The Annals of Iowa

Review of: Harvest of Hazards: Family Farming, Accidents, and Expertise in the Corn Belt, 1940–1975, by Derek S. Ode

Jellison, Katherine

456      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
 Wisconsin on the Air is a welcome contribution to the extant litera-
ture about American broadcasting, which is disproportionately devoted 
to descriptions of commercial pioneers. It is a history full of interesting 
personalities, political conflict, and struggles to recognize and adapt to 
changing competition, radio listeners’ habits, and technological change. 
The methodology is an effective and credible approach for similar insti-
tutional histories in Iowa.  
 
 
Harvest of Hazards: Family Farming, Accidents, and Expertise in the Corn 
Belt, 1940–1975, by Derek S. Oden. Iowa and the Midwest Experience 
Series. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2017. xi, 251 pp. Illustra-
tions, notes, index. $65 paperback. 
Reviewer Katherine Jellison is professor of history at Ohio University. She is the 
author of Entitled to Power: Farm Women and Technology, 1913–1963 (1993). 
In this long overdue history of the farm safety movement, Derek S. 
Oden provides a thorough accounting of how midwestern farm families, 
agricultural organizations, government agencies, safety experts, and 
farm implement manufacturers made mid–twentieth-century farming 
a less dangerous occupation. Although the various players in the cam-
paign to improve farm safety did not always seamlessly coordinate 
their efforts, their common crusade produced results: The Corn Belt 
farm was a safer place to live and work in 1975 than it had been in 1940. 
 Oden begins his study of the farm safety movement with the World 
War II–era effort to reduce farm accidents as part of the national cam-
paign to increase overall agricultural production. During that time of 
national unity, midwestern farmers, industrial safety experts, and gov-
ernment agencies shared a common premise: safer farming would max-
imize production of food, fiber, and fats for military use. Following the 
wartime emergency, interest in improving farm safety continued as 
increased mechanization and greater reliance on the use of chemicals 
raised new concerns about the hazards of postwar farming. Agricul-
tural colleges, farm implement manufacturers, and 4-H clubs were just 
a few of the institutions that raised awareness of farm safety issues 
by providing equipment demonstrations, tractor driving courses, farm 
safety contests, advice literature, and other prescriptive measures to 
lessen the dangers of farm work. During this educational phase of the 
safety movement, farm families largely embraced its principles and goals. 
Only when employee and consumer protection activists of the 1960s 
and 1970s called for greater government regulation of the conditions, 
equipment, and products of the American workplace—including the 
family-owned farm—did midwesterners begin to question the efficacy 
of the farm safety movement. Farm operators began to view safety 
Book Reviews and Notices      457 
experts as intruders who were attempting to disrupt traditional patri-
archal control over the farm family’s maintenance and use of agricul-
tural equipment.  When the credentialed experts called for stricter state 
regulation of farm machinery—such as proposed legislation mandating 
installation of rollover protective systems on all farm tractors—Corn 
Belt farmers and implement manufacturers balked. The era of coopera-
tion among farmers, educators, industrial safety experts, manufacturers, 
and the government thus came to an end. Oden appropriately concludes 
his study with this collapse of the original farm safety coalition. Exam-
ination of the movement beyond the mid-1970s, he states, is better left 
to “a separate work focusing on that period’s unique aspects” (4). 
 Oden recounts his story of mid–twentieth-century farm safety in 
thorough, workmanlike fashion. His numerous sources include oral 
histories with midwestern farmers, local newspaper accounts, farm safety 
periodicals, extension service and 4-H publications, and the papers of 
Iowa-based farm safety specialist Norval Wardle. Although his study 
deals with the entire midwestern Corn Belt, most of his evidence is cen-
tered in Iowa, and the book’s photographs of mid-century farm life are 
all from collections housed at the State Historical Society of Iowa. Oden 
neglects to provide any dates or specific locations for these Iowa farm 
scenes, however, and he does not identify the men, women, and chil-
dren portrayed in these rich visual sources. These omissions are partic-
ularly puzzling given the exhaustive detail with which the author other-
wise covers his subject.  
 Harvest of Hazards is nevertheless an important study of a topic that 
historians have largely ignored. It provides necessary context and back-
ground information for anyone wanting a better understanding of con-
temporary farm safety debates, as well as those interested in the history 
of mid-century Corn Belt farming more generally. Historians of both 
U.S. public policy and U.S. agriculture will find it useful reading.  
 
 
 Invisible Hawkeyes: African Americans at the University of Iowa during the 
Long Civil Rights Era, edited by Lena M. Hill and Michael D. Hill. Iowa 
City: University of Iowa Press, 2016. x, 230 pp. Illustrations, notes, in-
dex. $20.00 paperback.  
Reviewer Patrick Naick is associate professor of English at Coe College, where 
he also coordinates the American studies and African American studies pro-
grams. His research interests include twentieth-century African American liter-
ature and American urban studies.  
In the summer of 2016, just a few months prior to this book’s release, 
author James Alan McPherson died in Iowa City. McPherson, the first 
African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, was alumnus and 


English

Harvest of Hazards: Family Farming, Accidents, and Expertise in the Corn Belt, 1940–1975

Review of: This Storied River: Legend & Lore of the Upper Mississippi, by Dennis McCan

Nunnally, Patrick

Book Reviews and Notices      443 
 Most of the essays focus on the Confederate side, but a few do con-
cern the behavior of Union soldiers and Union irregulars. The Union’s 
treatment of Southern women during its occupation of the South and 
how that treatment crossed the line of acceptable behavior is the topic of 
Lisa Frank’s “The Union War on Women.” In “Challenging the Union 
Citizen-Soldier Ideal,” Andrew Lang examines how the activities of Con-
federate guerrillas changed the behavior and ideals of Union soldiers. 
The Lieber Code may have technically governed their activities, but they 
were forced (not always unwillingly) to adapt to the different ways the 
war was being fought in different areas. The concept of hard war ulti-
mately meant that in some areas there were no rules, and it became all 
but impossible to differentiate between regular and irregular soldiers. 
 The broadest essay is Earl Hess’s “Civil War Guerrillas in a Global, 
Comparative Context,” which largely discusses Spanish guerrillas in 
the Napoleonic Wars and their Confederate counterparts along with a 
discussion of guerrilla warfare since the Civil War. His overview along 
with Daniel Sutherland’s afterword and the selected bibliography pro-
vide excellent ways to put Civil War guerrillas into a larger context and 
suggest avenues for further study. 
 The work would have been strengthened by a clearer organization, 
but overall the essays represent a wealth of topics for scholars interested 
in any aspect of Civil War military history and make a strong case for 
including the study of guerrilla warfare in more mainstream Civil War 
military history. 
 
 
This Storied River: Legend & Lore of the Upper Mississippi, by Dennis 
McCann. Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2017. 192 pp. 
Map, illustrations, bibliography, index. $20.00 paperback. 
Reviewer Patrick Nunnally is coordinator of the River Life Program, part of the 
Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Minnesota. His Ph.D. disser-
tation (University of Iowa, 1990) was “Visions of Sustainable Place: Voice, Land, 
and Culture in Rural America.” 
There are many books about the history as well as the “legend and lore” 
of the Mississippi River, so it’s fair to ask why another one is needed. 
Dennis McCann’s slim volume holds its own, for the most part, in this 
literature. Although he does not offer new insights or a sharply distinc-
tive perspective on the events, places, and people he describes, he does 
reliably point his readers in the direction of further information. As be-
fits a retired travel writer, McCann also liberally suggests places to visit 
to learn more about the river’s history and points the way to websites 
and other sources. 
444      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
 McCann’s stretch of the Mississippi lies between Dubuque, Iowa, 
and Saint Paul, Minnesota. This is neither the much-storied Delta nor 
the middle stretch of the river around Hannibal and Saint Louis, Mis-
souri, that can justly claim to be “Mark Twain’s Mississippi.” Neverthe-
less, this less well-known stretch is replete with stories of regional and 
national significance, most of which McCann tells well in graceful, ac-
cessible prose. Relying on published sources and the versions of history 
told at the historic sites themselves, McCann sticks fairly closely to well-
established themes and events in the region. 
 As McCann details, this stretch of the Mississippi is deeply histori-
cal. Well-known stories, such as the incursion of colonial settlers and the 
eradication of native people, have important chapters that play out here. 
That icon of the Mississippi, the steamboat, makes its appearance, trag-
ically through the Sea Wing disaster and as part of a discussion of regional 
transportation, through an account of how the Diamond Jo line got its 
name (or didn’t—the stories are unclear). By focusing on specific spots 
such as Guttenberg, Iowa, location of Corps of Engineers Lock #10, 
McCann illustrates how the very river itself has been altered over time, 
becoming as much a historical artifact of its times as any of the commu-
nities that line its banks. 
 Ultimately, though, McCann’s coverage of the sites and themes he 
discusses is distressingly uneven. There’s plenty of good stuff here, 
such as the account of the Battle of Bad Axe, a massacre that ended the 
Black Hawk War. Here McCann offers insights and perspectives be-
yond the “celebration history” of roadside markers and makes neces-
sary observations about the painful aspects of the region’s history. 
 But there are also unfortunate lapses. It would not have been hard 
to learn that Winona is a Dakota term for “first-born female child” and 
is not generically “Indian,” or to dig a little deeper for a more nuanced 
account of fur trading among multiple nations at Prairie du Chien. The 
many images in the book really should be cited better for readers who 
want to explore further. These lapses matter, because it is important to 
learn the complexity of our history, not just the triumphalist view that 
the past is merely a “natural” prologue to our present or the too-familiar 
“critique” that focuses exclusively on “correcting the story.”  
 For readers who want to understand how the past of the Mississippi 
has created opportunities and dilemmas facing the river and its commu-
nities, McCann’s book is a start, but only a start. His citations and ref-
erences are potentially important “next steps” as would be an in-depth 
discussion with any of the staff at the historic sites he points us to. As 
Faulkner wrote, “The past isn’t even past.” That is true in the upper Mis-
sissippi valley, and McCann opens the door to more rich exploration. 


This Storied River: Legend & Lore of the Upper Mississippi

Review of: "All the Wild that Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, and the American West", by David Gessner

Pritchard, James A.

372      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
ness for alcohol, and love of a lavish lifestyle kept him out of contention 
for literary longevity. The book could have been more carefully fact-
checked: Hemingway’s third wife was Martha Gelhorn, not “Mary,” as 
Shroder states; and Sidney Poitier is not an “African American actor”— 
he was born to Bahamian parents and spent his early years in the Car-
ibbean. But these are minor flaws. Anyone making a study of MacKin-
lay Kantor, Iowa authors, Civil War writers, or Pulitzer Prize–winning 
novelists should find Shroder’s book useful. Anyone wishing to learn 
how to write a compelling memoir would also be wise to take a look at it. 
 
 
All the Wild that Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, and the American 
West, by David Gessner. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2015. 
354 pp. Illustrations, notes on sources, index. $16.95 paperback. 
Reviewer James A. Pritchard is adjunct associate professor in the Department 
of Landscape Architecture and the Department of Natural Resource Ecology 
and Management at Iowa State University. He is a coauthor of A Green and Per-
manent Land (2001). 
This wonderful book is not only an enlightening literary tour through 
two well-known authors’ works but also a thoughtful exploration of the 
western landscapes they portrayed. Wallace Stegner and Edward Abbey, 
argues Gessner, “far from being regional or outdated, have never been 
more relevant” (3).  
 Using extensive interviews, the author transports readers far beyond 
the “mummified” reputations of “Saint Wallace the Good and Randy 
Ed, Wild Man” (279). Stegner’s reputation remains more traditionalist, 
especially contrasted with the free-wheeling Abbey. Yet Stegner broke 
boundaries, questioning the status quo of the West, striving to “strip 
away myth” from the ethos of rugged individualism and to “see things 
as they were” (37). And Abbey, despite trending toward the cantanker-
ous on the written page, was “actually quiet and reserved in person” 
(7). Abbey accepted himself, embracing his id, while Stegner continually 
wanted better, embracing culture. Gessner capably engages with biog-
raphy, following Stegner in understanding our world through people’s 
lives. 
 Abbey and Stegner (who attended the first Iowa Writers’ Workshop) 
shared a “relish for hard work” with focused creative time, and both 
taught writing at a university (145). They were informed by Bernard 
DeVoto’s The Western Paradox and his view of “too many places where 
the citizenry was suckered in by the dream of riches, only to be left 
empty in the end” (120). Gessner engagingly illuminates the literary 
landscape, describing a continuous heritage from John Wesley Powell, 
Book Reviews and Notices      373 
DeVoto, Stegner, and Abbey to Terry Tempest Williams, Stephen Trimble, 
and others. Writers look to each other (as we might look to the authors) 
with “a hunger for models. For possibilities. For how to be in the world” 
(150). 
 Like Abbey, Gessner finds western landscapes transformative. He 
describes “an almost religious conversion” for those heading west to 
find home (34). For Stegner, the West represented “the geography of 
hope” (60). Stegner and Abbey drew on their own experience to write 
about natural resources, people, and western environments. Stegner’s 
father shaped his depiction of the “boomer,” ever looking for quick 
prosperity and the Big Rock Candy Mountain, while his mother re-
flected those who yearned to stay in place, a “sticker.” The oil and gas 
industry exemplified the spirit of the boomers, in Abbey’s view further-
ing the “plundering of the West in full force” (121). Water, the West’s 
greatest resource, and drought as a distinguishing feature figure prom-
inently in the landscapes of Stegner and Abbey. Stegner’s motivating 
question became, “How could human beings best inhabit” the arid ge-
ography of the West (36)? Significantly, he defended Dinosaur National 
Monument against a proposed dam and influenced language in the 
Wilderness Act.  
 Today’s West, suggests Gessner, is “a kind of fulfillment of their 
darker prophecies” (13). The oil industry has adopted fracking tech-
niques “in a region where potable water is more precious than gold” 
(124). The wildfires of 2012 confirmed that dry places will feel global 
warming more intensely. It is tempting to feel gloomy about our envi-
ronmental future. Like Stegner and Abbey, however, we should “re-
member to see the beauty, and to still take joy in that beauty but not shy 
away from the hard and often ugly reality” (13). Readers will realize how 
literature helps us understand our world and put events in perspective. 
Gessner suggests that “in this overheated and overcrowded world, 
their books can serve as guides, as surely as any gazetteer, and as maps, 
as surely as any atlas” (3). As Wendell Berry informed the author, peo-
ple “need the way lighted” (282).  
 Iowans will connect with this book on several levels, even if they 
have not read these authors or traveled in the West. The consequences 
of land development and burgeoning human populations create funda-
mental issues common to both regions. Gessner’s account finds a mid-
western companion in Cornelia Mutel’s A Sugar Creek Chronicle: Observing 
Climate Change from a Midwestern Woodland (2016). Reflecting on inhabiting 
landscapes that might seem unremarkable is every bit as compelling 
as considering monumental places. Midwestern readers will readily 
appreciate Steger’s potent phrase from Wolf Willow: “I may not know 
374      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
who I am, but I know where I am from” (56). Landscapes both western 
and midwestern evoke affection and a sense of belonging. 
 All the Wild that Remains deserves wide attention. It is a pleasure to 
read, a grand excursion into landscapes and literature. Gessner’s anal-
ysis is fresh and uniquely insightful, and readers may join him in find-
ing that they “can’t think of a better antidote to our virtual age than a 
strong dose of Edward Abbey” (285).  


All the Wild that Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, and the American West

Review of: "Good Seeds: A Menominee Indian Food Memoir", by Thomas Pecore Weso

Cumo, Christopher

354      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
 Cohen mentions that dwindling Jewish communities in small-town 
America are far from the only challenges midwestern Jews have faced 
in recent decades. Assimilation, secularization, and intermarriage have 
changed American Jewish identity in general. Her narrative still em-
phasizes the “bonds of a common ancestry that dates back to ancient 
history” (86) as the main marker of Jewish identity, yet a 2013 PEW Re-
search study suggests that Jewish identity in America has evolved into 
what some scholars refer to as an “emancipated diaspora” mentality 
that maintains identity less by looking back than by being outer di-
rected and engaging the other. (See Roberta Rosenberg, “Jewish ‘Di-
asporic Humor’ and Contemporary Jewish-American Identity,” Shofar: 
An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 33 [2015], 110–38.) 
 
 
Good Seeds: A Menominee Indian Food Memoir, by Thomas Pecore Weso. 
Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2016. xi, 122 pp. Illustra-
tions, recipe, bibliography, index. $19.95 hardcover. 
Reviewer Christopher Cumo is an independent scholar in Canton, Ohio. He is 
the author of Plants and People (2015). 
Author and Menominee Amerindian Thomas Pecore Weso offers a per-
sonal account based on childhood and adulthood experiences of the 
folk- and foodways of the Menominee of Wisconsin during much of the 
twentieth century. The book is a contribution to the burgeoning field of 
food history, a dynamic discipline that draws on the work of many 
scholars. As such, this account deserves a wide readership. The method 
flows from Weso’s commitment to fact and discrete detail as the back-
bone of historical reminiscence. The book does not borrow the theoret-
ical architecture of related historical studies, but such constructs would 
be out of place in a memoir. 
 Weso organizes Good Seeds into a preface and 17 chapters. The em-
phasis is on short, evocative passages and a fidelity to the past. As is 
proper for a book concerned with food history, Weso relates the im-
portance of several foods to the Menominee of Wisconsin. We need not 
belabor them all, but in the first chapter the author remarks about the 
importance of potatoes and cornbread as staples in his diet and that of 
the people he knew. Taking Weso’s cue, one can scarcely underrate the 
value of potatoes and corn. Corn, of course, is a primary crop in Iowa and 
other midwestern states, whereas potatoes, originating in the Andes 
Mountains, have emerged as a world crop, at least in the temperate zones. 
Weso begins the second chapter with a third American crop, supplying 
a myth for the origin of tobacco, a plant some might call a noxious weed 
likely native to Virginia. One grasps at once that Good Seeds, rooted in the 
Book Reviews and Notices      355 
Midwest, at the same time transcends the region with its strong trans-
national focus. The book is local, state, regional, and international history. 
 In evaluating Good Seeds, one begins with the title, which suggests 
seed-based agriculture. This perspective is certainly accurate for corn, 
but one might recall that potatoes, although they produce seeds, are 
usually propagated by “eyes.” The emphasis on seeds likewise accords 
with the wild rice that was important to the diets of the Menominee into 
the twentieth century. Of course, the emphasis on wild rice extends 
treatment beyond the cultivated species of Africa and Asia. 
 Good Seeds provides an important study of foodways in the upper 
Midwest, treatment that others might well extend to Iowa and other 
parts of the Midwest. Indeed, remarking about his residence in Kansas, 
Weso trains his eye on foodways of the lower Midwest so that a balanced 
treatment emerges. Given the centrality of the potato and corn to the di-
ets of the Menominee, one wonders whether similar patterns emerge in 
Iowa and other parts of the Midwest. In these ways, Good Seeds should 
command the attention of many scholars. 
 
 
The Vanishing Messiah: The Life and Resurrections of Francis Schlatter, by 
David N. Wetzel. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2016. xii, 279 pp. 
Map, illustrations, appendix, timeline, survey of prior works, index. 
$19.95 paperback. 
Reviewer Holly Folk is associate professor of liberal studies at Western Wash-
ington University, Bellingham, Washington. She is the author of The Religion of 
Chiropractic: Populist Healing in the American Heartland (2017). 
The social marginality of lay healers has often cast twin shadows—of 
charlatanry and altruistic spirituality—on their social presentations. 
The Vanishing Messiah challenges readers by blending these categories. 
David N. Wetzel’s biography of Frances Schlatter, a Progressive Era faith 
healer, charts the author’s travel to archives and historic sites that reveal 
Schlatter’s story. Wetzel’s narrative journey beautifully depicts the expe-
rience of historic research. His proposed alternative ending for Schlatter’s 
story chronicles what Wetzel believes was Schlatter’s later life, offering 
interesting speculations about the healer’s character, and thereby the 
nature of religious healing. 
 An Alsatian immigrant, Francis Schlatter arrived in Colorado in 1892. 
In the fall of 1895 he held nationally publicized healing crusades in Al-
buquerque and Denver that delivered healing blessings to tens of thou-
sands of people. Because of his physical appearance, refusal to accept 
payment for healing blessings, and claim that healing came “from the 
Father,” Schlatter came to be seen as a Christ-like figure. 


Good Seeds: A Menominee Indian Food Memoir

Review of: "The Oxford Handbook of American Immigration and Ethnicity", edited by Ronald H. Bayor

Buenker, John D.

250      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
The Oxford Handbook of American Immigration and Ethnicity, edited by 
Ronald H. Bayor. New York: Oxford University Press. 2016. vii, 546 pp. 
Notes, index. $150 hardcover.  
Reviewer John D. Buenker is professor emeritus of history at the University of 
Wisconsin–Parkside. He is coeditor of Immigration and Ethnicity: A Guide to In-
formation Sources (1977) and Multiculturalism in the United States (1992).  
In 1977 Rudy Vecoli, director of the Immigration History Research Cen-
ter, cautioned that historians had thus far produced only “a snapshot of 
an avalanche” that “will inevitably be dated the moment it appears” (in 
Immigration and Ethnicity: A Guide to Information Sources, ed. John D. 
Buenker and Nicholas C. Burckel [1997], x). Four decades later, Ronald 
H. Bayor, founding president of the Immigration and Ethnic History 
Society, has provided a brilliantly illuminated panorama of that “ava-
lanche” in The Oxford Handbook of American Immigration and Ethnicity. Its 
546 pages contain 27 thematic articles of 10 to 20 pages each written by 
widely acknowledged experts. Each article is thoroughly annotated, and 
each section ends with a detailed bibliography. In the main, the articles 
are exhaustively researched, cogently written, and highly informative. 
 In his comprehensive introduction, Bayor proclaims that the sub-
ject is a “multifaceted one, far more complex than early immigration 
historians envisioned. It is a story of world migration patterns that in-
cludes regions containing nontraditional sending countries.” A clearer 
view, he argues, is that of “Atlantic and Pacific migrations taking 
people across the world along numerous transportation routes” (2). 
Historians have clearly embraced “a more systematic methodology 
and a formal discipline that considers American immigration and eth-
nic history within its full racial and ethnic unfolding” (2). They have 
sought to analyze the substantial impact of the newest Americans as 
well as to understand pre-1965 history and scholarship. As more and 
more “nonwhites” have arrived, “historians and sociologists have taken 
a closer look at previous migrations in regard to who was considered 
white by law and custom, who was allowed to attain citizenship, and 
what has been the role of identity politics” (5). 
 It is obviously impossible to do justice to even one of these 27 arti-
cles within the space allotted for this review. So, with apologies to Ron 
Bayor, I have assigned each individual article to one of five broadly 
thematic categories: 1) The Universe, 2) Legislation and Restriction, 
3) Occupational and Settlement Patterns, 4) Models of Assimilation 
and Acculturation, and 5) Film, Correspondence, and Museums. Each 
category serves as a unifying paradigm, allowing readers to focus on 
topics of greatest individual interest.  
Book Reviews and Notices      251 
 Included in the first category are “European Migrations” by Dirk 
Hoerder; “Asian Immigration” by Madeline Y. Hsu; “Latino Immigra-
tion” by Maria Cristina Garcia; and “African American Migration from 
the Colonial Era to the Present” by Joe W. Trotter. Closely related is 
“Emancipation and Exploitation in Immigrant Women’s Lives” by 
Donna Gabaccia. Each article is thoroughly comprehensive chronologi-
cally and in breadth of coverage. They document the evolution from a 
time when Europeans were almost the sole focus to their current status 
as “a contributing role” (51). The Asian category embraces 40 different 
groups—from the Middle East to the Pacific Ocean--who have been 
considered, simultaneously, as model immigrants and perpetually dan-
gerous threats. The Latino field, which covers 16 percent of our popula-
tion, is “broad, vigorous, dynamic and open to intellectual engagement” 
(83). The number of African immigrants has grown to 640,000, the ma-
jority of whom are flocking to the Sunbelt States. The exploitation of 
women immigrants has been a “fundamental tension” from the eight-
eenth century to the present, but a growing number of scholars have 
begun to stress examples of “empowerment and agency” (107).  
 Essays treating legislation and restriction include “Immigration 
Legislation, 1875 to the Present” by David M. Reimers; “Protecting 
America’s Borders and the Undocumented Immigrant Dilemma” by 
David G. Gutierrez; “Inclusion, Exclusion and the Making of American 
Nationality” by Gary Gerstle; “Ethnicity, Race, and Religion Beyond 
Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish Whites” by Stephen Warner; and 
“Immigration, Medical Regulation, and Eugenics” by Wendy Kline. 
Has legislation created a “unified system,” or “modified racism” (14)? 
Religion as an “allowable difference” (431) has become far broader, 
while fears of contagion and degeneration remain popular.  
 Essays on occupational and settlement patterns are “The World of 
the Immigrant Worker” by James R. Barrett; “Neighborhoods, Immi-
grants, and Ethnic Americans” by Amanda L Seligman; and “Immigra-
tion and Ethnic Diversity in the South, 1980–2010” by Mary E. Odem, 
who generally believe that today’s immigrants will not necessarily 
follow pre-1965 patterns.  
 The category of models of assimilation and acculturation contains 
“Assimilation in the Past and Present” by Richard Alba; “Whiteness 
and Race” by David R. Roediger; “Race and U.S. Panethnic Formation” 
by Yen Le Espiritu; “Intermarriage and the Creation of a New America” 
by Allison Varally; “Historians and Sociologists Debate Transnation-
alism” by Peter Kivisto; “Race and Citizenship” by Gregory T. Carter; 
“Allegiance, Dual Citizenship, and the Ethnic Influence on U.S. For-
eign Policy” by David Brundage; and “Language Retention/Language 
252      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
Shift, ‘English Only,’ and Multilingualism in the United States” by 
Joshua A. Fishman. All demonstrate that whiteness, privilege, and 
citizenship have been bound to one another, while non-whiteness has 
meant subordinate status. They all agree that gaining “an occupational 
and economic foothold” (340) is an absolute prerequisite for any 
possibility of social mobility. Panethnic or transnational identities 
have never fully overcome ethno-racial ones. Viewing migration in 
terms of both emigration and immigration continues to “open up new 
avenues of scholarship” (399). 
 The film, correspondence, and museums category features “Immi-
gration, Race, and Ethnicity in American Film” by Stephen Alan Carr; 
“Written Forms of Communication from Immigrant Letters to Instant 
Messaging” by Suzanne M. Sinke; and “Melting Pots, Salad Bowls, 
Ethnic Museums, and American Identity” by Stephen Conn. Whereas 
most film depictions of ethnic groups, with notable exceptions, still 
remain “messy and full of contradictions” (453), written forms of 
communication and ethnic museums can bestow “a sense of place and 
voice and dignity” (484). 
 In a final, critically important article, “New Approaches in 
Teaching Immigration and Ethnic History,” John J. Bukowczyk ad-
vises that “the advent of new technologies, innovative methods of 
instruction, and greater availability of source materials online has 
changed teaching in the field, but the quality of teaching ultimately 
depends on what questions the researcher and teacher ask and the in-
tellectual framework within which these questions are located” (489). 
Scholarship and teaching “are—or should be—co-constitutive and 
mutually reinforcing practices” (489). 
 
 
Latino Heartland: Of Borders and Belonging in the Midwest, by Sujey Vega. 
New York: New York University Press, 2015. xxvi, 261 pp. Illustrations, 
notes, bibliography, index. $30.00 paperback. 
Reviewer Felipe Hinojosa is associate professor of history at Texas A&M Uni-
versity. He is the author of Latino Mennonites: Civil Rights, Faith, and Evangelical 
Culture (2014). 
In Latino Heartland, Sujey Vega introduces us to the stories, struggles, 
and resiliency of the Latino immigrant community in Lafayette, In-
diana (located about 100 miles southeast of Chicago). With analytical 
precision and a storyteller’s heart, Vega explores the politics of race, 
community formation, and the politics of belonging against the back-
drop of a growing anti-immigrant sentiment in this midwestern town. 
Anti-immigrant sentiment has a long history in this country, but in the 


The Oxford Handbook of American Immigration and Ethnicity

Review of: "A Wrestling Life: The Inspiring Stories of Dan Gable," by Dan Gable with Scott Schulte

McMahon, David R.

152      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
 Bennett is not a historian, however. He struggles to move between 
larger historical trends and the localized histories of the writing pro-
grams. Broad swaths of history are glossed in such a manner as to prove 
meaningless and unhelpful to readers: “Rapid changes touched every-
body and divided the forward-looking from the backward-glancing. 
Was the future the solution or the problem? Was the nation halfway to 
salvation or farther from it than ever before?” (18). Bennett wishes to 
destroy the canard that MFA programs were apolitical, removed from 
larger forces such as Cold War fears and strategies, but he winds up 
reiterating another one—that of a Cold War consensus. He relies on ill-
defined terms such as “Cold War agenda” and “Cold War intellectual 
consensus” without explaining or identifying whose agenda was being 
carried out. Bennett ignores the scholarship that proves the very idea of 
a Cold War consensus was another fiction, albeit a politically useful one. 
As scholars such as Alan Brinkley have documented, this “consensus” 
was an illusion, particularly when it came to intellectuals and writers. 
Writers were more often the target of Cold War apparatus than its ben-
eficiaries. However, Bennett only touches on this briefly when he dis-
cusses Engle’s dismaying encounter with Red Scare allegations in 1952 
that led to the cancellation of an invited lecture at Marshall College. 
 Workshops of Empire is not recommended for general readers, as it is 
challenging in both its prose style and its assumptions. However, it will 
certainly prove of interest to researchers of Iowa history for its treat-
ment of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the intriguing use of archival 
evidence from the Paul Engle Papers at the University of Iowa, a collec-
tion that deserves further study.  
 
 
A Wrestling Life: The Inspiring Stories of Dan Gable, by Dan Gable with 
Scott Schulte. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2015. xvi, 155 pages. 
Illustrations, appendixes, index. $23.00 hardcover. 
Reviewer David R. McMahon is professor of history at Kirkwood Community 
College, Iowa City Campus. Much of his research and writing have focused on 
Iowa’s sport history. 
Often described as the most successful coach in collegiate history, Dan 
Gable earned the right to impart life lessons. The architect of one of the 
most dominating dynasties in collegiate sports—coaching the University 
of Iowa Hawkeyes to 15 national wrestling titles, his views on life and 
how to succeed are worth considering. Fortunately for Gable, he found 
an eager partner in Scott Schulte. Published by the University of Iowa 
Press, A Wrestling Life is an easy read but rather light fare for an academic 
press. It has merit in sports literature if only for what it ignores. 
Book Reviews and Notices      153 
 For aficionados of wrestling and fans of Gable, of whom there are 
many, much here will be familiar. Movingly, he discusses the tragic in-
cident that fueled his manic ambition to become the embodiment of am-
ateur wrestling. His eldest sister, Diane, was murdered by a classmate 
in 1964 in the Gable family home. His family already had troubles, but 
this tragedy compelled Gable to become the hyper-focused athlete of 
legend and the popular cultural icon we know him to be. 
 At times, Gable can be preachy. For this he will be forgiven by those 
who idolize him. Sport historians, however, would like to know more 
than Gable’s life lessons. What scholars would like to know he does not 
seem very interested in telling. At an event in Iowa City to celebrate the 
publication of the book, Gable criticized Nolan Zavoral’s A Season on the 
Mat (1997) for not conforming to his expectations, although it is a more 
revealing book than A Wrestling Life. There are hints in this book (and 
in that book launch talk) of a darker history. For example, there is the 
abandoned run for governor prompted by Karl Rove and Gable’s ad-
mission that the drive to win made him unable to comment on the tragic 
events that unfolded around him in Munich in 1972. 
 Anyone familiar with the history of Iowa wrestling has heard the 
rumors of wild and reckless behavior by his wrestlers—drinking and 
fighting their way through Iowa City—as the program rose to promi-
nence. I would like to know more about that—again, something hinted 
at during the memorable evening that launched the book. Historians 
are often interested in things historical figures are unwilling or unable 
to talk about. 
 A Wrestling Life is a revealing choice for an academic press. Clearly, 
the publishers hoped that this book would sell, and no doubt it has. 
Gable’s website advertises the book along with motivational speaking 
engagements. A Wrestling Life is an obvious example of how academic 
presses have been forced to appeal to larger audiences. If this helps the 
cause of academic publishing, so be it. But there is more to know about 
the history of Iowa wrestling than is revealed in this book. 


A Wrestling Life: The Inspiring Stories of Dan Gable

Back Matter, The Annals of Iowa, v. 76 no. 1 Winter 2017

Review of: "Plowed Under: Food Policy Protests and Performance in New Deal America," by Ann Folino

Cannon, Brian Q.

Book Reviews and Notices      143 
Plowed Under: Food Policy Protests and Performance in New Deal America, 
by Ann Folino White. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana Uni-
versity Press, 2015. x, 307 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. 
$30.00 paperback. 
Reviewer Brian Q. Cannon is professor of history at Brigham Young University. 
His publications include Remaking the Agrarian Dream: The New Deal’s Rural Re-
settlement Program in the Mountain West (1996). 
In this stimulating study of New Deal America, theater scholar Ann 
Folino White explores protests, exhibits, and a theatrical play about the 
supply and price of food. White distinctively interprets her historical 
evidence, drawn from careful research in 11 archives, through the lens 
of performance studies. Although the book does not focus on Iowa, it 
offers detailed case studies of midwestern protest movements and ex-
amines reactions to government food policies that affected Iowans.  
 White begins by scrutinizing theatrical elements in exhibits spon-
sored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) at the 1933–34 
Chicago World’s Fair. One exhibit titled “The Shadow of Surplus” at-
tributed low farm income to agricultural surpluses, essentially blaming 
farmers’ success as producers for their low income. That exhibit was 
replaced after a few months partly because the fair’s assistant adminis-
trator believed it was overly negative. The replacement exhibit cele-
brated the income-boosting impact of production controls instituted by 
the New Deal.  
 Next, the author analyzes a milk strike organized by the Wisconsin 
Cooperative Milk Pool in 1933. When strikers stopped milk trucks and 
forcibly dumped their contents to drive up prices, local deputies and 
the National Guard deployed tear gas. White highlights performative 
aspects of the strike, including publicity leading up to it and the pres-
ence of thousands of spectators. Strikers billed themselves as the heirs 
of the American Revolution and melodramatically vilified processing 
corporations that profited from the low milk prices farmers received. 
News reporters resorted to stock, opposing portraits of strike organizer 
Walter Singler and Governor Albert Schmedeman. Singler was valor-
ized as a skilled orator and athlete while the governor was depicted as 
small and weak. Descriptions of the weapons—tear gas and nightsticks 
for the state and rocks for the protestors—“spectacularized the repres-
sive power of the state” (103). The evidence presented supports White’s 
interpretation, but it comes from only three newspapers. Using compet-
ing newspapers from Madison and Milwaukee might have enabled the 
author to uncover a more varied media treatment of the strike.  
144      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
 In another richly textured, provocative case study that documents 
the leadership of an important Michigan activist, Mary Zuk, White an-
alyzes a meat boycott organized by women in Hamtramck in 1935 to 
protest New Deal inflationary policies. White pinpoints theatrical and 
rhetorical elements of the protest, arguing that the women shrewdly 
adopted the persona of “housewives” who needed inexpensive meat to 
satisfy their husbands’ nutritional needs. Meanwhile, opponents dis-
missed the protest as pure theatrics, or “fake.”  
 White next examines a 1939 demonstration in which 1,300 Missouri 
sharecroppers protested New Deal limitations on cotton production 
that unintentionally incentivized landlords to evict sharecroppers. Crit-
ics alleged that the protests were a charade organized by unions; others 
identified the demonstration as authentic “human drama” (155). White 
detects artifice and sleight of hand behind the protest, pointing out that 
the participants received provisions by night “in a manner analogous 
to masterful stage management,” thereby allowing the protestors to 
continue their “performance” (172).  
 A final case study involves the Federal Theatre Project’s (FTP) play 
Triple-A Plowed Under, which premiered in 1936. White surveys the 26 
scenes, which dramatized protests, including a meat strike, a milk strike, 
and the unionization of share croppers. 
 White argues that participants in these protests and productions 
demonstrated “sophisticated understanding of theatrical traditions” 
and carefully incorporated “theatrical elements from casting to dia-
logue to props to scenery” (4). They employed “theatrical strategies” in 
their “representation” of grievances and viewpoints, as did their oppo-
nents (13). She admits that even the most carefully scripted protests 
could spin out of control, though.  
 For historians, this interpretive approach works best in cases where 
memos or internal correspondence allow White to document organiz-
ers’ motives and strategies, as is the case in the USDA’s World’s Fair 
exhibit and the FTP play. Unfortunately, documentation of the plans 
and aims of the milk, meat, and sharecropping protesters is sparse. As 
White observes, acting is “intentional” and strategic in its “dissembling” 
(125); it is a carefully calculated performance. White vacillates between 
suggesting that the roles and props adopted by protesters reflected in-
tentional acting and acknowledging that they might have constituted 
“unconscious performance” (125). Similarly, she is unable to determine 
whether the media hype leading up to the Wisconsin Milk Strike was 
“intentional or not” (78). Thus, White’s book demonstrates that analyses 
of politics and protests through the lens of performance studies can be 
both wonderfully suggestive and highly conjectural.  


Plowed Under: Food Policy Protests and Performance in New Deal America

Review of: "The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder," edited by William Anderson

Fry, John J.

Book Reviews and Notices      131 
and his family’s place in the opening of the western prairies. Ultimately, 
Prairie Visions depicts the hard work that produced modern Iowa. 
 
 
The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by William Anderson. 
New York: HarperCollins, 2016. xxvii, 400 pp. Illustrations, maps, index. 
$26.99 hardcover. 
Reviewer John J. Fry is professor of history at Trinity Christian College, Palos 
Heights, Illinois. An authority on the life and works of Laura Ingalls Wilder, he 
is also the editor of Almost Pioneers: One Couple’s Homesteading Adventure in the 
West (2013). 
Laura Ingalls Wilder’s eight Little House books provide fictionalized 
accounts of Wilder’s childhood in Wisconsin, Kansas, Minnesota, and 
South Dakota. They became instant best-sellers when they were pub-
lished during the 1930s and 1940s, and they remained popular for the 
rest of the twentieth century, especially when the television series Little 
House on the Prairie aired from 1974 to 1983. It is unclear whether the 
books are as popular now as they were during the twentieth century, 
but there is still publishing interest in Wilder. During the past ten years 
there have appeared new biographies (Pamela Smith Hill’s Laura Ingalls 
Wilder: A Writer’s Life [2007] and Sallie Ketcham’s Laura Ingalls Wilder: 
American Writer on the Prairie [2015]), her final previously unpublished 
work (Pioneer Girl, edited by Hill [2014]), and a memoir of engagement 
with the books (Wendy McClure’s The Wilder Life [2011]). Now William 
Anderson, the foremost living authority on Wilder, has edited this col-
lection of over 400 letters Wilder wrote between 1894 and her death in 
1957. The volume is a worthy addition to the body of Wilder’s work. 
 The letters are arranged in strict date order and divided chrono-
logically into six chapters. Each chapter begins with an overview of the 
events in Wilder’s life during that period. Anderson has added a de-
scriptive title to each letter, usually using words from the letter itself. 
Most letters also have a brief introduction that provides background on 
the correspondent and/or the context of the letter. 
 For those interested in how the Little House books were written, 
this book provides 100 pages of correspondence from Wilder to her 
daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, between 1936 and 1940, when Wilder was 
writing several of the Little House books and Lane was editing and re-
vising them for publication. The letters provide a window on the lively 
collaboration between the two women. At times Wilder, who was used 
to being able to tell her daughter what to do, had to accept Rose’s advice 
about writing. There were also occasions, however, when Wilder refused 
132      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
to budge, and it is clear that her instincts were correct. The efforts of 
both women combined to make the Little House books memorable. 
 Other groups of letters are also fascinating. For instance, Wilder 
wrote to her husband while she took trips to California in 1915 and 
1925. Letters from the first trip were published by HarperCollins as 
West from Home in 1974, but letters from the second are published for 
the first time here. Imagining Wilder at 58 years old riding in a Buick 
through the mountains of Colorado, Nevada, and California is a treat. 
There are also multiple letters from Wilder to her literary agent and ed-
itors; she argues for more royalties, thanks them for the work they do, 
and shares news. Finally, the book reproduces dozens of letters she sent 
to fans of the books who wrote to her. During the last years of her life, 
she wrote to hundreds of these correspondents.  
 One wonders if the correspondence could have been organized dif-
ferently to bring similar letters together. The chapters are also of uneven 
length; the shortest is only 22 pages, the longest is over 150. Finally, it is 
unclear why the correspondence between Wilder and Lane is divided 
into two different chapters. 
 These are minor concerns, however. This book is a must-read for 
Wilder scholars and for anyone who loves the Little House books. 
 
 
Somewhere Over There: The Letters, Diary, and Artwork of a World War I 
Corporal, by Francis H. Webster, edited by Darrek D. Orwig. Norman: 
University of Oklahoma Press, 2016. xv, 277 pp. Illustrations, notes, bib-
liography, index. $29.95 hardcover. 
Reviewer Matthew J. Margis recently earned a Ph.D. in history from Iowa State 
University. His dissertation focuses on the National Guard’s development as 
both a social and military organization during the Progressive Era. 
During World War I, a young corporal from Iowa personified the role 
of “embedded journalist” decades before that term existed. In August 
1917 the U.S. Army officially drafted the National Guard into the Amer-
ican Expeditionary Force, and the Third Iowa Infantry Regiment be-
came the 168th U.S. Infantry Regiment as part of the newly created 42nd 
Infantry Division. Francis Webster enlisted in the Iowa National Guard 
shortly after the United States declared war on Germany. He served as 
a bugler in the Third Iowa Infantry Regiment’s machine gun company. 
In addition to drawing illustrations about life in the trenches for publi-
cation in an Iowa newspaper, Webster maintained an extensive corre-
spondence with his family and friends, and he kept a detailed diary. For 
Somewhere Over There, Darrek Orwig painstakingly edited Webster’s let-
ters, diary, and artwork. 


The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder

Review of: "Latino Heartland: Of Borders and Belonging in the Midwest", by Sujey Vega

Hinojosa, Felipe

252      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
Shift, ‘English Only,’ and Multilingualism in the United States” by 
Joshua A. Fishman. All demonstrate that whiteness, privilege, and 
citizenship have been bound to one another, while non-whiteness has 
meant subordinate status. They all agree that gaining “an occupational 
and economic foothold” (340) is an absolute prerequisite for any 
possibility of social mobility. Panethnic or transnational identities 
have never fully overcome ethno-racial ones. Viewing migration in 
terms of both emigration and immigration continues to “open up new 
avenues of scholarship” (399). 
 The film, correspondence, and museums category features “Immi-
gration, Race, and Ethnicity in American Film” by Stephen Alan Carr; 
“Written Forms of Communication from Immigrant Letters to Instant 
Messaging” by Suzanne M. Sinke; and “Melting Pots, Salad Bowls, 
Ethnic Museums, and American Identity” by Stephen Conn. Whereas 
most film depictions of ethnic groups, with notable exceptions, still 
remain “messy and full of contradictions” (453), written forms of 
communication and ethnic museums can bestow “a sense of place and 
voice and dignity” (484). 
 In a final, critically important article, “New Approaches in 
Teaching Immigration and Ethnic History,” John J. Bukowczyk ad-
vises that “the advent of new technologies, innovative methods of 
instruction, and greater availability of source materials online has 
changed teaching in the field, but the quality of teaching ultimately 
depends on what questions the researcher and teacher ask and the in-
tellectual framework within which these questions are located” (489). 
Scholarship and teaching “are—or should be—co-constitutive and 
mutually reinforcing practices” (489). 
 
 
Latino Heartland: Of Borders and Belonging in the Midwest, by Sujey Vega. 
New York: New York University Press, 2015. xxvi, 261 pp. Illustrations, 
notes, bibliography, index. $30.00 paperback. 
Reviewer Felipe Hinojosa is associate professor of history at Texas A&M Uni-
versity. He is the author of Latino Mennonites: Civil Rights, Faith, and Evangelical 
Culture (2014). 
In Latino Heartland, Sujey Vega introduces us to the stories, struggles, 
and resiliency of the Latino immigrant community in Lafayette, In-
diana (located about 100 miles southeast of Chicago). With analytical 
precision and a storyteller’s heart, Vega explores the politics of race, 
community formation, and the politics of belonging against the back-
drop of a growing anti-immigrant sentiment in this midwestern town. 
Anti-immigrant sentiment has a long history in this country, but in the 
Book Reviews and Notices      253 
years since the attack on 9/11 the hatred has escalated. The fear was 
compounded in 2006 when U.S. Representative Jim Sensenbrenner of 
Wisconsin introduced House Resolution 4437, which linked border and 
immigration control with antiterrorism policy. Such political rhetoric, 
Vega correctly argues, “moved the [immigration] debate away from 
the more familiar geographical setting of the southwest.” The impact 
of these debates “thickens the borderlands” and pushes us—especially 
scholars of Latina/o Studies thoroughly focused on the Southwest or 
Northeast—to the Midwest and to its importance as a borderland (7).  
 Latino Heartland is brilliant because it provides a ground-level anal-
ysis of the ways racist immigration policy affects the lives of Latino 
immigrants in a region where many people see them as a threat. In a 
recent article in the New Yorker magazine, journalist and coanchor on 
Univision news Jorge Ramos told the story of a Latina in Iowa who 
shared with him the fear that immigrants are living with in that state. 
“People were afraid to leave their houses,” the woman told him, and 
“when they went to Wal-Mart, they only felt comfortable going at 
night.” (William Finnegan, “The Man Who Wouldn’t Sit Down: How 
Univision’s Jorge Ramos Earns His Viewer’s Trust,” New Yorker, Octo-
ber 5, 2015.) With a focus on Indiana, Latino Heartland takes us beyond 
the Southwest and Northeast (where a majority of Latinos live) and 
introduces readers to the new challenges, the new social movements, 
and the “everyday encounters” of Latino immigrants in the Midwest. 
 For this study, Vega did meticulous research, scouring local ar-
chives to get a sense of the town’s history and conducting 79 oral his-
tory interviews. The result is a deep analysis of local politics and anti-
Latino racism and the story of a town on the crossroads of social and 
political change. In many ways, Lafayette is like many other towns in 
the Midwest experiencing rapid demographic change—places like 
Moline, Illinois, or Davenport, Iowa, both with historic Latino popula-
tions who in recent years have seen those populations rise. In each 
chapter, Vega carefully teases out the interplay of race, class, gender, 
and immigration politics that in many ways challenges the myth of a 
tranquil and neutral Indiana. But without question new spaces often 
create new problems, as when police officers in Lafayette “incorrectly 
conflated Virgin de Guadalupe iconography with gang affiliations” 
(174). Yet the stories in Latino Heartland also show us how “these mid-
western spaces became part of their [Latinos’] sense of home” (71). This 
was the place where Latinos “joined their transnational ties with their 
localized Hoosier experiences” (177). 
 There are limits to community, but Vega reminds us—no, she 
shows us—that community matters because it creates hopeful possi-
254      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
bilities in the face of despair. The focus on Lafayette clues us in to the 
mechanics of a global phenomenon, and right now there is no greater 
laboratory than the Midwest. This is the region where new waves of 
Latinos are transforming communities and where, ironically, Latinos 
are giving new life to a region that is tagged by many as “the real 
America.” I loved this book because it hooked me in early with its 
engaging stories and theoretically sophisticated analysis. Vega crafted 
a beautiful narrative that allows readers to feel and visualize the Mid-
west: the smells, the stillness, and the gray skies that cover the sun’s 
shine. This is an important book that should be read by everyone who 
cares about the changing politics and demographics of the Midwest.  
 
 
The Small-Town Midwest: Resilience and Hope in the Twenty-First Century, 
by Julianne Couch. Iowa and the Midwest Experience Series. Iowa City: 
University of Iowa Press, 2016. 230 pp. Illustrations, note on sources, 
index. $35.00 paperback. 
Reviewer Drake Hokanson is professor emeritus at Winona State University. 
He is the author of Reflecting a Prairie Town: A Year in Peterson (1994). 
With the great social and economic changes in the prairies and plains 
during the past several decades, what has happened to our thousands 
of small towns? How can we evaluate their health or somehow take 
full measure of these scattered and varied communities? Many main 
streets bear empty buildings, and often the only going businesses are 
the grain elevator, a convenience store, and maybe an antique store 
slowly selling off the collective memories of a once hopeful town. 
Others show signs of growth and vitality when a new industry arrives 
or when retirees discover quiet neighborhoods, affordable housing, 
and rural scenery. 
 Author Julianne Couch knows her small towns and is devoted to 
them. In The Small-Town Midwest she digs in to eight towns (average 
population 2,036) and one county scattered across five states. Two are 
Iowa towns: Emmetsburg and Bellevue. While in the process of writ-
ing the book, she moved from one of her subject towns, Centennial, 
Wyoming, and settled in Bellevue. Centennial, at the foot of the 
Snowy Range in Wyoming, hardly fits the description of a midwestern 
town, and towns from the midwestern states of Minnesota, Illinois, 
Indiana, and Ohio are oddly missing, but her selections are otherwise 
varied and interesting. Tarkio, Missouri, for example, suffered steep 
decline when its local college closed, while a two-year college and a 
casino brought new opportunities to Emmetsburg, Iowa. In Bridgeport, 


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