
tions, index. $12.95 paperback.  
Reviewer Janet Weaver is assistant curator at the Iowa Women’s Archives, 
University of Iowa Libraries. She is the author of “From Barrio to ‘¡Boi-
coteo!’: The Emergence of Mexican American Activism in Davenport” 
(Annals of Iowa, 2009). 
Sergio González’s Mexicans in Wisconsin is the latest in a series of 11 
“reader-friendly” books published by the Wisconsin Historical Society 
Press designed to provide concise introductions to the history of Wis-
consin’s diverse immigrants. Joining earlier publications about German, 
Irish, Swedish, Jewish, and other European immigrants to Wisconsin, 
González shines a much-needed spotlight on the migration paths of 
Mexicans to Wisconsin from the late nineteenth century to the present. 
Beginning with musician Raphael Baez, who settled in Milwaukee in 
1896, González concludes with the explosive growth of Wisconsin’s 
Latino population between 1990 and 2010 and the renewal of “anti-
immigrant fervor, this time spurred on by unfounded statements made 
by the Republican candidate Donald Trump” (122). Employing a chron-
ological approach, he integrates Mexicans into the fabric of Wisconsin’s 
social, economic, and labor history, situating their life stories within the 
history of European immigration, war, and civil rights.  
 Well written, engaging, and astute, Mexicans in Wisconsin provides 
insight into the factors that fueled Mexican migration to Wisconsin 
throughout the twentieth century and propelled activism, from the 
social and economic upheaval of the Mexican Revolution to the termi-
nation of the bracero program in 1964. González contextualizes com-
pelling individual and family stories with big-picture analysis that 


Fixin the Poor: Eugenic Sterilization and Child Welfare in the Twentieth Century

Review of "Mexicans in Wisconsin" by Sergio Gonzale

Weaver, Janet

Book Reviews and Notices      217 
 Readers of the Annals of Iowa may take a special interest in the care 
with which Ladd-Taylor explains the importance of migration and 
settlement to (and within) Minnesota, as well as the state’s colorful 
social and political history in telling the story of eugenic sterilization 
in one upper midwestern state. I highly recommend this book for use 
in undergraduate courses in Minnesota history and in the history of 
eugenics and for graduate students and experts in the field as well as 
general readers interested in learning more about this deeply nuanced 
and troubling past. 
 [For a fascinating account of eugenics and sterilization efforts in 
Iowa, see Amy Vogel, “Regulating Degeneracy: Eugenic Sterilization in 
Iowa, 1911–1977,” Annals of Iowa 54 (1995), 119–43.—Ed.] 
 
 
Mexicans in Wisconsin, by Sergio M. González. Madison: Wisconsin His-
torical Society Press, 2017. People of Wisconsin Series. 144 pp. Illustra-
tions, index. $12.95 paperback.  
Reviewer Janet Weaver is assistant curator at the Iowa Women’s Archives, 
University of Iowa Libraries. She is the author of “From Barrio to ‘¡Boi-
coteo!’: The Emergence of Mexican American Activism in Davenport” 
(Annals of Iowa, 2009). 
Sergio González’s Mexicans in Wisconsin is the latest in a series of 11 
“reader-friendly” books published by the Wisconsin Historical Society 
Press designed to provide concise introductions to the history of Wis-
consin’s diverse immigrants. Joining earlier publications about German, 
Irish, Swedish, Jewish, and other European immigrants to Wisconsin, 
González shines a much-needed spotlight on the migration paths of 
Mexicans to Wisconsin from the late nineteenth century to the present. 
Beginning with musician Raphael Baez, who settled in Milwaukee in 
1896, González concludes with the explosive growth of Wisconsin’s 
Latino population between 1990 and 2010 and the renewal of “anti-
immigrant fervor, this time spurred on by unfounded statements made 
by the Republican candidate Donald Trump” (122). Employing a chron-
ological approach, he integrates Mexicans into the fabric of Wisconsin’s 
social, economic, and labor history, situating their life stories within the 
history of European immigration, war, and civil rights.  
 Well written, engaging, and astute, Mexicans in Wisconsin provides 
insight into the factors that fueled Mexican migration to Wisconsin 
throughout the twentieth century and propelled activism, from the 
social and economic upheaval of the Mexican Revolution to the termi-
nation of the bracero program in 1964. González contextualizes com-
pelling individual and family stories with big-picture analysis that 
218      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
holds readers’ attention. He describes conditions that brought Mexi-
cans such as Ismael Cárdenas to work in the fields and factories of 
Wisconsin in the 1920s. Often coming from central Mexico and travel-
ing through the Southwest, Kansas, and Iowa before settling perma-
nently in Wisconsin, this new wave of Mexican immigrants replaced 
earlier European immigrants in the state’s sugar beet fields, foundries, 
tanneries, and railroads. As he addresses how the bracero program 
affected labor migration at mid-century, González analyzes the limita-
tions of New Deal legislation that upheld poverty wages for farm-
workers and the racial discrimination that precluded social mobility 
for many Mexican Americans in Wisconsin. Linking this to local activ-
ism, he explains how Tejano migrant workers fought for better wages 
and working conditions in Wisconsin’s cucumber fields and describes 
the political mobilization led by Jesus Salas that shaped a grassroots 
Chicano farmworker movement in Wisconsin in the 1960s.  
 The rich context of local history and activism that encompasses 
small-town, rural, and urban spaces helps readers understand how Wis-
consin’s Latina/o history is similar to that of other midwestern states. 
Iowa, for example, reflects similar patterns of migration, employment, 
military service, and political activism. While the population of agri-
cultural laborers in Iowa was relatively small in comparison to Wis-
consin, there are nonetheless parallels in patterns of local resistance. 
Both states saw the emergence of midwestern Chicano leaders, Chicana 
feminism, and the formation of numerous community activist organiza-
tions that channeled black-brown and interdenominational solidarities.  
 The lack of footnotes or even a bibliography weakens Mexicans in 
Wisconsin. Although González—a Ph.D. candidate in history at the 
University of Wisconsin–Madison—does incorporate a few sources 
into the text of his narrative, that fails to satisfy the curiosity of readers 
about the original documents from which his insights and assertions 
are drawn. A bibliographical essay would have enabled him to situate 
his work within the context of other compelling scholarship that ad-
dresses Mexicans in Wisconsin, such as The Tejano Diaspora: Mexican 
Americanism and Ethnic Politics in Texas and Wisconsin, by Marc Simon 
Rodriguez (2011).  
 Mexicans in Wisconsin raises awareness of the need for more in-
depth Latina/o histories of midwestern communities. The scholarship 
that is sure to follow will provide a solid base for interpreting the 
distinctive history of the Latina/o Midwest, redefining the field and 
shaping a new understanding of Latina/o and U.S. history.  
 
 


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Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder

Fixin the Poor: Eugenic Sterilization and Child Welfare in the Twentieth Century

Mexicans in Wisconsin

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