The Annals of Iowa

Review of: "From Furs to Farms: The Transformation of the Mississippi Valley, 1762-1825" by John Red

Foley, William E.

Book Reviews and Notices      195 
political geography. Stephen Aron’s American Confluence, which consid-
ered the lands bordering the conjunction of the Missouri, Mississippi, 
and Ohio Rivers comes to mind as a successful example of such a study. 
The idea could be applied to a study of the Galena lead region and its 
impact on the surrounding areas of Iowa and Wisconsin, or to an anal-
ysis of the Quad Cities. It could provide a particularly valuable ap-
proach to a better understanding of Native American history. Krohe’s 
book will be of interest to scholars as an example of lively writing and 
innovative regional history and to lay readers looking for a diverting 
and fascinating perspective on the Prairie State. 
 
 
From Furs to Farms: The Transformation of the Mississippi Valley, 1762–
1825, by John Reda. Early American Places Series. DeKalb: Northern 
Illinois University Press, 2016. xiii, 201 pp. Maps, notes, bibliography, 
index. $38.00 hardcover.  
Reviewer William E. Foley is professor of history emeritus at the Uni-
versity of Central Missouri. He is the author of Wilderness Journey: The Life 
of William Clark (2004) and The Genesis of Missouri: From Wilderness Outpost 
to Statehood (1989). 
John Reda’s carefully crafted account of the region once known as the 
Illinois Country details its transformation from a multiracial, multicul-
tural borderland powered by a thriving fur trade to a place where agri-
cultural cultivation by white American farmers was the driving force. 
Between 1762 and 1825 powerful indigenous nations competed with 
French, Spanish, English, and, eventually, American powers for control 
in the territory encompassing the present-day states of Illinois and Mis-
souri, but Reda contends that imperial clashes mattered far less than 
economic forces in the quest to establish sovereignty over the region.  
 Notwithstanding the river barrier separating Illinois and Missouri, 
Reda makes a compelling case for viewing both as parts of a coherent 
society linked by common historical experiences. In the late eighteenth 
century the fur trade tied French settlers on both sides of the river to 
their indigenous neighbors. Following the Seven Years War, British 
officials staked a claim to land on the Mississippi’s east bank while 
Spanish authorities sought to establish control on the west side, but 
their ambitious imperial designs fell short of the mark as long as native 
people remained a dominant force and the fur trade held sway. 
 Conditions began to change in the wake of an onslaught of agricul-
turally oriented Americans who settled on both sides of the Mississippi 
following the American Revolution and the Louisiana Purchase. Their 
arrival hastened a decline in the fur trade, intensified demands for the 
196      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
appropriation of Indian lands, and paved the way for their incorpora-
tion within the American republic. The War of 1812 brought increased 
violence to the area and further complicated relationships among 
Native Americans, white traders, and white settlers. The agreement to 
conclude hostilities left many of the conflict’s precipitating factors un-
resolved, but the war and its aftermath accelerated the fur trade’s mar-
ginalization. Even as the economic transformation from furs to farms 
proceeded apace, inhabitants of the Illinois Country had not fully 
attached themselves to the American government. Inadequate federal 
support for the war effort left many white settlers alienated and un-
happy with the territorial authorities. But that was about to change. 
 Assurances that the American regime would safeguard the white 
settlers’ personal security, uphold their property rights, and maintain 
white supremacy won them over. After securing promises of loyalty 
from the settlers, the U.S. government successfully imposed its au-
thority in a place where others had failed. The process was lengthy 
and complicated and came at the expense of the Native Americans and 
Métis forcibly removed from their lands and the enslaved Africans 
retained in bondage. Tragically, the subjugation of non-whites was an 
all-too-common element in America’s story.  
 As Illinois and Missouri advanced toward statehood, societal fis-
sures created new challenges for governing officials. The contentious 
slavery issue generated intense disagreements on both sides of the river. 
In Illinois the restrictions imposed on slavery by the Northwest Ordi-
nance prompted the institution’s proponents to call for de facto slavery 
in the form of long-term indentures. By contrast, in Missouri, where 
slavery had been legal from its earliest days, its citizens found unity in 
opposing federal attempts to place limitations on the well-entrenched 
institution as a condition for the territory’s admission to the Union.  
 In the post-statehood era, debates over the future of slavery con-
tinued, demands for the forcible dispossession and removal of Native 
people intensified, and fur-trading operations moved farther west. 
Proslavery politicians in Illinois unsuccessfully sought to legalize slavery 
by amending the state’s constitution, while in Missouri state officials 
turned a blind eye to congressional attempts to impose limits on the 
institution. Efforts by Superintendent of Indian Affairs William Clark 
to acquire additional Indian lands by negotiation rather than by vio-
lence found little support locally. Claims by his political opponents 
that he was an Indian lover contributed to his defeat in Missouri’s 
1820 gubernatorial election, but the treaties he negotiated resulted in the 
governmental confiscation of all remaining indigenous landholdings in 
both states, a result that completed the establishment of U.S. authority 
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. 


English

From Furs to Farms: The Transformation of the Mississippi Valley, 1762-1825

Lake, Sharon M.

Nuclear Power on Trial: The Acquittal of the Palo 13

Review of: "Somos Latinas: Voices of Wisconsin Latina Activists" by Andrea-Teresa Arenas and Eloisa Gome

Weaver, Janet

448      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
ment of Mexicans began only after company experiments to employ lo-
cal labor failed. In fact, ethnic Mexicans entered the region in significant 
numbers prior to the 1880s. In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, 
Mexican vaqueros from Texas worked the cattle drives from Texas to 
Kansas during the industrial boom of the era. Before that, starting in 
1821 with the opening of the Santa Fe Trail, Mexican teamsters and traders 
delivered goods between Santa Fe and St. Louis. Still earlier, during the 
United States War of Independence in the 1770s and 1780s, ethnic Mexican 
soldiers representing the Spanish Crown occupied several locations in 
the region. Also in the late eighteenth century, residents of the Louisiana 
Territory under Spanish control, ethnic Mexicans, received land grants 
and established residences in the region. Enterprising and imaginative 
archaeological and anthropological research will elaborate and enhance 
our knowledge of these and earlier links between the ancestors of Lati-
nas/os and the region currently referred to as the Midwest.  
 Regarding the issue of identity, some of the authors problematize 
the terms Latino, Latina, and Latina/o but inexplicably neglect the very 
important popular term Latinx, which for many reasons has gained 
widespread acceptance and usage in the twenty-first century.  
 
 
Somos Latinas: Voices of Wisconsin Latina Activists, by Andrea-Teresa 
Arenas and Eloisa Gómez. Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 
2018. xx, 290 pp. Illustrations, appendixes, bibliography, index. $24.95 
paperback. 
Reviewer Janet Weaver is assistant curator at the Iowa Women’s Archives, 
University of Iowa Libraries. She is the author of “Barrio Women: Commu-
nity and Coalition in the Heartland” in Breaking the Wave: Women, Their Or-
ganizations, and Feminism, 1945–1985, edited by Kathleen A. Laughlin and 
Jacqueline L. Castledine (2011). 
Coauthored by Andrea-Teresa Arenas and Eloisa Gómez, Somos Latinas 
brings to light the powerful life stories of 25 Wisconsin Latina activists 
to underscore the significance of grassroots community activism in 
making change from the 1950s to the present. Through the lens of these 
narrators, readers gain insight into the value of a “woman-centered” 
community engagement and the discipline and persistence of these 
madres, whose activism often centered on building community and 
contributing to the good of the whole in the places where they lived. 
It is entirely fitting that the foreword to Somos Latinas is written by 
renowned Chicana civil rights activist Dolores Huerta, whose lifelong 
advocacy on behalf of farmworkers and women began with her first-
hand experience in community organizing through the Community 
Service Organization (CSO) in California.  
Book Reviews and Notices      449 
 The book is arranged in two sections. The first and largest section 
comprises the edited interview transcripts of the 25 women featured in 
Somos Latinas. In the second section, the authors return to the narrators 
for a second round of interviews around three key themes: the im-
portance of role models and support systems, the motivations propel-
ling their activism, and the risks they took. This section does not include 
the interpretive analysis and historical framework that some readers 
might expect, but the authors hope that it will “open up new opportu-
nities for research on Latina activism” (229). 
 Collectively, the voices of the women in Somos Latinas provide in-
spiration for a new generation of activists and a role model of what 
community activism is and why it matters. Core values of fairness, hon-
esty, and commitment propelled these women to action across a broad 
range of human rights issues. As Teresita Neris explains, “A group can 
make positive changes with a goal in mind to make a better life through 
freedom, justice, and a sustainable society” (143). Whether their activism 
was under the radar or overt, their stories are all the more compelling 
because they represent the experiences of a broad cross-section of 
Latinas in the Midwest whose history is underrepresented in archival 
repositories and mainstream historical narratives.  
 The interviews are drawn from a larger collection of oral histories 
recorded for the Somos Latinas Digital History Project between 2012 
and 2015 by undergraduate students in the Chican@ and Latin@ Studies 
Program (CLS) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The complete 
interviews and related materials are preserved in the Somos Latinas 
Project and Collected Papers at the Wisconsin Historical Society. An in-
structor in the CLS program, Andrea-Teresa Arenas taught community-
based research courses to involve students in conducting research and 
interviews for the project. The students recorded a total of 46 interviews 
in different parts of Wisconsin with assistance from professional vide-
ographer Linda Garcia Merchant. The Somos Latinas Project serves as 
a model for the central importance of service learning in involving stu-
dents in the process of research and interviewing through the Office of 
Service Learning and Community Based Research, directed by Arenas. 
It would be interesting to connect with these students in the future and 
see what impact their involvement in the project has had on their lives. 
 Somos Latinas sets an exemplary standard in highlighting the value 
of community-based learning in recovering and preserving for posterity 
the hidden voices of Wisconsin Latinas and their model of community-
based activism.  
 
 


Somos Latinas: Voices of Wisconsin Latina Activists

Review of: "Farming across Borders: A Transnational History of the North American West" by Sterling Evan

Hurt, R. Douglas

316      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
have questioned, even repudiated, most elements of the “thesis.” 
Turner’s “safety valve,” associated here with Horace Greeley, suggested 
that “the pressures of unemployment and poverty building up in east-
ern cities” would be released once people migrated westward (195). But 
relocating can be prohibitive for poor people, a point Anschutz makes 
in his discussion of Benjamin “Pap” Singleton’s work to move black 
families to Kansas after the Civil War. To his credit, and unlike Turner, 
Anschutz includes women and people of color in describing individual 
success in the West. As he measures achievement, he considers not only 
what people gained by going west, but also what they contributed to 
the region. Father Junípero Serra established Franciscan missions in Cal-
ifornia that “underpinned European and American civilization in the 
West” (131); Abigail Scott Duniway traveled the Oregon Trail in 1852 to 
become an important voice for woman suffrage; and architect Mary 
Colter popularized the Pueblo Revival style of architecture. Anschutz’s 
affection for the West extends to his extensive art collection, the basis for 
Denver’s American Museum of Western Art, and he interlaces the book 
with examples. Not surprisingly, then, his discussions of George Catlin, 
Frederick Remington, and other well-known painters are quite good.  
 As in his first book, Anschutz often draws simplistic conclusions and 
is prone to overstatement, but his idea of what the West represents is em-
bedded in American life. It is an image many readers probably share.  
 
 
Farming across Borders: A Transnational History of the North American 
West, edited by Sterling Evans. Connecting the Greater West Series. 
College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2017. xxv, 460 pp. Maps, 
illustrations, tables, notes, bibliography, index. $65.00 hardcover. 
Reviewer R. Douglas Hurt is head of the Department of History at Purdue 
University. He is the author of many works, especially about the history of 
agriculture, the Great Plains, and the West, most recently Food and Agricul-
ture during the Civil War (2016). 
Historians have given considerable attention to specific areas of west-
ern agricultural history, particularly migrant labor, cattle ranching, and 
water. Scholarship dating to the 1930s has also focused on commodities. 
In this sense, Farming across Borders does not, despite the editor’s claim, 
break new ground for historical inquiry. It does, however, provide an 
important integration of selected subjects, the scholarship and story of 
which crosses international boundaries with Canada and Mexico. This 
context expands our knowledge of well-covered subjects, and, in most 
cases, the essays contribute new knowledge about farming in the North 
American West. 
Book Reviews and Notices       317 
 Sterling Evans has compiled a collection of 19 essays arranged in six 
parts. The essays are nearly equally apportioned to emphasize Ca-
nadian, Mexican, and American topics with as much cross-border inte-
gration and detail as the authors considered possible. Evans recognizes 
that political boundaries, in contrast to geography and the environment, 
often do not determine history. Political boundaries do matter, however, 
when historians consider issues of national importance such as settle-
ment, land policy, and government regulations of farming activities. In 
this collection Evans has arranged the essays in sections titled (1) Agri-
cultural Connections across North America, (2) Commodity Histories 
in the Borderlands, (3) A Sense of Place for Ranching and Farming in 
the North American Borderlands, (4) Agricultural Labor in the US-
Mexico Borderlands, (5) Agricultural Labor in the US-Canada Border-
lands, and (6) Agriculture and Transborder Water Issues. 
 No collection of essays can cover everything. A publisher’s space 
limitations often limit what an author or editor can do, although critics 
often do not understand this. With this book, however, the Texas A&M 
University Press has been generous. The result is an important collec-
tion of essays, many of which are significant and create new knowledge; 
most are useful. Evans provides a helpful, brief introduction to each 
section, after which readers can find essays on grain production, cattle 
raising, flax, colonization, chili peppers, ranching, the tomato industry, 
braceros, hops, farm organizations, custom cutting, irrigation, and labor 
for pecan shelling, cotton picking, and sugar beet production. The au-
thors attempted to provide comparative essays at least for U.S.-Cana-
dian and U.S.-Mexican transnational relationships, but balanced com-
paratives evidently proved difficult. Alicia Dewey’s excellent essay, 
“Ranching across Borders: The Making of a Transnational Cattle Indus-
try in the Texas-Mexico Borderlands, 1749–1945,” for example, is not 
matched with a similar or comparative essay dealing with the cattle 
ranching industry in the northern Great Plains or Canadian prairies. Yet 
an extensive literature exists that could have contributed to an essay 
providing the more balanced transnational inclusion that Evans sought. 
Transnational approaches also can omit significant national develop-
ments that cross borders, such as the matter of groundwater rights in 
the Great Plains, a topic that is not adequately addressed here but that 
is enormously important for agriculture in the region, including the 
U.S.-Mexican borderlands. 
 Five of the essays have been previously published. Almost all 
discuss western topics. Only a few essays deal with agriculture in the 
Midwest. These include Kristin Hoganson’s “Meat in the Middle: 
Converging Borderlands in the US Midwest, 1865–1900,” Joshua D. 
318      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
MacFadyen’s “Flax on the Northern Great Plains and Prairies, 1889–
1930,” Tisa M. Anders and Rosa Elia Cobos’s “The Beatabeleras of West-
ern Nebraska: Gender Labor, and the Beet Sugar Industry,” Jason 
McCollom’s, “ ‘We Are Tied Together . . . in a Hundred Different Ways’: 
Farmers and Farm Organizations across the Forty-Ninth Parallel, 1905–
1915,” Thomas D. Isern and Suzzanne Kelley’s “ ‘Done for Another 
Year’: The Resilience of Canadian Custom Harvesters on the North 
American Plains,” along with a passing nod to the region in Sterling 
Evans’s “Dependent Harvests: Grain Production on the American and 
Canadian Plains and the Double Dependency with Mexico, 1880–1950.” 
The authors of the previously published essays apparently did not have 
the opportunity to update their secondary sources. 
 Overall, Evans has provided a useful collection of essays that deal 
with the agricultural history of the North American West in a trans-
national context. Scholars will find it a ready reference and a good in-
troduction to specific topics. Most of the essays are synthesized based 
on secondary sources. Evans’s call for primary research is justified for 
this expansive, new approach to the agricultural history of the North 
American West. Anyone interested in this field of historical inquiry will 
find Evans’s essay collection a useful read and an important guide for 
future research.  
 
 
The Perfect Fence: Untangling the Meanings of Barbed Wire, by Lyn Ellen 
Bennett and Scott Abbott. Connecting the Great West Series. College 
Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2017. xxiv, 269 pp. Illustrations, 
graph, notes, bibliography, index. $42.00 hardcover. 
Reviewer Wayne Franklin is professor of English, American Studies, and 
Environmental Studies at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. In addition 
to publishing several books on James Fenimore Cooper, he is the author of 
A Rural Carpenter’s World: The Craft in a Nineteenth-Century New York Town-
ship (1990). 
At the start of the 1962 film Lonely Are the Brave, modern cowboy Jack 
Burns encounters a barbed wire fence while riding his horse, Whiskey, 
across the New Mexico landscape. Dismounting, Burns (played by Kirk 
Douglas) snips the wire, opening the closed range and allowing him to 
proceed. The film, directed by David Miller from a script written by the 
once blacklisted Dalton Trumbo, was based on the second novel (The 
Lonely Cowboy, 1957) by a rising star of western literature, Edward 
Abbey. Here is how Abbey himself set up the fence-cutting episode: 
“[Burns] came eventually to a barbed-wire fence, gleaming new wire 
stretched with vibrant tautness between steel stakes driven into the 


Farming across Borders: A Transnational History of the North American West

Review of: "Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times" by Kenneth Whyt

Clements, Kendrick A.

Book Reviews and Notices       325 
differences between his work and conventional historical analysis. He 
briefly cites Roger Bruns’s biography but not William G. McLoughlin’s 
classic study or more recent works by Robert Martin and Margaret 
Bendroth. This newer scholarship has benefited from access to Sunday 
family papers, but Bishop instead cites a Wikipedia article about Sun-
day’s wife. He does not contextualize Billy Sunday within broader social 
changes such as urbanization, twentieth-century evangelical culture, or 
(despite the book’s title and cover photo of Sunday in his baseball uni-
form) the creation of sports celebrity culture. The citations are sparse 
and somewhat disorganized (one footnote number is used twice), some 
of the items listed in the bibliography are not in the citations, and there 
are spelling and grammatical errors. 
 Those interested in facts, newspaper quotes, and photographs 
about the most famous Iowan of the early 1900s will find them in The 
Baseball Evangelist. The book may also be appreciated by those who 
share the author’s values and would use Billy Sunday’s life as a medi-
tation on those values. Those who desire a more scholarly analysis or 
just a thorough and meticulous description, on the other hand, should 
look to one of the other works mentioned in this review. 
  
 
Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times, by Kenneth Whyte. 
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017. xvii, 728 pp. Illustrations, notes, bib-
liography, index. $35.00 hardcover. 
Reviewer Kendrick A. Clements is Distinguished Professor of History 
emeritus at the University of South Carolina, Columbia. He is the author of 
The Life of Herbert Hoover: Imperfect Visionary, 1918–1928 (2010). 
Kenneth Whyte’s Hoover is a thoughtful, well-researched, and well-
written one-volume biography intended especially for the general 
reader. If it should miraculously emerge as the best seller it deserves to 
be, it could transform the reputation of the 31st president. 
 Written in brisk, vigorous language enlivened with flashes of wit, 
Hoover is downright fun to read. Colorful biographical sketches intro-
duce major figures, and concise background summaries of important 
issues make following the story easy. Whyte is skillful in presenting 
both sides of issues fully and impartially, making it easy to understand 
why there was disagreement. Although the author is clearly sympa-
thetic to Hoover’s critique of big government, this is as near an impar-
tial biography of this controversial figure as is likely to be written. And 
interestingly, impartiality serves Hoover well. Few if any other Ameri-
cans can match his remarkable contributions to the nation and the 
world over a half-century of public service. 
326      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
 Yet as we all know, Hoover has never had the popular admiration 
that his career would seem to merit. One basic reason for that seeming 
paradox, Whyte argues, is that Hoover “carried through his days the 
scars of his miserable childhood” (xii). Orphaned before the age of 10 
and sent to Oregon to live with an aunt and uncle who sustained him 
physically but treated him as cheap labor and offered little love, the boy 
grew up shy, withdrawn, hypersensitive to criticism, and awkward 
around others. He concluded that “money and success” were the “anti-
dotes to vulnerability, a means of escape, and necessary to controlling 
one’s destiny” (30). After fleeing Oregon, he set out to make his fortune 
as a mining engineer and mine speculator in Australia, China, and Lon-
don. “His path,” writes Whyte, “was littered with dry holes, lawsuits, 
and ruined investors, some of them the inevitable outcomes of an inher-
ently risky business, others the special products of Hoover’s ways” (116), 
but by the age of 40 he had achieved the financial security he craved. 
There was not much about the robber baron Hoover of 1914 to draw 
public admiration. 
 Privately, however, Hoover was always generous to family and 
friends, even as he was clawing his way to wealth, and by the time 
World War I began he had already decided to give up business for pub-
lic service. The war provided him the opportunity to use the same skills 
that had made him rich to undertake Belgian relief, mobilize American 
food production, and rehabilitate Europe’s postwar economy, in the 
process saving millions of lives. He had at least as good a case as Wood-
row Wilson to receive the 1920 Nobel Peace Prize. 
 After serving as an innovative Secretary of Commerce under Pres-
idents Harding and Coolidge, Hoover was elected president in 1928 just 
in time to face the Great Depression. Despite his modern reputation as 
a conservative, he threw the full resources of the federal government 
into fighting the collapse, working furiously to stabilize the interna-
tional economic situation, and then introducing unprecedented legisla-
tion to rescue banking and industry. By the autumn of 1932, Whyte con-
tends, Hoover “had in fact stopped the depression in its tracks and by 
most relevant measures forced its retreat” (506).  
 Unfortunately, whatever Hoover’s skill as chief executive, his 
personality made him a dreadful politician. Franklin Roosevelt, whom 
Whyte dismisses as “a man of second-rate intellect and questionable 
character” (497), ran a brilliant presidential campaign in 1932 that forever 
branded Hoover as an insensitive technocrat who had done nothing to 
relieve economic suffering. During the period between the election and 
Roosevelt’s inauguration, Democratic obstructionism in Congress and 
international doubts about the new president’s intentions toward the 
Book Reviews and Notices       327 
gold standard led to a run on U.S. gold reserves and new bank failures, 
thus undoing most of what Hoover had accomplished. 
 Hoover found Americans’ embrace of FDR incomprehensible. The 
New Deal, he would argue for the rest of his life, had failed to end the 
depression and at the same time made Americans “dependent on gov-
ernment” (541). As “an antidote to the New Deal” (557), in 1937 he called 
for government to confine itself to safeguarding equality of opportunity 
and individual enterprise. “Ideals, invention, initiative, enterprise, and 
leadership spring best from free men and women,” he said, and “the 
only economic system which will not limit or destroy these forces of 
progress is private enterprise” (quoted, 556). That statement, Whyte de-
clares, is the basis of “modern American conservatism” (557).  
 Perhaps so, but in recent years the widening gulf between the rich 
and poor suggests that Hoover’s party has shifted its focus from max-
imizing opportunities for ordinary Americans to protecting the inter-
ests of the wealthiest. We may wonder whether the man who wanted 
the government to “stamp out predatory business practices” (205) and 
endorsed strong labor unions and the inheritance tax would be com-
fortable with his party’s current policies. 
 
 
Patriotism, Courage, & Sacrifice: Warren County’s Response to WW II, by 
Jerry K. Beatty. Indianola: Warren County Historical Society, 2017. 401 
pp. Illustrations, appendixes, bibliography, index. $45.00 paperback. 
Reviewer Terrence J. Lindell is professor of history at Wartburg College. 
His research interests include the World War II home front. 
Jerry K. Beatty, former president of the Warren County Historical Soci-
ety, dedicates this richly illustrated book to the county’s 102 men lost in 
World War II and tells the story of its residents on battle front and home 
front. The work is divided into three chapters: the first deals with the 
military side of the conflict; the second recounts the home front; and the 
third—and by far the longest—provides biographical data on more 
than 3,200 service personnel who lived in Warren County, including 
those who attended Simpson College at some point either before or af-
ter the war. Beatty makes extensive use of local newspapers and inter-
views, but also relies on a variety of internet sources, including Wikipedia. 
 The chapter on military events is episodic because it focuses on the 
county’s participants, especially casualties, although the inclusion of 
the Russian Front is odd. The section on the home front is a useful over-
view of the activities that took place in an Iowa county; anyone contem-
plating research on the Iowa home front would benefit from perusing it. 
The sections on relief efforts, war brides, and the repatriation of military 


Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times

Review of: "Scandinavians in the State House: How Nordic Immigrants Shaped Minnesota Politics" by Klas Bergma

Peterson, Anna M.

312      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
by the war. In early 1863 he made a telling comment regarding the diffi-
culty of serving in an army of occupation: “They said that they was good 
Union people but it is hard to tell who is for the Union down here” (53).  
 Among the most fascinating aspects of the Standards’ correspond-
ence are William’s expressions of his hatred of the army and the corre-
spondence about leaving it. In 1863 William discussed surrendering to 
guerrillas in Tennessee rather than to regular Confederate forces. The 
guerrillas, so their story went, paroled their prisoners and allowed pa-
rolees to go home. William eventually recognized the improbability of 
that plan, but that did not stop him from planning his separation. Later 
that year, both William and Jane made cryptic comments about some 
“experiment” by which William would leave the army. Jane later re-
plied that she was glad William “made up your mind not to desert” 
(158). Around that time, they made several comments about moving to 
California, which may have been part of the plan for desertion. Soon 
after, however, William contented himself with applying for a dis-
charge (for which he was rejected) and pledging to do his duty. After 
participating in the Grand Review in May 1865, William praised the 
generals on the reviewing stand as “the greatest in the world” and af-
firmed his sense of accomplishment in serving the Union cause. “I will 
tell you,” he wrote, “it makes me feel proud to see so many nice faces, 
and so many fine little girls and boys, greeting the sunburnt soldier wel-
come back to his home” (261).  
 Anyone interested in the Iowa wartime experience will learn a great 
deal from This Infernal War. Although the Standards were from Illinois 
(via Tennessee on Jane’s side), it is not difficult to imagine that their at-
titudes paralleled those of numerous Iowa couples. Furthermore, the 
struggles they endured were commonplace across the western states, 
regardless of political affiliation. My only criticism of the book is that 
the publisher used a miniscule font size for the epilogue, making it dif-
ficult to read. That is a comparatively minor detraction, however, from 
what is a well-edited, thoroughly annotated, and remarkable collection 
of letters.  
 
 
Scandinavians in the State House: How Nordic Immigrants Shaped Minnesota 
Politics, by Klas Bergman. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 
2017. 304 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $19.95 paperback. 
Reviewer Anna M. Peterson is assistant professor of history at Luther College. 
Her research and writing have focused on Norwegian American immigrant 
women during the Progressive Era. 
Book Reviews and Notices       313 
During the period of mass immigration, millions of Danes, Swedes, 
Norwegians, Finns, and Icelanders made homes for themselves in the 
state of Minnesota. Like other immigrant groups, these immigrants had 
a lasting impact on the history of the United States. In this book, Klas 
Bergman argues that Nordic immigrants have had a particularly strong 
political influence in American politics in general, but in Minnesota poli-
tics in particular. Bergman sets out to trace this influence over time and 
to demonstrate that Nordic immigrants shaped Minnesota’s political 
culture in ways that are still evident today.  
 This main argument is largely organized chronologically, tracing 
Nordic immigrants’ active participation in Minnesota politics from the 
“four pioneers” of Minnesota politics in the 1880s—Norwegian Knute 
Nelson and Swedes John Lind, John A. Johnson, and Adolph Olson 
Eberhart—to the lingering Scandinavian flavor of Minnesota politics 
non-Scandinavian politicians still operate within today. Bergman does 
an excellent job of balancing the biographies and contributions of Min-
nesota “greats” such as Charles A. Lindbergh Sr., Hubert Humphrey, and 
Walter Mondale with the actions of ordinary men and women living in 
places like rural Otter Tail County and the Iron Range. In doing so, Berg-
man illustrates how Nordic immigrants shaped Minnesota politics at the 
local, state, and national level. They were governors, U.S. senators, and 
vice presidents as well as union organizers, Nonpartisan League recruit-
ers, temperance champions, and woman suffrage activists. It is the sum 
of these actions that left such an enduring mark on Minnesota politics.  
 Bergman is careful to show how politicians invoked, adapted, and 
abandoned their Nordic pasts at different points in history. His work 
reveals the process through which ethnic identities factored into politi-
cal identities. First-generation immigrant politicians in the 1880s, as 
well as politicians today, had to balance Scandinavian and American 
identities to suit their audiences and political needs. Although Bergman 
is right to emphasize that the ethnic identification of Scandinavian pol-
iticians waned after World War I, by telling the story up until the pres-
ent day, he is able to show the continued utility of a Nordic identity in 
Minnesota politics. The quote he includes from Minnesota House Rep-
resentative Paul Thissen, a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor 
Party (DFL), demonstrates this nicely: “I don’t think of myself as a Scan-
dinavian politician, although in some sense I guess I do because it al-
lows me to connect with people in a particular way. It’s still an asset in 
Minnesota to be of Norwegian or Scandinavian descent” (189). 
 This book promises to appeal to a diverse audience. Although Berg-
man’s focus is on Minnesota politics, he does engage in discussions of 
Scandinavians’ influence on national politics and includes cases from 
314      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
nearby states, North Dakota in particular. His findings offer a fruitful 
basis from which other scholars can draw comparisons between the 
Scandinavian influence on Minnesota politics and other states with 
large Scandinavian American populations, such as Iowa. 
 Bergman’s background as a journalist and author is evident in his 
accessible and engaging writing style. The book is written for a broad 
audience, but scholars will also be interested in Bergman’s findings. His 
arguments are based on extensive research, including an impressive 
number of interviews. One of the major drawbacks of the book is the 
way the references have been relegated to the back of the book. The 
“Notes” section provides citations for the sources used in the text but is 
relegated to the back of the book, and individual notes do not corre-
spond to a number or symbol in the text itself; one must hunt to find 
where exactly the quoted material and contextual analysis come from.  
 That flaw aside, Scandinavians in the State House is an excellent re-
source for anyone interested in regional politics in general and immi-
grant engagement in and influence on U.S. politics specifically. Berg-
man draws thought-provoking parallels between the historic develop-
ment of Scandinavian settlement and active participation in politics 
with Minnesota’s newest population of immigrants from Somalia. 
These arguments, along with the many others he presents throughout 
the book, promise to stimulate much discussion of the legacy of Scan-
dinavian influence on Minnesota politics and the ways immigrants can 
shape the nature and character of a state’s political identity.  
 
 
Out Where the West Begins, volume 2, Creating and Civilizing the American 
West, by Philip F. Anschutz. Denver: Cloud Camp Press; distributed by 
University of Oklahoma Press, 2017. 392 pp. Illustrations, timeline, bib-
liography, index. $34.95 hardcover.  
Reviewer J. T. Murphy is professor of history at Indiana University South 
Bend. His research and writing have focused on frontier settlement, the 
Oregon Trail, and the military history of the nineteenth-century U.S. West, 
among other topics. 
In volume one of Out Where the West Begins, Philip F. Anschutz, a Denver-
based corporate executive, celebrated past economic success in the 
American West by profiling 49 men whose success seemed to herald his 
own. For his follow-up, subtitled Creating and Civilizing the American 
West, he focuses on 100 men and 8 women who “stand out for their 
achievements in western policymaking, exploration, innovation, mili-
tary defense, conservation, image making, opinion shaping, and social 
reform” (13). It is an idiosyncratic list that includes Thomas Jefferson 


Scandinavians in the State House: How Nordic Immigrants Shaped Minnesota Politics

Review of: "The Story of Act 31: How Native History Came to Wisconsin Classrooms" by JP Lear

Stovey, Patricia

444      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
(He notes that it was a decision made “by English majors rather than 
historians” [154].) That seemed exceedingly odd, so I checked the most 
recent edition of the manual, and the assertion appears to be entirely 
untrue. It seems fair to argue that the sheer number of a variety of errors 
in the work unfortunately affects the author’s credibility overall.  
 Still, Edwards focuses on a number of issues regarding the Korean 
peninsula currently in the spotlight in 2018. Although he writes that 
“the harshness of positions on both sides of the DMZ shows little signs 
of letting up” (141), there seems to be more realistic hope now that hos- 
tilities in the region are declining and that peace may finally be within 
reach. Edwards cites the Department of Veterans Affairs’ assertion that 
approximately one thousand Korean veterans are now dying every day, 
and he is certainly correct in saying, “For the sake of our nation’s soul, 
we need to remember and acknowledge the memory of those who 
fought in it” (164). 
 
 
The Story of Act 31: How Native History Came to Wisconsin Classrooms, by 
J P Leary. Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2018. xiii, 337 pp. 
Notes, index. $28.95 paperback. 
Reviewer Patricia Stovey is assistant professor of history at the University 
of Wisconsin–La Crosse. Her research and teaching focus on the relation-
ship of education to culture, race, and power. 
In The Story of Act 31, J P Leary challenges what he calls the “simplistic” 
view that the 1989 law was a reaction to Wisconsin’s spearfishing con-
troversy. Instead, what Leary’s work aims to demonstrate is that the law, 
which requires teacher training and classroom instruction in the “his-
tory, culture and tribal sovereignty of the federally recognized Ameri-
can Indian tribes,” was a result of national and state policy changes and 
ongoing efforts by Native American leaders and educators throughout 
the twentieth century (252). To make his argument, Leary blends his-
torical and policy analysis at the state and national level with reviews 
of Wisconsin public school texts and curriculum.  
 The book is divided into five parts. The first reviews American 
Indian sovereignty as defined in the U.S. Constitution and demonstrated 
through negotiations and treaties. In 1837, 1842, and 1854 treaties, the 
American government took control of Ojibwe land but never their 
hunting and gathering rights. After statehood, Wisconsin’s govern-
ment abrogated Ojibwe rights, in part because they competed with the 
state’s rising tourist economy. In the early 1970s Lac Courte Oreilles 
hunters Mike and Fred Tribble contested state law and set off a legal 
Book Reviews and Notices      445 
challenge that in 1983 reached the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Ap-
peals, where the tribe’s usufruct rights were affirmed.  
 Part two follows the aftermath of that decision, known as Voigt. 
Many white northern Wisconsinites took exception to the Ojibwe spear-
fishing off reservation through racist acts that demonstrated ignorance 
and misinformation about Native Americans and their sovereignty. A 
report from an ad hoc commission convened to address the problem 
“identified a lack of learning opportunities as both a cause and effect of 
racism” (91). Schools were both the problem and the potential solution.  
 Parts three and four follow twentieth-century policy and curricu-
lar trends in social studies education at the national and state levels. 
Nationally, increasing cultural awareness did not always result in 
greater understanding of Native peoples, especially concerning tribal 
differences and sovereignty. At the state and local levels, Eurocentric 
perspectives remained the norm. Using texts and student work, Leary 
reveals misinformation, bias, and racism in Wisconsin classrooms, 
demonstrates how American Indians were largely relegated to the 
state’s past, and shows that the tribal/government relationship was 
never thoroughly developed.  
 In part five, Leary takes readers through the process involved in 
passing Act 31, which addresses both teacher training and school cur-
riculum. Wisconsin’s schools are, however, locally controlled entities—
there is no state school board—thus leaving the law’s implementation 
uneven and the state without any powers of enforcement.  
 Leary’s work brings together an impressive array of sources and 
knowledge to tell the story of Act 31 in a writing style that is accessible 
to undergraduate students. Especially impressive is Leary’s analysis of 
Badger History, a journal written (partially) by and for Wisconsin school 
students from 1947 to 1980. He effectively points out the language that 
inculcated an “us and them” dynamic that more than a generation of 
Wisconsin school children absorbed. He provides specific examples of 
the common—yet biased and frequently inaccurate—knowledge sanc-
tioned by the state. 
 The book’s organization was problematic for me, however. For 
instance, I would have appreciated knowing about Act 31 at the very 
beginning. Also, the author’s early and detailed coverage of the spear-
fishing controversy seems to belie the overall argument about Voigt’s 
relationship to the 1989 law. After reading The Story of Act 31, it is clear 
that the law represents an ongoing battle over Native American under-
standing and historical representation that, while set in Wisconsin, is 
not particular to Wisconsin.  
 
446      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
The Latina/o Midwest Reader, edited by Omar Valerio-Jiménez, Santiago 
Vaquera-Vásquez, and Claire F. Fox. Latinos in Chicago and the Mid-
west. Urbana and Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2017. xii, 332 
pp. Illustrations, chart, tables, notes, glossary, bibliography, index. 
$28.00 paperback.  
Reviewer Dionicio Valdés is professor emeritus of history at Michigan State 
University. He is the author of Barrios Norteños: St. Paul and Midwestern 
Mexican Communities in the Twentieth Century (2000) and Al Norte: Agricul-
tural Workers in the Great Lakes Region, 1917–1970 (1991). 
The Latina/o Midwest Reader is an interdisciplinary anthology of 17 essays, 
plus an introduction and afterword, that examines various aspects of the 
experience of an increasingly diverse and rapidly growing population 
in the region between the Rocky and Allegheny Mountains. It is based 
on papers initially presented at a symposium at the University of Iowa 
in 2013. The authors examine a range of topics, most of them specific 
midwestern case studies, five of which focus on Iowa. The essays are 
grouped into five sections, examining geography and place, history and 
workers, education, performance, and non-electoral political activism. 
The authors represent diverse disciplinary approaches and a range of 
viewpoints.  
 The editors emphasize that one aim of the volume is “to challenge 
the notion that Latinas/os are newcomers to the Midwest” (2). That chal-
lenge extends, at least implicitly, to intensifying negative stereotypes in 
the national political arena, including claims that Latinas/os have dif-
ferent values, pose a threat to older residents and to national unity, and 
therefore do not belong. Each essay challenges one or more of the stereo-
types in distinct ways.  
 The essays in part one, “The Browning of the Midwest,” emphasize 
facets of the expansion and intensification of Latina/o cultural geogra-
phy, as a population that first spread from Texas and Mexico to a hand-
ful of locations starting more than a century ago, primarily in search of 
short-term, temporary work, over time became an increasingly rooted 
population that has spread across the region, even living in small towns 
on the prairies. A case study based on a bicycling research trip chal-
lenges the myth that Latinas/os have different values or pose a threat, 
providing cases consistent with the current neoliberal trope that demon-
strate successful entrepreneurs and elected political representatives. 
Two subsequent essays examine the longstanding link between Texas 
and the Midwest and a more recent one between Lorraine, Illinois, and 
Jiménez, Nuevo León, in which workers participate in a labor migration 
circuit linked to the broomcorn industry.  


The Story of Act 31: How Native History Came to Wisconsin Classrooms

Review of: "Out Where the West Begins, Volume 2, Creating and Civilizing the American West" by Philip F. Anschut

Murphy, J.T.

314      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
nearby states, North Dakota in particular. His findings offer a fruitful 
basis from which other scholars can draw comparisons between the 
Scandinavian influence on Minnesota politics and other states with 
large Scandinavian American populations, such as Iowa. 
 Bergman’s background as a journalist and author is evident in his 
accessible and engaging writing style. The book is written for a broad 
audience, but scholars will also be interested in Bergman’s findings. His 
arguments are based on extensive research, including an impressive 
number of interviews. One of the major drawbacks of the book is the 
way the references have been relegated to the back of the book. The 
“Notes” section provides citations for the sources used in the text but is 
relegated to the back of the book, and individual notes do not corre-
spond to a number or symbol in the text itself; one must hunt to find 
where exactly the quoted material and contextual analysis come from.  
 That flaw aside, Scandinavians in the State House is an excellent re-
source for anyone interested in regional politics in general and immi-
grant engagement in and influence on U.S. politics specifically. Berg-
man draws thought-provoking parallels between the historic develop-
ment of Scandinavian settlement and active participation in politics 
with Minnesota’s newest population of immigrants from Somalia. 
These arguments, along with the many others he presents throughout 
the book, promise to stimulate much discussion of the legacy of Scan-
dinavian influence on Minnesota politics and the ways immigrants can 
shape the nature and character of a state’s political identity.  
 
 
Out Where the West Begins, volume 2, Creating and Civilizing the American 
West, by Philip F. Anschutz. Denver: Cloud Camp Press; distributed by 
University of Oklahoma Press, 2017. 392 pp. Illustrations, timeline, bib-
liography, index. $34.95 hardcover.  
Reviewer J. T. Murphy is professor of history at Indiana University South 
Bend. His research and writing have focused on frontier settlement, the 
Oregon Trail, and the military history of the nineteenth-century U.S. West, 
among other topics. 
In volume one of Out Where the West Begins, Philip F. Anschutz, a Denver-
based corporate executive, celebrated past economic success in the 
American West by profiling 49 men whose success seemed to herald his 
own. For his follow-up, subtitled Creating and Civilizing the American 
West, he focuses on 100 men and 8 women who “stand out for their 
achievements in western policymaking, exploration, innovation, mili-
tary defense, conservation, image making, opinion shaping, and social 
reform” (13). It is an idiosyncratic list that includes Thomas Jefferson 
Book Reviews and Notices       315 
and Thomas Moran, John James Audubon and Jeanette Rankin, a list 
intended to underscore Anschutz’s view of the West as a special place 
shaped by special people who could “turn their dreams into reality” (13). 
He concentrates on anyone reinforcing his belief in Manifest Destiny or 
whose ideas and innovations aided western development (and in what 
seems a stretch, this includes Thomas Edison and Iowa-educated 
George Washington Carver). Most are well known, even legendary, 
and he has nothing new to tell us, but in the telling, Anschutz displays 
his love of the West, with its romance and beauty, and his appreciation 
of a Turnerian narrative that links the central characteristics of being an 
American—individualism, self-reliance, and democratic values—with 
the advance of the frontier. “The settlement of the American West,” he 
argues, “instituted a pattern, still in evidence today, of an entrepreneurial, 
intellectually curious, highly mobile, and transactional population” (14).  
 In the first of five categories, “Western Leaders and Policymakers,” 
Anschutz begins with Jefferson, whose “vision of the West, his force of 
personality, and his political strategy laid the groundwork for all that 
followed” (34). And what followed was territorial acquisition, whether 
through negotiation or war, and Anschutz praises the political figures, 
such as James K. Polk, and the military men, like Philip H. Sheridan, 
who made it possible. He also credits the federal government, particu-
larly Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the Homestead Act, Morrill Act, and 
Pacific Railway Act, all in 1862, with “spurring settlement and eco-
nomic development and setting the stage for the region’s absorption 
into the nation as a whole” (81). In the arid West, each layer of govern-
ment assumed responsibility for making water accessible, and the key 
figures, in Anschutz’s view—Francis G. Newlands, Delph Carpenter, 
and William Mulholland—“represented different aspects of the trans-
formation of western rivers into a vast hydrological machine” (123). But 
if Anschutz measures American progress with western settlement, 
what can he say about the fate of native peoples? In business terms, they 
were simply at “a competitive disadvantage” (93) and, as the Lakota 
leader Red Cloud and Ute leader Ouray came to realize, “the numbers 
and technological might of the Americans” (99) could never be over-
come. Despite his embrace of conquest and triumphalism, Anschutz 
admires Indian resistance and concludes that “their continued cultural, 
political, and economic strength is integral to the development of the 
twenty-first century West” (103).  
 Anschutz’s admiration for historian Frederick Jackson Turner’s 
“frontier thesis,” first articulated in 1893, is unmistakable. He is correct 
to recognize Turner’s long-lasting influence, particularly in how Amer-
icans perceive the West in popular culture, but professional historians 
316      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
have questioned, even repudiated, most elements of the “thesis.” 
Turner’s “safety valve,” associated here with Horace Greeley, suggested 
that “the pressures of unemployment and poverty building up in east-
ern cities” would be released once people migrated westward (195). But 
relocating can be prohibitive for poor people, a point Anschutz makes 
in his discussion of Benjamin “Pap” Singleton’s work to move black 
families to Kansas after the Civil War. To his credit, and unlike Turner, 
Anschutz includes women and people of color in describing individual 
success in the West. As he measures achievement, he considers not only 
what people gained by going west, but also what they contributed to 
the region. Father Junípero Serra established Franciscan missions in Cal-
ifornia that “underpinned European and American civilization in the 
West” (131); Abigail Scott Duniway traveled the Oregon Trail in 1852 to 
become an important voice for woman suffrage; and architect Mary 
Colter popularized the Pueblo Revival style of architecture. Anschutz’s 
affection for the West extends to his extensive art collection, the basis for 
Denver’s American Museum of Western Art, and he interlaces the book 
with examples. Not surprisingly, then, his discussions of George Catlin, 
Frederick Remington, and other well-known painters are quite good.  
 As in his first book, Anschutz often draws simplistic conclusions and 
is prone to overstatement, but his idea of what the West represents is em-
bedded in American life. It is an image many readers probably share.  
 
 
Farming across Borders: A Transnational History of the North American 
West, edited by Sterling Evans. Connecting the Greater West Series. 
College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2017. xxv, 460 pp. Maps, 
illustrations, tables, notes, bibliography, index. $65.00 hardcover. 
Reviewer R. Douglas Hurt is head of the Department of History at Purdue 
University. He is the author of many works, especially about the history of 
agriculture, the Great Plains, and the West, most recently Food and Agricul-
ture during the Civil War (2016). 
Historians have given considerable attention to specific areas of west-
ern agricultural history, particularly migrant labor, cattle ranching, and 
water. Scholarship dating to the 1930s has also focused on commodities. 
In this sense, Farming across Borders does not, despite the editor’s claim, 
break new ground for historical inquiry. It does, however, provide an 
important integration of selected subjects, the scholarship and story of 
which crosses international boundaries with Canada and Mexico. This 
context expands our knowledge of well-covered subjects, and, in most 
cases, the essays contribute new knowledge about farming in the North 
American West. 


Out Where the West Begins, Volume 2, Creating and Civilizing the American West

Review of: "The Floppy Show" by Jeff Stei

Hutchison, Phillip J.

Book Reviews and Notices       331 
into the war. In pursuit of his goal to publish a “people’s paper,” Evjue 
would train his sights on big business and industry from then on. 
 Among the many liberal causes Evjue championed or challenged, 
perhaps none had more impact than his founding of the Progressive 
Party with Robert “Bob” La Follette in 1924. Although in his “insur-
gent” presidential run La Follette won only Wisconsin, by then the 
course was set. The authors explain, “Progressivism, as espoused by La 
Follette and his allies at the start of the twentieth century shaped the 
ideology of the Capital Times and its crusading spirit.” That spirit was 
quickly tested when, in the same year, the paper exposed and con-
demned a mass meeting of the Ku Klux Klan in Madison. 
 In 1951 the newspaper’s editors recognized Joseph McCarthy early 
on as a demagogue and a fear monger. At a time when many state 
and major national newspapers were supporting McCarthy, the Times 
fought him relentlessly “with all its resources,” even as it would take 
on environmental, civil rights, racial, and antiwar issues over time.  
 Between them, Zweifel and Nichols reflect a key transition for their 
newspaper from hard copy to digital format. Indeed, the published edi-
tion of the Times outlived most other city afternoon dailies elsewhere 
in the country by decades, largely due to a joint Madison Newspapers, 
Inc., with the State Journal. Today a quick search of the Web finds the 
“Cap Times” alive and well with “front page” editorial content by Nich-
ols that Evjue would applaud. 
 As a “house history,” this book offers insight to future historians of 
journalism. As a memoir of another era, it reminds us that progressiv-
ism has faced down war and famine before. And that it can, again. 
 
 
The Floppy Show, by Jeff Stein. Images of America Series. Charleston, 
S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2018. 128 pp. Illustrations. $21.99 paperback. 
Reviewer Phillip J. Hutchison is associate professor of Integrated Strategic 
Communication at the University of Kentucky. He is the author of “The 
Lost World of Marshal J: History, Memory, and Iowa’s Forgotten Broadcast 
Legend” (Annals of Iowa, 2009). 
Local entertainment television may be one of the most overlooked social 
legacies of the mid–twentieth century. Most local television stations 
broadcast two to five hours of locally produced entertainment program-
ming each weekday from the 1950s through the 1970s. Moreover, view-
ers did not just watch these local television programs passively; rather, 
they actively engaged these television rituals as part of their experience 
of local life. Yet often these realities have been lost to history for two 
reasons: First, few of these programs were documented, much less 
332      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
archived. Second, all too many contemporary broadcasters, historians, 
and media critics dismiss local entertainment programs as a prefabri-
cated television aesthetic of little substance—it was amusing, but not 
much else. Fortunately, Iowa broadcast historian Jeff Stein has never 
fallen prey to this shortsightedness. Stein’s latest book, The Floppy Show, 
is a case in point. Although technically the 127-page book is a popular 
history that is accessible to diverse audiences, Stein treats the subject 
matter as a serious social phenomenon. As a result, the book offers 
valuable insights to any student of Iowa history. 
 The Floppy Show chronicles a well-remembered hosted cartoon pro-
gram that aired on WHO-TV in Des Moines from 1957 through 1987. 
Floppy, a high-voiced beagle puppet, was the creation of legendary 
Iowa broadcaster Duane Ellett. Stein illustrates how Ellett and Floppy 
helped structure daily life in central Iowa for three decades. Accord-
ingly, readers will learn how Ellett’s warm, reassuring presence created 
a virtual refuge for diverse audiences at predictable times each day. As 
with most local histories from Arcadia Publishing, The Floppy Show em-
phasizes photographs over detailed historical narratives. In this case, 
however, Stein collected and presented approximately 250 photo-
graphs and captions in ways that create a visual narrative, one that 
weaves through overlapping institutional, social, and historical phe-
nomena. Broadcast historians, for example, will appreciate how the 
visual narrative chronicles Ellett’s professional evolution. In the absence 
of early recordings, the book’s images document sponsors, studio sets, 
and program formats, all of which inform the relationship between tel-
evision institutions and culture. Additionally, the images and captions 
provide an insightful history of promotional communication during the 
first generation of television. 
 To students of social history, the visual narrative also tells an im-
portant story of mid–twentieth-century life in Iowa. Ellett and Floppy 
hobnobbed with nearly everyone who was anyone in Iowa during that 
era. Accordingly, readers will find myriad photographs of the duo in-
teracting with an array of major celebrities and political figures. Equally 
significant, Stein documents scores of public appearances in which El-
lett and Floppy engaged enthusiastic fans of all ages. Although some of 
those visits reflected commercial promotions, others (such as hospital 
visits and charity drives) represented the sorts of community outreach 
efforts associated with local television personalities. These factors under- 
score the point that audiences actively engaged these programs and 
their creators as part of local life. The fact that every Iowa television sta-
tion featured similar entertainment programs highlights the generaliza-
bility of Stein’s insights. 
Book Reviews and Notices       333 
 Yes, for many readers, popular histories such as The Floppy Show 
will evoke a great deal of nostalgia; but serious historians should not 
confuse nostalgia with frivolity. As American Studies scholar George 
Lipsitz observes, “The messages of popular culture circulate in a net-
work of production and reception that is quite serious. . . . A sideshow 
sometimes can be the main event.” Accordingly, Stein effectively illus-
trates why a long-running children’s cartoon show that featured a dog 
puppet should be considered a main event in Iowa history. 
 
 
History Comes Alive: Public History and Popular Culture in the 1970s, by 
M. J. Rymsza-Pawlowska. Studies in United States Culture. Chapel Hill: 
University of North Carolina Press, 2017. xiii, 241 pp. Illustrations, 
notes, bibliography, index. $29.95 paperback. 
Reviewer Rebecca Conard is professor history emerita at Middle Tennessee 
State University, where she directed the public history program. She is the 
author of Benjamin Shambaugh and the Intellectual Foundations of Public His-
tory (2002). 
Iowa Living History Farms, which opened in 1970, and the World Food 
Conference of 1976, held at Iowa State University, were Iowa’s two na-
tionally recognized U.S. Bicentennial projects, but Iowans marked the 
nation’s 200th anniversary with hundreds of undertakings—from the 
restoration of Old Capitol in Iowa City and Terrace Hill in Des Moines 
to the 811 towns and cities recognized as Bicentennial Communities, the 
1,500 “Iowa Heritage in the American Revolution” study kits distrib-
uted to fifth-grade teachers, and the 5,000 farms that qualified for Cen-
tury Farm designation. Iowa led the nation with 2,800 recorded projects 
and events, 50 percent more than any other state. (See Iowa and the U.S. 
Bicentennial, 1776–1976: The Final Report [1976].) Iowa isn’t mentioned 
once in History Comes Alive: Public History and Popular Culture in the 1970s, 
but if you are curious about the larger context in which bicentennial 
celebrations—and protests—occurred, read this book.  
 The author, M. J. Rymsza-Pawlowska, sees the bicentennial as a 
pivotal event in American cultural history. As she reads the 1970s, the 
bicentennial, as well as the decade itself, marked a transformation of 
historical consciousness among Americans. She argues that in the 1970s 
a “logic of preservation” gave way to a “logic of reenactment” as a way 
of making sense of the past (6–7). By this she means that history-based 
performative activities, such as living history, reenactment, and immer-
sive or interactive experiences at museums and historic sites, began to 
challenge the traditional mode of understanding the past through doc-
uments and other material evidence. The author’s premise concerning 


The Floppy Show

Review of: "The Iowa State Constitution" edited by Todd E. Petty

Dinan, John

303 
Book Reviews and Notices 
The Iowa State Constitution, 2nd ed., by Todd E. Pettys. The Oxford Com-
mentaries on the State Constitutions of the United States. New York: 
Oxford University Press, 2018. xv, 337 pp. Notes, bibliographical essay, 
table of cases, index. $165 hardcover. 
Reviewer John Dinan is professor of politics and international affairs at 
Wake Forest University. He is the author of State Constitutional Politics: 
Governing by Amendment in the American States (2018) and The American State 
Constitutional Tradition (2006).  
In The Iowa State Constitution, Todd E. Pettys, a law professor at the Uni-
versity of Iowa College of Law, analyzes the origins, amendments, and 
judicial interpretations of the Iowa Constitution. Pettys’s book is pub-
lished as part of a 50-state series, The Oxford Commentaries on the State 
Constitutions of the United States, edited by G. Alan Tarr. Following 
the standard format for authors in this series, Pettys provides a history 
of Iowa’s constitutions in the opening fifth of the book and a section-by-
section commentary for each constitutional article and provision in the 
rest of the book. 
 Pettys provides a detailed account of the constitutional conventions 
that were held in 1844 and 1846 and eventually produced the state’s 
inaugural constitution as well as an 1857 convention responsible for 
crafting the state’s current constitution. Those conventions faced ques-
tions about how to structure and limit governing institutions, where to 
locate the capital, and how to draw the state’s boundaries. Delegates 
also spent a good deal of time debating whether to allow banks to op-
erate in the state. The 1846 state constitution was one of several state 
constitutions around the country at that time that prohibited the opera-
tion of banking institutions altogether. A decade later, though, public 
dissatisfaction with the bank ban played a key role in the calling of an 
1857 convention that reversed course and authorized banks but sought 
to limit them in various ways and required any banking legislation to 
be approved in a public referendum.  
 Delegates at these conventions also debated various constitutional 
provisions with implications for African Americans. The 1846 conven-
tion approved provisions barring blacks from voting or serving in the 
legislature or militia. The 1857 convention considered various proposals 
to guarantee property rights for black residents, allow them to serve in 
304      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
the militia, and permit them to testify as witnesses, before ultimately 
rejecting the first two proposals and passing a modified version of the 
third. Delegates at the 1857 convention also engaged in extensive debate 
about black suffrage and whether to replace a provision in the inaugural 
constitution that reserved voting for white men. Black suffrage com-
manded enough support in the convention that the decision was made 
to submit the question to the people in a separate vote alongside of the 
proposed new constitution; voters defeated the stand-alone measure by 
an overwhelming margin.  
 Although Iowa continues to operate under its 1857 constitution, the 
legislature has approved and voters have ratified more than 50 amend-
ments. For instance, a 1962 amendment brought significant changes in 
the way judges are chosen. Although the 1857 constitution provided for 
judicial elections, in keeping with the dominant trend in state constitution-
making during the mid-nineteenth century, just over a century later 
voters approved an amendment providing for judges to be appointed 
by the governor from nominees submitted by a merit-selection com-
mission and then for judges to stand for periodic retention elections. A 
1968 amendment instituted municipal home rule. Amendments in 1972 
brought several notable changes by repealing a longstanding ban on 
lotteries and increasing the governor’s term from two to four years. 
Among other amendments of note, voters defeated state equal rights 
amendments in 1980 and 1992 before finally approving a modified ver-
sion of a gender-equity amendment in 1998. 
 In keeping with the format of the series, Pettys’s section-by-section 
commentary focuses to a significant extent on judicial decisions inter-
preting each provision of the Iowa Constitution. Iowa courts have fre-
quently been called on to interpret state constitutional provisions that 
have no counterpart in the U.S. Constitution. Occasionally, Iowa judges 
have concluded that provisions in the Iowa Constitution should be 
understood as guaranteeing greater protection for certain rights than is 
provided by U.S. Supreme Court interpretations of the federal Bill of 
Rights. The most notable decision of this kind was the Iowa Supreme 
Court’s unanimous ruling in Varnum v. Brien (2009) that relied on the 
equal-protection clause of the Iowa Constitution to require legal recog-
nition of same-sex marriage at a time when same-sex marriage was rec-
ognized in only two other states and six years before the U.S. Supreme 
Court interpreted the U.S. Constitution as requiring nationwide legali-
zation of same-sex marriage. 
 This book will be a terrific resource for lawyers interested in tracing 
the origin, development, and interpretation of each of Iowa’s constitu-
tional provisions, but it deserves a broader readership from scholars 
Book Reviews and Notices       305 
and citizens who are interested in tracing Iowa’s political and legal de-
velopment. Historians will benefit in particular from the close attention 
to debates and proceedings in Iowa’s three mid–nineteenth-century 
conventions. Students of Iowa government and politics will also come 
away from this carefully researched and well-written book with an-
swers to numerous questions about the origins of institutions, rules, 
and processes that play a key role in how Iowa is governed.  
 
 
Wisconsin and the Shaping of American Law, by Joseph A. Ranney. Madi-
son: University of Wisconsin Press, 2017. x, 309 pp. Graphs, notes, bib-
liography, index. $49.95 hardcover. 
Reviewer Dale Yurs earned an M.A. in history at the University of North-
ern Iowa in 2011. His master’s thesis was “From a Weak Tribunal to a 
Branch of Government: The Supreme Court of the United States from 1789 
to Marshall.” 
Joseph Ranney’s book, Wisconsin and the Shaping of American Law, offers 
a new look at how state law made a valuable contribution to our na-
tional legal system. Through his chronological look at Wisconsin’s legal 
history, Ranney puts the midwestern states on the forefront of legal his-
tory and shows how those states, particularly Wisconsin, created the 
system of laws that we enjoy today.  
 The book opens with a discussion of how the newly created nation 
built a legal system to span its entire territory. After winning independ-
ence from the British in 1783, the United States gained large amounts of 
land west of the Appalachian Mountains. The question became how to 
maintain law and order in the new territory. The civil law systems of 
the French and Spanish, who occupied the territory prior to the French 
and Indian War, ran a rather loose ship. Distance limited those colonial 
powers’ ability to micromanage their colonies. Therefore, Ranney argues, 
those in positions of authority required only a rudimentary knowledge 
of the law. Once the territory came under British control, the French and 
Spanish civil law systems became obsolete and a new legal system had 
to be fashioned. Responding to this need after independence, the new 
American government created the Northwest Ordinance. The progres-
sive nature of the ordinance, exemplified in its bill of rights and the pro-
hibition of slavery, created a new legal culture in the Midwest, one that 
the national legal system later adopted. 
 Ranney further shows how the Midwest’s progressive nature de-
veloped throughout the Jacksonian period. He explains how the mid-
western states embraced the premises of Jacksonian jurisprudence, 
especially expanding rights and opportunities. The ideals of the Jack- 


Not a member yet