The Annals of Iowa

Schwieder, Dorothy Hubbard

English

It All Started with the Amish: Reflections on a Career in Iowa History

Valerio-Jiménez, Omar

Racializing Mexican Immigrants in Iowa's Early Mexican Communities

Review of: "Missing Millie Benson: The Secret Case of the Nancy Drew Ghostwriter and Journalist," by Julie K. Rubin

Marino, Michella M.

456      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
to the masses. Yet the visionaries and viewers Weems investigates are 
primarily male—from photographers, boosters, mapmakers, and artists 
to an implied audience of land-owning individuals who bought prop-
erty, worked with agents, and made decisions. Gender is apparent in 
some analyses; Weems makes an intriguing connection between a pho-
tograph of quilters and the ways that Life editors may have imagined 
resonances between domestic ritual and the “agricultural future” (123). 
What happens when women claim aerial perspective? Would the per-
ceptions and experiences of women working on farms in the 1930s and 
1940s have been affected in the same way by aerial views as men’s were? 
Perhaps, but that possibility is only hinted at in the conclusion, which 
begins with a discussion of the “cognitive transformations” intimated 
by Dorothy’s aerial exodus to the land of Oz in the influential 1939 film 
(254).  
 The conclusion, like the rest of the book, opens the door to new in-
terpretations of midwestern landscapes, particularly as they pertain to 
mass culture. Enthusiasts of visual culture, history, and rural life should 
welcome this book, which performs significant cultural work itself in re-
orienting scholarly views of the Midwest, and is a strong contribution 
to the current recentering of the Midwest in American culture studies.  
 
 
Missing Millie Benson: The Secret Case of the Nancy Drew Ghostwriter and 
Journalist, by Julie K. Rubini. Biographies for Young Readers. Athens: 
Ohio University Press, 2015. viii, 123 pp. Illustrations, sidebars, appen-
dixes, notes, bibliography. $28.95 hardcover, $14.95 paperback. 
Reviewer Michella M. Marino is assistant professor of history at Hastings Col-
lege in Hastings, Nebraska. Her master’s research focused on young girls grow-
ing up in the Midwest during the World War II era. 
Much like author Julie K. Rubini, as a young girl I, too, was drawn to the 
yellow-spined mystery novels starring the independent amateur sleuth 
Nancy Drew. Despite my interest, I never gave much thought to Car-
olyn Keene, the author of the Nancy Drew books. Had I looked more 
deeply into Keene’s life, it would not have mattered, because, as Rubini 
explains, “There is no Carolyn Keene. There never was” (1).  
 Thus, Rubini establishes a mystery surrounding the original ghost-
writer of the series, Millie Benson, and why she only gained authorial 
recognition after a 1980 court case and a Nancy Drew conference held 
at the University of Iowa in 1993. Rubini sets up her biography for 
young readers in the same charming, formulaic manner as the Nancy 
Drew books, right down to her use of “holding points,” the concluding 
hook at the end of each chapter that compels readers to turn the page. 
Book Reviews and Notices      457 
 Rubini chronologically details the personal life of Mildred (Millie) 
Augustine Wirt Benson while also highlighting relevant Iowa history 
until roughly 1940, when Benson relocated to Ohio. Readers get a 
glimpse into early twentieth-century small-town life in Ladora, Iowa, 
before witnessing the growth of the University of Iowa campus and its 
academic programs in the early 1920s. Rubini explores Benson’s devel-
opment as a journalist and writer from a young girl growing up in Iowa 
through her time at the University of Iowa, which helped prepare her 
to ghostwrite for the Stratemeyer Syndicate as well as write and publish 
under her own name. By the mid-1950s, Benson parted ways with the 
Stratemeyer Syndicate but continued to pursue a career as a journalist, 
combining her love of travel, flying, and mystery. 
 Rubini’s book is geared for younger readers, but the best part of the 
book is that Rubini slyly teaches children what scholarly historical 
research and writing looks like. She splendidly contextualizes changing 
gender roles, merges national and local history through such topics as 
the Great Depression, and explains the history of early to mid–twentieth-
century writing and publishing. Furthermore, she uses footnotes and a 
bibliography to showcase an interesting array of primary and secondary 
sources.  
 Even though it is intended primarily for young readers, the book 
still offers much for adults in its insight into book syndicates and in the 
life story of an under-discussed but important author in children’s lit-
erature. A few mysteries remain unresolved, however. Readers who are 
intrigued by passing mention of the “challenging” relationship between 
Benson and her daughter never learn more about the topic, including 
what became of Benson’s family after her death in 2002. Although Ben-
son seemingly played an integral role in interpreting the Nancy Drew 
character, Rubini does not analyze Benson’s development of Nancy 
Drew in comparison to the outlines created by the Stratemeyer Syndicate. 
Doing so would have added depth to Benson’s contributions to the 
legacy of the Nancy Drew character. Still, the secret case of the Nancy 
Drew ghostwriter is one worth exploring. 
 
 
Cold War in a Cold Land: Fighting Communism on the Northern Plains, by 
David W. Mills. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2015. ix, 300 pp. 
Maps, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $29.95 hardcover. 
Reviewer Michael S. Mayer is professor of history at the University of Montana. 
He is the author of The Eisenhower Years (2009). 
According to David Mills, people in the northern Great Plains states 
(South Dakota, North Dakota, and Montana) “enthusiastically supported 


Missing Millie Benson: The Secret Case of the Nancy Drew Ghostwriter and Journalist

Front Matter, The Annals of Iowa, v. 75 no. 2 Spring 2016

Review of: The Great Medicine Road, Part 2, Narratives of the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails, 1849, edited by Michael L. Tate, with Will Bagley and Richard Riec

Murphy, J. T.

168      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
to see it in that light. It surely wasn’t his fault that in 1835 he had been 
appointed a member of the Twelve, that he had led a most successful 
apostolic mission to Great Britain from 1838 to 1841, and that he was 
by 1847 in the most senior position to succeed Joseph Smith as presi-
dent. Running the church by committee or by quorum when their own 
revelations made clear that the Twelve were to go into all the world 
was hardly a defensible proposition. And Orson Pratt knew it. While 
Mason is correct in showing that Young and Pratt were often at odds 
theologically and in terms of personality, it is significant that it was 
Pratt who presented Young’s name for a sustaining vote as the next 
president. Pratt’s action was not a capitulation to Brigham’s right to 
succeed but a recognition of it. 
 While Mason’s book is a good read—lively, informative, and en-
tertaining—it lacks substance and the authority and credibility of in-
depth scholarly research. 
 
 
The Great Medicine Road, Part 2, Narratives of the Oregon, California, and 
Mormon Trails, 1849, edited by Michael L. Tate, with Will Bagley and 
Richard Rieck. American Trails Series 24. Norman: Arthur H. Clark 
Company, an imprint of the University of Oklahoma Press, 2015. 328 
pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. $39.95 hardcover.  
Reviewer J. T. Murphy is professor of history at Indiana University South Bend. 
His research and writing have focused on the military history of the nineteenth-
century U.S. West, the Oregon Trail, and frontier settlement, among other topics. 
Writing in 1917, Henry Ferguson recalled his family’s move in 1849 
from their farm in Jasper County, Iowa, to the gold fields of California. 
He was 11 years old when his parents and six siblings crossed the Mis-
souri River at Kanesville (today’s Council Bluffs), where they joined 
the “Iowa Company” of 42 wagons and “about three hundred souls.” 
They were “all determined in purpose,” Ferguson remembered, “yet 
seemingly almost making a leap in the dark—none having any personal 
knowledge of what lay before them” (120). 
 When the Argonauts of 1849 left for the West, there were guide-
books aplenty on how and where to travel, trails and cutoffs were well 
marked, ferries awaited at many river crossings, and the American 
army maintained a presence along the way. Each day’s routine, how-
ever, might be altered by injury or disease, a real or imagined fear of 
Indians waiting to steal oxen, or the inability to find grass and water. 
Decisions had to be made, resolve maintained. “There is no back out 
now,” Sherman Hawley reported to the Kalamazoo Gazette. “The gold 
diggings are ahead, and we are bound to be there” (185).  
Book Reviews and Notices      169 
 The letters, journals, and memoirs of trail migrants demonstrate 
both the commonalities and uniqueness of their experiences. Amid the 
sameness of miles gained and landmarks noted, they left a fascinating 
and informative record of what they saw and the choices they faced. In 
this second of a proposed four-volume series about going west along 
the Overland Trail, editor Michael L. Tate (assisted by Will Bagley and 
Richard Rieck) focuses on ‘49ers bound for California. This volume con-
tinues to satisfy the project’s initial goal of finding documents “truly 
representative of the great migrations” (15). In A Treatise, Showing the 
Best Way to California, Sidney Roberts, a Mormon from Iowa City and 
early promoter of Kanesville as a jumping-off point, argued against sea 
travel in favor of the land route passing through Salt Lake City, and he 
assured his readers that Mormons could provide assistance anywhere 
along the way. The remaining narratives, like those by Ferguson and 
Hawley, describe trail life and provide insights into their authors’ atti-
tudes and character. Benjamin Robert Biddle, for example, paid east-
bound travelers to carry his mail to Springfield, Illinois, where his 
journal entries appeared in the Daily Illinois State Journal. He lamented 
being far from home and family, but, he said, “As the world is, there is a 
necessity for gold” (101). Because of this, many on the trail had “adopted 
a coarseness of manners and language,” yet he hoped that “all may 
learn lessons of wisdom by the study of themselves” (102).   
 This volume, like its predecessor (and presumably those to fol-
low), will prove helpful for researchers and excite readers interested in 
the lives of gold-seeking pioneers. The editors provide four maps re-
printed from studies such as Merrill Mattes’s Platte River Road Narratives, 
photographs and illustrations, a lengthy bibliography, and explana-
tory introductions and footnotes. It is an impressive effort and an im-
portant addition to trail studies.  
  
  
An Agrarian Republic: Farming, Antislavery Politics, and Nature Parks in 
the Civil War Era, by Adam Wesley Dean. Civil War America Series. 
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015. x, 230 pp. Illus-
trations, notes, bibliography, index. $29.95 paperback. 
Reviewer Tim Lehman is professor of history at Rocky Mountain College, 
Billings, Montana. He is the author of Public Values, Private Lands: Farmland 
Preservation Policy, 1933–1985 (1995). 
An Agrarian Republic reminds us that most mid–nineteenth-century 
Americans lived in a world of small, self-sufficient farms, not yet dom-
inated by the industrial juggernaut looming on the horizon by century’s 
end. That agrarian world generated a system of values, beliefs, and fears 


The Great Medicine Road, Part 2, Narratives of the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails, 1849

Review of: "Defining Duty in the Civil War: Personal Choice, Popular Culture, and the Union Home Front," by J. Matthew Gallman

Hettle, Wallace

Book Reviews and Notices      77 
Lovoll stresses—Norwegian settlement of the upper American Midwest 
would not have played out as it did. 
 Therein lies the significance of Lovoll’s work. Most histories of 
Norwegian immigration have focused almost exclusively on the final 
destination. While important, there were other aspects to the process. 
For instance, I have argued for paying greater attention to the home-
land when writing the history of Norwegian immigration. Now Lovoll, 
the sage historian of Norwegian immigration, has pointed to another 
neglected aspect of that history: the stepping stones or transition points 
along the way. Moreover, he has shown how a confluence of factors—
the development of the Canadian timber trade, Norway’s expertise in 
sailing ships, the motivation among Norwegian farmers and laborers 
to emigrate, and recruitment efforts by U.S. states in the upper Mid-
west—created a unique window of opportunity for about 20 years, 
which helps to explain why the American upper Midwest ultimately 
became such a haven for Norwegian settlers. 
 Across the Deep Blue Sea is thus another valuable contribution to 
our understanding of Norwegian immigration history. The book has 
delved into a hitherto largely unexplored side of that history, and it 
invites further exploration of this fascinating history. 
 
 
Defining Duty in the Civil War: Personal Choice, Popular Culture, and the 
Union Home Front, by J. Matthew Gallman. Civil War America Series. 
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015. 336 pp. Illustra-
tions, notes, bibliography, index. $45.00 hardcover.  
Reviewer Wallace Hettle is professor of history at the University of Northern 
Iowa. He is the author of Stonewall Jackson: A Civil War Hero in History and Mem-
ory (2011) and The Peculiar Democracy: Southern Democrats in Peace and War (2001). 
In Defining Duty in the Civil War, J. Matthew Gallman provides a lav-
ishly illustrated, persuasively argued treatment of Northern popular 
culture during the Civil War. He focuses on how Americans shaped 
expectations of citizens’ duties during the war through print culture. 
On the home front, Americans built a sense of community and re-
sponsibility based on a shared set of principles. 
 Gallman draws on the abundant print culture of the North during 
the war. He examined leading magazines such as Vanity Fair, Harper’s 
Weekly, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated, and Godey’s Lady’s Book and Magazine 
and also consulted popular novels, local and national newspapers, 
soldiers’ letters, and abolitionist newspapers such as The Liberator. 
 The book is organized thematically around a variety of appeals to 
duty on the part of Union citizens. It begins with satire, as patriots 
78      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
mocked men who failed to volunteer for the cause and others who 
feigned patriotic sentiments while pursuing their own private interests 
at home. Authors and illustrators directed jokes and jabs at ostensibly 
loyal citizens, especially the so-called “aristocracy” who profited from 
the war. 
 Next, Gallman discusses how influential publications defined duty 
to the cause and the country. Publications provided personal advice 
derived from prewar guides to urban life and etiquette aimed at 
young people. In a rapidly changing society, loyal citizens faced new 
circumstances. Wartime publishers needed to focus not only on how 
to succeed as an individual but also on how one could contribute to 
the war effort.  
 Gallman portrays a culture focused less on bravery or cowardice 
than one would think. He describes a debate over republican citizen-
ship crafted around a contrast between “virtue” and hypocrisy. Re-
publican virtues, intertwined with notions about manhood, intensified 
with the advent of conscription in 1863. 
 Popular pamphlets, novels, and magazines described the patriotic 
role that loyal women were supposed to play. Some women, such as 
Louisa May Alcott, served as nurses. Typically, though, the chief role 
of women as portrayed in popular culture was to voice patriotism and 
freely give up their men for the cause.  
 Lastly, Gallman examines black Northerners as they grappled with 
their role in a country that had rejected them as citizens. Here the 
sources are thinner than in earlier chapters, both because white peri-
odicals downplayed issues of concern to African Americans and be-
cause blacks were a relatively small group in the North during the 
war. Therefore, Gallman leans heavily on the abolitionist periodical 
The Liberator. 
 I cannot think of a historical monograph that uses visual evidence 
more effectively than this book. Extraordinary illustrations, some of 
them found in obscure publications, are abundant. I learned as much 
from the illustrations and Gallman’s concise interpretations as I did 
from the rest of this very fine book. The cartoons and other engravings 
testify to the industry of the author and the generosity of the publisher. 
 Because the Civil War–era publishing industry was concentrated 
in the Northeast, the evidence necessarily has a regional bias. The au-
thor did, however, gamely consult a variety of newspapers to gauge 
local opinion outside the urban centers. Still, one is left to wonder 
whether Gallman’s generalizations would apply to citizens in Iowa 
and the Old Northwest.  
 


Defining Duty in the Civil War: Personal Choice, Popular Culture, and the Union Home Front

Review of: "Polka Heartland: Why The Midwest Loves to Polka," text by Rick March, pho-tos by Dick Bla

Bindas, Kenneth J.

Book Reviews and Notices      463 
to surmount challenges in Argentina, Guatemala, and Peru. The firm 
remained committed to social awareness, sometimes through philan-
thropy, but the ventures were not always financially rewarding. Simi-
larly, chapter four examines RDC’s management of a railroad connecting 
Malawi and Mozambique in 1990s Africa and another in post-Soviet 
Estonia. Notwithstanding exasperating political instability, those projects 
were profitable although they did not fulfil their promise. The closing 
chapter examines “New Involvements,” featuring investments in Colom-
bia, Germany, France, and (surprisingly) Pennsylvania. The last, a bus 
service, collapsed; the jury is still out on the other three as regards their 
profitability. Yet Grant justly concludes that RDC has experienced overall 
success while remaining attentive to Posner’s goal of social responsibility. 
 Grant obviously admires Posner and the RDC’s goals, business 
practices, and achievements. He nonetheless exhibits a fair-minded as-
sessment of the outcomes in each chapter. This book will undoubtedly 
appeal to readers interested in railroads but also to anyone intrigued by 
the study of business. Outstanding photographs and maps add visual 
interest. Overall, the author’s wide-ranging research, extensive command 
of railroad history, and clear expression make this volume a pleasure to 
recommend.  
 
 
Polka Heartland: Why The Midwest Loves to Polka, text by Rick March, pho-
tos by Dick Blau. Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2015. 200 pp. Illus-
trations (mostly color), bibliography and discography, notes, index. 
$29.95 hardcover. 
Reviewer Kenneth J. Bindas is professor of history at Kent State University. He 
is the author of Swing, That Modern Sound: The Cultural Context of Swing Music 
in America, 1935-1947 (2001) and All of This Music Belongs to the Nation: The 
WPA’s Federal Music Project and American Society, 1935–1939 (1996). 
Rick March takes us through the small towns of Wisconsin to outline 
the continuing attraction polka music still holds for many people. Sup-
plemented by excellent photographs by Dick Blau, Polka Heartland is a 
personal and heartfelt look at this interesting and unique popular music. 
March is a longtime folklorist, polka enthusiast, and musician, so his 
analysis is not very critical, but that is not the point of the book. What 
he and Blau set out to do with words and pictures is to detail how this 
music remains an active part of many people’s lives and, with that, the 
historical factors that led to it coming to the Midwest and why it still 
remains a part of many small-town celebrations. 
 Jazz is generally seen as America’s unique contribution to music, 
not simply for its longevity, innovation, or even popularity, but because 
464      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
it came from the bottom up, blended a variety of musical genres, and 
eventually came to include every race, gender, and ethnicity. But well 
into the first third of the last century it was not certain that this African 
American contribution would hold the mantle of America’s music as 
there were many other ethnic and regional competitors. As March 
makes plain, polka was favored by a large number of people through-
out the Midwest, in urban areas like Cleveland, Chicago, and Milwau-
kee as well as in rural areas stretching from Mexico to Canada. Polka 
shared with jazz the blending of various sounds, working-class roots, 
and an upbeat performance aesthetic.  
 This book is about community and the integral role polka plays in 
maintaining a midwestern sense of identity. March and Blau guide 
readers through the various polka styles played throughout Wisconsin. 
German, Slovene, Bohemian, Polish, and Slavic immigrants who came 
to the upper Midwest made this music a “symbol . . . denoting regional 
identity” (53). Traveling to small-town polka festivals and clubs, March 
introduces us to the people and music of those who favor the concertina 
over the accordion, Bohemian over Dutchman, and the definitional 
characteristics of Slovenian and Mexican polka music. March also intro-
duces some of the key innovators of the music, like Romy Gosz, Bare-
foot Becky Livermore, Eddie Blazonczyk, and of course the king of 
polka, Frankie Yankovic, who played the Slovene style. Even though 
Yankovic grew up in Cleveland (making it one of the leading polka cen-
ters), his national popularity beginning in 1947 and carrying over until 
his death in 1998 resonated with the people of Wisconsin, making him a 
Badger by association. He influenced several generations of Wisconsin 
polka musicians and was a wonderful ambassador for the music.  
 March and Blau guide readers on a tour of polka music in Wisconsin. 
By doing so, they provide an entrance into communities. Whether it be 
the Pulaski Polka Days or the Las Vegas Latin Night Club, one gets a 
sense from reading this book that polka plays a vital role in the lives 
and identity of these communities. The photos, except for a few, reveal 
that many of the patrons are elderly, and often the crowds are sparse. 
However, the enthusiasm for the music, and the recent attraction by a 
younger audience, suggest that the music is evolving yet again. Marion 
Jacobson’s history of the accordion, Squeeze This (2012), outlines a simi-
lar trajectory, suggesting that polka and its instrumentation are attract-
ing newer and younger fans and musicians. As a music that seems to 
define the Midwest, this is welcome news as its resurgence will allow 
the region to retain a connection to its ethnic and class identity while at 
the same time basking in the nostalgic glow of a time when polka ruled. 


Polka Heartland: Why The Midwest Loves to Polka

Review of: "Still Turning: A History of Aeromotor Windmills," by Christopher C. Gillis

Oden, Derek

448      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
the original Weitz Company —began to have trouble, “dragged down 
by the deep recession that began in 2007” (xviii). Finally, in 2012, the 
general construction division of the Weitz Company was sold to a 
multinational corporation based in Egypt. The retirement community 
division of the company continues to thrive. 
 Friedricks writes in a style that is informative and reader-friendly. 
His sources include interviews with Weitz officials and family mem-
bers, company documents, and construction industry publications. 
Dozens of black-and-white photos document some of the Weitz com-
pany’s project outcomes and their impact on Des Moines’s built en-
vironment, as well as the range of its domestic and international activity. 
Overall, Constructing a Legacy is an excellent company history, focusing 
on a fascinating family story that will appeal to specialists and general 
readers alike. 
 
 
Still Turning: A History of Aeromotor Windmills, by Christopher C. Gillis. 
Tarleton State University Southwestern Studies in the Humanities Series. 
College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2015. xviii, 274 pp. Illustra-
tions, appendix, notes, glossary, bibliography, index. $35.00 hardcover.  
Reviewer Derek Oden is associate professor of history at Del Mar College in 
Corpus Christi, Texas. He is the author of “Perils of Production: Farm Hazards, 
Family Farming, and the Mechanization of the Corn Belt, 1940–1980” (Annals of 
Iowa, 2014). 
Christopher Gillis’s interest in windmills reaches back decades, and his 
vast knowledge is clearly evident throughout his outstanding book, 
Still Turning, which tells the story of Aeromotor, one of the industry’s 
best-known names. Those looking for an expansive treatment of the 
many dimensions of windmill technology might find the book unsatis-
fying. However, readers will discover that Still Turning is meticulously 
researched and an exceedingly worthwhile company history. 
 Gillis begins by discussing the inventive ways people employed 
windmills to drain wetlands, obtain salt, and pump ground water. Such 
efforts eventually led to developing “water-pumping windmills” that 
were “relatively easy to erect, durable, and able to run with minimal 
maintenance” (16). He then examines the company’s origins in the late 
1880s and its rise as a major windmill manufacturer. He also chronicles 
the many challenges company leaders overcame throughout the corpo-
ration’s history. Today, Aeromotor is the only surviving U.S.-based com-
pany that manufactures a “mechanical water-pumping windmill” (196). 
In 1919, however, there were 31 such companies (101). Gillis’s work fully 
explains the many factors that led to the industry’s present state. 
Book Reviews and Notices      449 
 Readers will find much to admire in this work. Gillis provides im-
pressively reasoned technical descriptions and wisely chosen visuals. 
He also offers rich discussions of a host of people who shaped the com-
pany’s history through rapid technological change, war, and economic 
stress. By the 1890s, Aeromotor was exporting windmills to Argentina, 
England, and even as far afield as Australia. By the mid-twentieth cen-
tury, however, the company was selling windmills that had been as-
sembled in Argentina and exited domestic manufacturing of the device 
for a time (146). 
 A particularly important theme woven throughout the work in-
volves how “self-governing water-pumping windmill” manufacturers 
faced competition from other water extraction methods (16). Aeromotor 
responded to such threats by entering many diverse and related fields 
such as gasoline-pumping engines and electric pumps (77, 138). Never-
theless, by the 1940s, the large-scale dissemination of electrical power 
into the countryside had become particularly disruptive for the wind-
mill industry. Thus, Aeromotor intensified its efforts to become more 
than a “windmill company and to embrace the sales opportunities of 
electric water pumps” (132). Today, rural residents enjoy even more 
water extraction options with the advent of “solar-powered water 
pumps” for remote water-pumping needs (190). Nevertheless, the com-
pany endures, as evidenced by its present 40,000-square-foot manufac-
turing facility in San Angelo, Texas (186). Gillis has honored the rich 
legacy of the Aeromotor Company by telling the story of a company 
whose name graces windmills scattered across the nation and world. 
 
 
How Iowa Conquered the World: The Story of a Small Farm State’s Journey to 
Global Dominance, by Michael Rank. Kansas City: Five Minute Books, 
2014. xi, 163 pp. Bibliography. $9.99 paperback; $2.99 e-book. 
Reviewer Zachary Michael Jack is a seventh-generation Iowan, associate pro-
fessor of English at North Central College, board member of the Midwestern 
History Association, and the author of Iowa: The Definitive Collection, among others. 
Michael Rank’s compelling book How Iowa Conquered the World reads 
more as public writing or journalism than it does as traditional, primary 
source-derived historiography, although it qualifies strictly as neither, 
and that’s okay.  
 The author—a native Iowan from Knoxville, a doctoral candidate in 
Middle Eastern history, and a former journalist—leads with his thesis: 
“The goal of this book is to make an extremely difficult argument. I will 
attempt to convince you why Iowa is the greatest cultural force in the 
world. Not in the Midwest or the United States, but in the world” (3). 


Still Turning: A History of Aeromotor Windmills

Review of: An Agrarian Republic: Farming, Antislavery Politics, and Nature Parks in the Civil War Era, by Adam Wesley Dea

Lehman, Tim

Book Reviews and Notices      169 
 The letters, journals, and memoirs of trail migrants demonstrate 
both the commonalities and uniqueness of their experiences. Amid the 
sameness of miles gained and landmarks noted, they left a fascinating 
and informative record of what they saw and the choices they faced. In 
this second of a proposed four-volume series about going west along 
the Overland Trail, editor Michael L. Tate (assisted by Will Bagley and 
Richard Rieck) focuses on ‘49ers bound for California. This volume con-
tinues to satisfy the project’s initial goal of finding documents “truly 
representative of the great migrations” (15). In A Treatise, Showing the 
Best Way to California, Sidney Roberts, a Mormon from Iowa City and 
early promoter of Kanesville as a jumping-off point, argued against sea 
travel in favor of the land route passing through Salt Lake City, and he 
assured his readers that Mormons could provide assistance anywhere 
along the way. The remaining narratives, like those by Ferguson and 
Hawley, describe trail life and provide insights into their authors’ atti-
tudes and character. Benjamin Robert Biddle, for example, paid east-
bound travelers to carry his mail to Springfield, Illinois, where his 
journal entries appeared in the Daily Illinois State Journal. He lamented 
being far from home and family, but, he said, “As the world is, there is a 
necessity for gold” (101). Because of this, many on the trail had “adopted 
a coarseness of manners and language,” yet he hoped that “all may 
learn lessons of wisdom by the study of themselves” (102).   
 This volume, like its predecessor (and presumably those to fol-
low), will prove helpful for researchers and excite readers interested in 
the lives of gold-seeking pioneers. The editors provide four maps re-
printed from studies such as Merrill Mattes’s Platte River Road Narratives, 
photographs and illustrations, a lengthy bibliography, and explana-
tory introductions and footnotes. It is an impressive effort and an im-
portant addition to trail studies.  
  
  
An Agrarian Republic: Farming, Antislavery Politics, and Nature Parks in 
the Civil War Era, by Adam Wesley Dean. Civil War America Series. 
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015. x, 230 pp. Illus-
trations, notes, bibliography, index. $29.95 paperback. 
Reviewer Tim Lehman is professor of history at Rocky Mountain College, 
Billings, Montana. He is the author of Public Values, Private Lands: Farmland 
Preservation Policy, 1933–1985 (1995). 
An Agrarian Republic reminds us that most mid–nineteenth-century 
Americans lived in a world of small, self-sufficient farms, not yet dom-
inated by the industrial juggernaut looming on the horizon by century’s 
end. That agrarian world generated a system of values, beliefs, and fears 
170      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
that affirmed the northern and midwestern small–farm society even as 
it disapproved of southern plantation society. According to this ideal, 
only small, family-owned farms could produce virtuous citizens, wise 
land-use patterns, stable multigenerational communities, and a strong 
Union. Plantation slavery, in contrast, yielded, in this view, an ineffi-
cient system of agriculture that wasted soils, degraded both white and 
black labor, and raised up an artificial aristocracy of slaveowners 
whose illegitimate power threatened the Union. 
 Land laws that dated to the early republic—the Land Ordinance 
of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787—intended to promote 
small-scale farming, education, local autonomy, and a virtuous citi-
zenry but by the 1850s were threatened by the corrupt “Slave Power” 
that wanted to monopolize the public domain lands of the West. Adam 
Wesley Dean brings to this familiar story a refreshing emphasis on wise 
use of the soil as a key element enabling multigenerational community 
stability in the Midwest. If good soil made good citizens in these regions, 
the soil-exhausting practices of slave plantations left behind a degraded 
natural environment and required a constant search for new land in 
order for the unnatural oligarchy of slaveowners to maintain their un-
just power over land and society alike.  
 During the Civil War, the Republican-dominated Congress was 
able to spread this model republic across the continent by enshrining 
these agrarian ideals into a series of familiar laws: the Homestead Act, 
the Land Grant College Act, and the Pacific Railway Act. Even federal 
subsidies for the transcontinental railroad, Dean contends, were moti-
vated not primarily by a view to industrialization but by the need to 
tie the small farming communities of the West to their midwestern 
and eastern markets. Along with establishing the Department of Agri-
culture, these policies would ensure the orderly development of farms, 
churches, and schools that would “civilize” the West, defeat the 
“barbarism” of plantation agriculture, and promote a permanent, uni-
fied agrarian republic (80). 
 In the most intriguing chapters of this fine book, Dean follows this 
agrarian ideology into the unfamiliar territory of nature parks and Re-
construction in the West, areas that exposed fissures and failures in this 
agrarian ideology. The creation of a public park in the magnificent 
Yosemite Valley of California pitted those who held to the ideal of pri-
vately owned small farms against others who believed that areas of 
spectacular natural beauty “would improve the mind and spirit,” hasten 
California’s transformation from “barbarism” to “civilization,” and 
demonstrate to the world that a republican government was capable of 
grand accomplishments.  
Book Reviews and Notices      171 
 Reconstruction Republicans demonstrated their “environmental 
view of citizenship” in their treatment of southern freedpeople and 
western Indians. Both groups, Dean’s agrarians held, should learn to 
“farm the soil in soil-enhancing ways” and follow the agricultural 
path that would transform them into civilized Victorian Christians. 
This civilizing project stalled in the South because the “violent opposi-
tion” of southern whites blocked land redistribution and failed in the 
West because the Indians preferred “to maintain a hunting-and-
gathering lifestyle” rather than take up farming (136). In Dean’s view, 
Reconstruction ended not with the withdrawal of federal troops from 
the South in 1877 but with the 1887 Dawes Act, a kind of Indian home-
stead act that allotted reservation land into private ownership in order 
to coerce native peoples into habits of cultivation.  
 The strength of this book is that it brings together several subfields 
of history—environmental, agricultural, and the history of the Civil War 
and of native peoples—all understood through the lens of agrarian 
fundamentalism. While some specialists in each subfield may quibble 
with details, this approach generates fascinating insights and should 
spark new lines of inquiry. Dean’s sources are almost all national in 
scope; how would this analysis look at the local level? If republicanism 
led to nature parks on a grand scale, did it also contribute to the appre-
ciation of nature in cities and towns? How did the project of civilizing 
southern freedpeople and western natives play out in the sermons and 
newspapers of midwestern communities where those republican 
farmers already lived? To what extent did race play a role in defining 
the paired opposites of “barbarism” and “civilization?” Overall, An 
Agrarian Republic is a well-written, important book for specialists and 
general readers alike and should spark renewed interest in nineteenth-
century midwestern agrarian values and practices. 
 
 
Lincoln and the Immigrant, by Jason H. Silverman. Concise Lincoln 
Library. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2015. 159 pp. 
Illustrations, notes, index. $24.95 hardcover. 
Reviewer Bruce Bigelow is professor of geography at Butler University. He 
is the author of “Who Voted for Lincoln in Indiana? The Voting Behavior of 
Ethno-Religious Groups in the Presidential Elections of 1860 and 1864” (Journal 
of the Indiana Academy of Social Sciences, 2005). 
Jason Silverman has provided a succinct overview of Abraham Lin-
coln’s views and relationships with immigrants from his years as a 
young adult in Springfield to his term as president. Historiographically, 
Silverman has not actually broken new ground so much as he has gath-


An Agrarian Republic: Farming, Antislavery Politics, and Nature Parks in the Civil War Era

Review of: St. Louis and Empire: 250 Years of Imperial Quest and Urban Crisis, by Henry W. Berge

Gubbels, Thomas J.

Book Reviews and Notices      183 
miners banded together through fledgling unions to provide death ben-
efits in a communal effort to maintain human dignity in death, paving 
the way for the creation of the United Mine Workers of America, one 
of the most powerful unions in the nation. In western Pennsylvania, 
steel workers provided mutual aid through churches and fraternal 
organizations, although these were often segregated by ethnicity after 
steel unions were crushed in the wake of Homestead. 
 Much of the book features a labor-versus-capital narrative that 
oversimplifies the fluid nature of class, casting doubt on the explana-
tory power of its case studies. Whether at Homestead or Haymarket or 
in southern Illinois, Rosenow draws fairly strict battle lines between 
capitalist owners and exploited workers. One wonders, however, how 
much the rituals of death hold up when class lines break down. In Iowa 
coal country, for example, class lines could be obvious when miners 
lived in coal camps while managers and owners lived elsewhere. The 
lines were not so obvious in places like Boone and Madrid, where miners 
often lived in the same town as managers, attended the same churches, 
played on the same baseball teams, and joined the same lodges. Both 
groups mingled with farmers and the town’s middle class. Catastrophes 
in the mines affected the whole community, sometimes leading to cross-
class reform movements. When miners died, they were buried in the 
same cemeteries as teachers, artisans, and politicians, often irrespec-
tive of ethnicity, unlike the examples of Chicago and Union Miners 
Cemetery in Illinois. This is not to question the validity of the author’s 
case studies but to wonder how much of a “barometer” (98) they are 
for the larger working-class experience with death, especially in the 
Midwest.  
 The author offers a tantalizing and well-researched glimpse into 
the rituals of death for workers whose lives held little value outside 
their own communities in industrializing America. How suggestive 
they are for the broader working-class experience remains to be seen. 
 
 
St. Louis and Empire: 250 Years of Imperial Quest and Urban Crisis, by Henry 
W. Berger. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2015. xi, 353 
pp. Maps, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $39.50 hardcover. 
Reviewer Thomas J. Gubbels is associate professor of history at Lincoln Uni-
versity. His research and writing focus on Missouri history and the history of 
transportation. 
Students of American foreign policy often ignore the Midwest, assum-
ing that the region has played no role in establishing the nation’s in-
ternational goals. Henry Berger’s St. Louis and Empire, however, places 
184      THE ANNALS OF IOWA 
St. Louis at the forefront of America’s historic quest to establish itself 
as the heart of a global economic empire. Berger, professor emeritus of 
history at Washington University in St. Louis, applies his expertise in 
foreign policy history to his own local community. 
 Drawing heavily on the work of William Appleman Williams and 
other “New Left” historians, Berger argues that St. Louis has been an 
outward-looking city since its founding. Early leaders such as Jean 
Pierre Chouteau and Thomas Hart Benton saw St. Louis as the potential 
site of an international trade and commercial network that would facili-
tate the shipment of Missouri-made products throughout the world. 
Later in the nineteenth century businessmen such as John Cahill and 
Henry Clay Pierce worked to improve the industrial infrastructure of 
St. Louis and looked to foreign nations as both potential markets and 
investment opportunities. As the twentieth century approached, St. 
Louis businessmen actively supported the Spanish-American War and 
sought to tap into growing markets, such as those in Asia and Latin 
America, making them some of the first practitioners of dollar diplo-
macy. After World War II, St. Louis’s civic and business elites fully 
embraced the Cold War and sought to establish the city as one of the 
economic hubs of the military-industrial complex. While this inter-
national economic focus shaped America’s foreign policy and allowed 
many St. Louis businessmen to establish great personal fortunes, it 
also led to an unstated policy of benign neglect of domestic issues. 
Critical social issues such as labor unrest, racial tensions, and urban 
decay seemed less important than potential economic profit abroad, 
and many St. Louis leaders believed that building an international 
economic empire would inevitably lead to civic growth and local 
prosperity. However, as recent events in Ferguson, Missouri, show, St. 
Louis’s outward focus has failed to produce widespread domestic 
prosperity and has left the city in a state of urban decay and decline. 
 Intellectually, Berger borrows heavily from an established “New 
Left” school of thought that sees the central goal of American foreign 
policy as establishing an economic empire abroad while either ignoring 
critical domestic social issues or assuming that they will be resolved 
via the growth of international trade and commerce. Berger supports 
this position throughout his work, deftly weaving together biographies 
of St. Louis’s civic and business leaders while simultaneously tracing 
the international growth of several famous St. Louis companies, such 
as McDonnell Aircraft, Mallinckrodt Chemical, and Emerson Electric. 
However, Berger fails to draw a clear connection between the inter-
national focus held by the city’s economic elites and the community’s 
seemingly ceaseless domestic calamities. He mentions several urban 
Book Reviews and Notices      185 
problems that St. Louis faced over the years, such as the city-county 
divide and the post–World War II problems of segregation and white 
flight, but his focus is primarily on the “imperial quest” part of St. 
Louis history, while the “urban crisis” story receives much less atten-
tion. Perhaps future work will more clearly illustrate exactly how an 
international economic focus, especially during the Cold War era, led 
to a willful abdication of civic responsibilities by the city’s elites. 
 Nonetheless, Berger’s book offers an insightful reinterpretation of 
St. Louis’s history and clearly shows that the city deserves a spot at the 
table when discussing the historical evolution of American foreign pol-
icy. One may hope that it will serve as a catalyst for additional studies 
to see if similar historical patterns can be found in other midwestern 
cities, such as Des Moines, Omaha, Chicago, or Kansas City. Civic 
leaders in those communities likely shared a common outlook with 
their historic St. Louis contemporaries, and those cities no doubt also 
played a role in the growth of America’s international economic empire. 
 
 
The Wisconsin Historical Society: Collecting, Preserving, and Sharing Stories 
since 1846, by John Zimm. Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 
2015. vi, 152 pp. Maps, illustrations, notes, index. $25.00 hardcover. 
Reviewer John D. Krugler is professor emeritus of history at Marquette Uni-
versity. His most recent book is Creating Old World Wisconsin: The Struggle to 
Build an Outdoor Museum of Ethnic Architecture (2013). 
Writing history that is readily accessible to general audiences is not 
easy. To succeed, the author must be an accomplished storyteller, 
someone who does not get bogged down in endless detail. John Zimm, 
an associate editor at the Wisconsin Historical Society Press, the pub-
lisher of this book, has produced a very readable, condensed account 
of the creation and development of the Wisconsin Historical Society 
(WHS). The book, a revision of an article Zimm published in the State of 
Wisconsin Blue Book for the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau, 
will appeal to readers who know little about the society.  
 In many ways, this is a remarkable book. At 169 years old, the 
WHS has a rich and fascinating history that does not lend itself to a 
123-page text. Zimm makes no pretense to offer an in-depth critical 
analysis of the society. Rather, he shares a number of stories from the 
society’s long past. He does not have a thesis. Not surprisingly, he 
presents the society in very positive terms. Nasty battles over budgets, 
the complicated relationship with the state, and the financial battles 
over the growth of historic sites, for example, are given short shrift.  


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