Bibliography on the History of the North American Plains

By Tom Isern

The main purpose for this annotated bibliography is support of "The North American Plains" and other college courses on the Great Plains of North America that I teach. It also will be consulted, I suspect, by a variety of users other than my students. The publication data in the third column includes the original edition as a baseline. Also commonly listed is some other, recent edition commonly available. Occasionally listed is some intermediate edition of particular note. In the fourth column are my own annotations. In the fifth column are links to resources on the book or author on the World Wide Web, including any known online edition of the text. In the far-right column, for benefit of my students at NDSU, I add notes on where the books here listed are locally available: SU = NDSU Libraries, TC = Tri College.

Author	Title	Publication	Notes	Links	W
Adams, Andy	Log of a Cowboy: A Narrative of Old Trail Days	Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1903 Reprint, Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1964	The classic work on cattle-trailing, depicting a composite cattle drive from the Rio Grande to Montana.	Handbook of Texas: Adams, Andy	TC
Adams, Howard	Prison of Grass: Canada from the Native Point of View	Toronto: General Publishing, 1975	Adams, a Metís, views settlement as colonialism. He seeks to "unmask both the white-supremacist and the white-liberal view that the natives were warring savages without any government, who craved white civilization." A Metís history from Metís activist perspective.	Native American Authors profile: Howard Adams
Adelman, Jeremy	Frontier Development: Land, Labor, and Capital on the Wheatlands of Argentina and Canada, 1890-1914	New York: Oxford U. Press, 1994
Allen, John L.	Passage Through the Garden: Lewis and Clark and the Image of the American Northwest	Urbana: U. of Illinois Press, 1975			SU
Ambrose, Stephen E.	Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West	New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996	A good, readable history of the Lewis & Clark expedition, in the context of a biography of Lewis.		SU
Andreas, Carol	Meatpackers and Beef Barons: Company Town in a Global Economy	Niwot: U. Press of Colorado, 1994
Archer, John H.	Saskatchewan: A History	Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1980	The standard history of the province.
Artibise, Alan F.J.	Winnipeg: A Social History of Urban Growth, 1874-1914	Montreal: McGill-Queen's U. Press, 1975	By western Canada's premier urban historian. Develops concepts of a "commercial elite" and a "growth ethic" manipulating the development of the city. Discusses ethnic problems in urban growth, also class divisions.		SU
Baker, T. Lindsay	A Field Guide to American Windmills	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1984	A marvelously exhaustive history and guidebook to windmills, which are one of the great symbols of technological adaptation on the plains.		SU
Baker, T. Lindsay and Billy R. Harrison	Adobe Walls: The History and Archeology of the 1874 Trading Post	College Station: Texas A & M U. Press, 1986			TC
Barbour, Barton H.	Fort Union and the Upper Missouri Fur Trade	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 2001	A comprehensive and competent history of this citadel of the American Fur Company. The author defends the company against its harsher critics, who have scored the fur traders for bespoiling the western environment and native cultures.
Bement, Leland C.	Bison Hunting at Cooper Site: Where Lightning Bolts Drew Thundering Herds	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1999	Description of a Folsom bison hunt site in northwestern Oklahoma, including the discovery of the famous lightning bolt skull--a Bison antiquus skull with a red zigzag mark on it.
Bennett, John W.	Hutterian Brethren: The Agricultural Economy and Social Organization of a Communal People	Stanford: Stanford U. Press, 1967	A study of six Hutterian colonies in southwestern Saskatchewan, with a comparison to Israeli communes. An "ecological" study by an anthropologist. Studies relation of social and economic behavior to natural environment, in what he calls "dynamic adaptation."		SU
Bennett, John W.	Northern Plainsmen: Adaptive Strategy and Agrarian Life	Chicago: Aldine Pub. Co., 1969 4th Ed., Arlington Heights: AHM Publishing Company, 1976	Studies Indians, ranchers, farmers, and Hutterites, each of whom found a "niche" on the plains. Explicitly cites W.P. Webb as inspiration for his work, which he calls here "cultural ecology." Study area is Saskatchewan, in fictional locality of "Jaspar."		SU
Bennett, John W. and Seena B. Kohl	Settling the Canadian-American West, 1890-1915: Pioneer Adaptation and Community Building	Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1995	A study of settlement on the Saskatchewan-Montana border that relies heavily on local histories, using them to explore the common mythology of frontier community formation.		SU
Benson, Jackson J.	Wallace Stegner: His Life and Work	New York: Penguin, 1996	This is the standard biography of Stegner, and a serviceable one, but its treatment of Stegner's Saskatchewan roots is the weakest part of the book.		TC
Berlo, Janet Catherine	Spirit Beings and Sun Dancers: Black Hawk’s Vision of the Lakota World	New York: Braziller, 2000	Outstanding study of ledger art that takes the work seriously as art, not just ethnography.	Plains Indian Ledger Art	SU
Berthrong, Donald J.	The Cheyenne and Arapaho Ordeal: Reservation and Agency Life in the Indian Territory, 1875-1907	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1976	The confinement of the Cheyenne and Arapaho on a reservation in Oklahoma, attempts to acculturate the Indians (including attempts to make them into farmers or stockmen), conflicts with traditional culture, and eventual allotment of the reservation.		SU
Berthrong, Donald J.	The Southern Cheyennes	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1963	The old standard history of this central plains nation.
Bicha, Karel Denis	The American Farmer and the Canadian West, 1896-1914	Lawrence: Coronado Press, 1968	History of the emigration of American farmers of the "western Middle West" to Saskatchewan and Alberta, with reference both to American conditions provoking emigration and to Canadian efforts to attract immigration.		SU
Biolsi, Thomas	Organizing the Lakota: The Political Economy of the New Deal on the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations	Tucson: U. of Arizona Press, 1992			TC
Bissinger, H.G.	Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream	Reading: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., 1990	The story of a high-school football season, that of the Permian Panthers (Odessa, Texas), 1988--and the social context thereof. Besides exploring the place of school sport in Odessa, the book treats such other important developments as race relations and boom-and-bust in the oil industry.		TC
Blaine, Martha Royce	Pawnee Passage, 1870-1875	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1990
Blasingame, Ike	Dakota Cowboy: My Life in the Old Days	New York: Putnam, 1958  Reprint, Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1985			SU
Blodgett, Jan	Land of Bright Promise: Advertising the Texas Panhandle and South Plains, 1870-1917	Austin: U. of Texas Press, 1988	A study of land-company promotion of regional settlement.
Bolton, Herbert E.	Coronado on the Turquoise Trail: Knight of the Pueblos and Plains	Albuquerque: U. of New Mexico Press, 1949	Biography of Coronado, best-known Spanish explorer of the plains, by the historian who founded the school of borderlands historiography.
Bonnifield, Paul	The Dust Bowl: Men, Dirt, and Depression	Albuquerque: U. of New Mexico Press, 1979	One of several good secondary books on the Dust Bowl. Notable for its regional, anti-government perspective.		SU
Bowman, Isaiah	The Pioneer Fringe	New York: American Geographical Society, Special Publication No. 13, 1931	Work derives from an intercontinental geographic study of "the pioneer fringe," or frontier of settlement, in various countries. Includes sections on the American and Canadian plains. A good work for comparative context as of its time of publication.		SU
Brackman, Barbara, and Cathy Dwigans, Eds.	Backyard Visionaries: Grassroots Art in the Midwest	Lawrence: U. Press of Kansas, 1999	S.P. Dinsmoor (the Garden of Eden, Lucas) and other eccentric outsider artists are treated in this anthology assembled by the Kansas Grassroots Art Association.		SU
Breen, David H.	The Canadian Prairie West and the Ranching Frontier, 1874-1924	Toronto: U. of Toronto Press, 1983	A solid history of ranching in the Canadian west, which was not just a matter of American intrusion, but a development of British and eastern Canadian enterprise. Details leasing system, society of ranching, coming of homesteaders, hard winter of 1907, and "dark years" of 1905-1911.		SU
Brown, Dee	Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West	New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970	A landmark book in the reinterpretation of the so-called Indian wars of the plains, taking a view wholly sympathetic to the Indians. Unfortunately, it also consigned Plains Indians to victim status; it would be the next generation of histories that would restore agency to them.		SU
Bucko, Raymond A.	The Lakota Ritual of the Sweat Lodge: History and Contemporary Practice	Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1998	An anthropologcal study that includes historical texts describing the ritual of the inipi and traces it to present in Lakota culture.		TC
Burnet, Jean	Next-Year Country: A Study of Rural Social Organization in Alberta	Toronto: U. of Toronto Press, 1951	A sociologist's study of the Hanna vicinity in eastern Alberta, where failure to adapt by Anglo-Canadian and German-Russian cultures produced failure to create stable society. Excellent analysis of social structure of town and country. Vol. 3 of Social Credit in Alberta Series.
Butler, William Francis	The Great Lone Land: A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-west of America	London: S. Low, Marston, Low & Searle, 1875. Reprint, Edmonton: M.G. Hurtig, 1968	Narrative of a British army officer who came west to suppress the Red River Rebellion, was commissioned by the Canadian government to report on Indian affairs and governmental needs in the west, and explored the plains and Rockies. Wrote other adventure books of exploits in other parts of British empire, but this is the best.		SU
Capote, Truman	In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences	New York: Random House, 1965	A "nonfiction novel" (so the author termed it) about the Clutter family murders in Holcomb, Kansas, in 1959.		SU
Carlson, Paul H.	The Plains Indians	College Station: Texas A & M U. Press, 1998	A sound, concise treatment of Plains Indian culture, focusing on Plains culture traditionally defined, following European contact.		TC
Carr, Joe, and Alan Munde	Prairie Nights to Neon Lights: The Story of Country Music in West Texas	Lubbock: Texas Tech U. Press, 1995
Carrels, Peter	Uphill Against Water: The Great Dakota Water War	Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1999	Well-researched history, by a writer from Aberdeen, of the grassroots opposition to the Oahe Diversion in South Dakota.		SU
Carriker, Robert C.	Father Peter John De Smet: Jesuit in the West	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1995	A sound biography treating a religious figure who cultivated a close and cordial relationship with the Indians of the northern plains.
Carter, John E.	Solomon D. Butcher: Photographing the American Dream	Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1985	Butcher is the most illustrious photographer of the homesteading era on the plains; the book offers a splendid selection of images, along with biographical background.		SU
Carter, Sarah	Prairie Harvests: Prairie Indian Reserve Farmers and Government Policy	Montreal: McGill-Queen's U. Press, 1990
Cather, Willa	My Antonia	Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1918 Scholarly Edition, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994	The best-loved novel by the greatest novelist ever to hail from the plains.		SU
Chalfant, William Y.	Cheyennes and Horse Soldiers: The 1857 Expedition and the Battle of Solomon's Fork	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1989	An authoritative work on the Sumner expedition and on the fight on the Solomon, in western Kansas.		TC
Chalfant, William Y.	Dangerous Passage: The Santa Fe Trail and the Mexican War	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1994			SU
Chalfant, William Y.	Without Quarter: The Wichita Expedition and the Fight on Crooked Creek	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1991			SU
Chiel, Arthur A.	The Jews in Manitoba: A Social History	Toronto: U. of Toronto Press, 1961	One of the few good studies of Jews in the plains region. Part of a series on ethnic groups sponsored by Manitoba Historical Society and the provincial government.
Cleveland, Ceil	Whatever Happened to Jacy Farrow?	Denton: U. of North Texas Press, 1997	This is the autobiography of the woman who was the prototype for Jacy Farrow in Larry McMurtry's The Last Picture Show. That gives it a certain literary interest, but it also has distinct documentary value—as a narrative of a young woman growing up in the Last Picture Show generation, and more to the point, as a study in why women of that generation left the plains.
Coburn, Carol K.	Life at Four Corners: Religion, Gener, and Education in a German-Lutheran Community, 1868-1945	Lawrence: U. Press of Kansas			TC
Connell, Evan S.	Son of the Morning Star	Berkeley: North Point Press, 1984	An exhaustive treatment of the Battle (and legend) of the Little Bighorn.		TC
Connor, Seymour and Jimmy Skaggs	Broadcloth and Britches: The Santa Fe Trade	College Station: Texas A & M U. Press, 1977	A sound secondary work on the trade.		SU
Corcoran, James	Bitter Harvest: Gordon Kahl and the Posse Comitatus: Murder in the Midwest	New York: Viking Penguin, 1990	An account of the rise of the Posse Comitatus (a right-wing protest group), culminating in 1983 with the shooting of federal marshals in North Dakota and the manhunt for Gordon Kahl. Written by a journalist who covered the Kahl case.		SU
Cordier, Mary Hurlbut	Schoolwomen of the Prairies and Plains: Personal Narratives from Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska, 1860s-1920s	Albuquerque: U. of New Mexico Press, 1992
Cowie, Isaac	The Company of Adventurers: A Narrative of Seven Years in the Service of the Hudson's Bay Company During 1867-1874, on the Great Buffalo Plains	Toronto: William Briggs, 1913 Reprint, Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1993	Highly descriptive personal narrative. Notable for impressions of people encountered on the plains--American whiskey traders, Red River colonists, Indian nations
Critchfield, Richard	Those Days: An American Album	Garden City: Doubleday, 1986			SU
Crouse, Nellis M.	La Verendrye: Fur Trader and Explorer	Port Washington: Kennikat Press, 1972	Competent biography of this explorer of the northern plains. Includes sons, Pierre and Louis-Joseph. Fur trading; search for the western sea.		SU
Crow Dog, Mary, and Richard Erdlos	Lakota Woman	New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1990	Autobiography of a Brule woman from Rosebud Reservation, who is married to medicine man-AIM activist Leonard Crow Dog. Emphasis on AIM and on the siege at Wounded Knee in 1973, but quite a bit of cultural insight as well.		SU
Cunfer, Geoff	On the Great Plains: Agriculture and Environment	College Station: Texas A&M U. Press, 2005	A powerfully revisionist work on the relationship between agriculture and environment on the plains, arguing that agricultural enterprise is sustainable in the long term and questioning the “declensionist narrative” of previous writing.	Geoff Cunfer	SU
Custer, George A.	My Life on the Plains, or, Personal Experiences with Indians	Reprint, Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1962.		Kansas Collection, KU: My Life on the Plains online	SU
Dale, Edward E.	The Range Cattle Industry: Ranching on the Great Plains from 1865 to 1925	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1929	Classic work on the range cattle industry. In mid-20^th century Osgood and Dale shaped our historic views of the 19th-century range cattle industry in the U.S. Like Osgood’s day of the Cattlemen, Turnerian in its orientation.		SU
Danbom, David B.	Our Purpose Is to Serve: The First Century of the North Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station	Fargo: North Dakota Institute for Regional Studies, 1990	A general history of the station, full of insights about agricultural science in the public service.		SU
Danysk, Cecilia	Hired Hands: Labour and the Development of Prairie Agriculture, 1880-1930	Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1995	A sound work that concludes that farm workers and farmers shared common aspirations during the settlement era, but with farm consolidation and mechanization, class distinctions increased.
Dary, David A.	The Buffalo Book.	Paperback, New York: Avon Books, 1975.	A compendium on the animal and its role in the history of the plains.		SU
Dary, David	Cowboy Culture	New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981	A fine treatment of the customs and material culture of the American cowboy. Emphasizes the Hispanic origins of cowboy culture.
Davidson, Arnold E.	Coyote Country: Fictions of the Canadian West	Durham: Duke U. Press, 1994	A collection of essays composing a post-modern survey of Canadian prairie literature. Work chronicles the de-centering of regional literature, whereby no voice is dominant.		SU
Davis, John W.	Wyoming Range War: The Infamous Invasion of Johnson County	Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010	The biggest treatment of the Johnson County War, based on grassroots research in Johnson County, rather than biased accounts from the big stockmen.
Dawson, C.A.	Group Settlement: Ethnic Communities in Western Canada	Toronto: Macmillan, 1936	Vol. 7 of the Canadian Frontiers of Settlement Series. By a sociologist much concerned with assimilation. Group settlement made for greater "residential stability" and cultural persistence. Wishes to promote assimilation of Doukhobors, Mennonites, German Catholics, French-Canadians.
Dawson, C.A. and Eva R. Younge	Pioneering in the Prairie Provinces: The Social Side of the Settlement Process	Toronto: Macmillan, 1940	Vol. 8 of the Canadian Frontiers of Settlement Series. By a sociologist concerned with the development of communities and institutions, including education, religion, and health concerns. Chapter on agricultural practices.
Deloria, Vine, Jr.	Custer Died for Your Sins	New York: Macmillan Co., 1969			SU
Den Otter, A.A.	Civilizing the West: The Galts and the Development of Western Canada	Edmonton: U. of Alberta Press, 1986
Dick, Everett	The Sod-house Frontier, 1854-1890	New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1937 Reprint, U. of Nebraska Press, 1979	Covers the same general events as does Fite in Farmer's Last Frontier, but emphasizes everyday life and hardship as social history.		SU
Dickenson, James R.	Home on the Range: A Century on the High Plains	New York: Scribner, 1995	A history-memoir by a Washington journalist who grew up in McDonald, northwest Kansas.		SU
Dobie, J. Frank	Some Part of Myself	Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1967			SU
Dodge, Richard Irving	The Plains of North America and Their Inhabitants: A Critical Edition, ed. by Wayne R. Kime	Newark: U. of Deleware Press, 1990	Narrative by a career military officer on the plains, emphasizing experiences in hunting and observations on Indian life.
Dorman, Robert L.	Revolt of the Provinces: The Regionalist Movement in America, 1920-1945.	Chapel Hill: U. of North Carolina Press, 1993	Dorman's work places Webb, Cather, and other writers into the context of assertive regionalism.		SU
Drache, Hiram M.	The Day of the Bonanza: A History of Farming in the Red River Valley of the North	Fargo: North Dakota Institute for Regional Studies, 1964	A history of the wheat boom of the 1880s. First of several works by Drache treating large-scale agriculture.		SU
Droze, Wilmon H.	Trees, Prairies, and People	Denton: Texas Woman's U. Press, 1977	A history of tree-planting on the plains, with emphasis on the shelterbelt project of the 1930s.		SU
Drumm, Stella M., Ed.	Down the Santa Fe Trail and Into Mexico	New Haven: Yale U. Press, 1926 Reprint, Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1982	The diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin on the Santa Fe Trail, just at the outbreak of the Mexican War.		SU
Dudley, Joseph Iron Eye	Choteau Creek: A Sioux Reminiscence	Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1992	A personal reminiscence of growing up on the Yankton Reservation in the 1940s and 1950s.		SU
Dykstra, Robert	The Cattle Towns	Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1983	Set in the railroad cowtowns of Kansas, but particularly notable for developing the theme of community cleavage and conflict on the frontier—internal divisions in the towns, urban-rural conflicts.		SU
Elias, Peter Douglas	The Dakota of the Canadian Northwest: Lessons for Survival	Winnipeg: U. of Manitoba Press, 1988			SU
Ellis, Clyde	A Dancing People: Powwow Culture on the Southern Plains	Lawrence: U. Press of Kansas, 2003	Ellis traces the origins of modern powwow to tribal societies; chronicles the survival of dance traditions on the rez, their renewal in the 20^th century, and the rise of pan-tribal dance traditions and a powwow circuit. A strong interpretive work. (Reviewed in Plains Folk #1078.)
Ellis, Clyde	To Change Them Forever: Indian Education at the Rainy Mountain Boarding School, 1893-1920	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1996
Emmons, David M.	Garden in the Grasslands: Boomer Literature of the Central Great Plains	Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1971	Surveys the promotional literature used to lure immigrants to the American plains.		SU
Ens, Gerhard J.	Homeland to Hinterland: The Changing Worlds of the Red River Metís in the Nineteenth Century	Toronto: U. of Toronto Press, 1996			SU
Etcheson, Nicole	Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era	Lawrence: U. Press of Kansas, 2004	The contest for Kansas Territory is presented as a conflict over definitions of liberty and rights for white settlers—not as conflict over slavery.		SU
Fairbairn, Garry Lawrence	From Prairie Roots: The Remarkable Story of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool	Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1984	History of this cooperative marketing organization in western Canada, formed in 1923. Its collapse during the depression, survival, and continued operation.
Fairbanks, Carol	Prairie Women: Images in American and Canadian Fiction	New Haven: Yale U. Press, 1986			SU
Fenneman, Nevin M.	Physiography of Western United States	1st Ed., 4th Imp. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1931	With its companion volume, Physiography of Eastern United States, this was the standard work of American physiography for a generation. Notice that it was published the same year as Webb's Great Plains. Chapter 1 is "Great Plains Province."		SU
Fink, Deborah	Agrarian Women: Wives and Mothers in Rural Nebraska, 1880-1940	Chapel Hill: U. of North Carolina Press, 1992			TC
Finkel, Alvin	The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta	Toronto: U. of Toronto Press, 1989			TC
Fite, Gilbert C.	The Farmer's Last Frontier, 1865-1900	New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1966	The standard history of agricultural settlement on the Great Plains frontier.		SU
Fleharty, Eugene D.	Wild Animals and Settlers on the Great Plains	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1995	An interesting compilation of primary accounts, mainly from newspapers, of settlers' encounters with wildlife.		SU
Fleming, R.B.	The Railway King of Canada: Sir William Mackenzie, 1849-1923	Vancouver: U. of British Columbia Press, 1991			TC
Flores, Dan	Horizontal Yellow: Nature and History in the Near Southwest	Albuquerque: U. of New Mexico Press, 1999	Essays on history and nature in the “Near Southwest,” which spans the southern plains. Personal and insightful, these pieces are particularly notable for a revision in the conception of wilderness and for the author’s struggle to achieve an aesthetic and moral peace with the landscape.		SU
Flores, Dan	The Natural West: Environmental History in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains	Norman: U. Oklahoma Press, 2001			TC
Foster, Morris W.	Being Comanches: A Social History of An American Indian Community	Tucson: U. of Arizona Press, 1991			TC
Fowke, Vernon C.	The National Policy and the Wheat Economy	Toronto: U. of Toronto Press, 1957 Vol. 7 in the Social Credit in Alberta Series	Puts wheat in the context of the National Policy and staples theory. General economic history with emphasis on marketing--local elevators and monopoly, wheat pools, the wheat board.		SU
Fowler, Loretta	Shared Symbols, Contested Meanings: Gros Ventre Culture and History, 1778-1984	Ithaca: Cornell U. Press, 1987
Frazier, Ian	Great Plains	New York: Farrar/Straus/Giroux, 1989	A traveler's narrative (although organized in thematic chapters) with several excellent reflective chapters (such as the one reflecting on the power of history in the region). Full of factual inaccuracies, but representaive of the continuing romance of the Great Plains landscape.
Freeman, John F.	High Plains Horticulture: A History	Boulder: University Press of Colorado			SU
Friesen, Gerald	The Canadian Prairies: A History	Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1984	The standard, comprehensive history of the Canadian plains. Notable both for sound narrative and for judicious historiography, evaluating major themes and interpretations of Canadian historians.		SU
Frison, George C.	Prehistoric Hunters of the High Plains	New York: Academic Press, 1978	Treats the northwestern high plains of the United States as an "ecological area." Review of archeology: band-level adaptation to environment through hunting of mammoth, bison, and later species. "The area has been a testing ground for human ingenuity."		SU
Fuller, Wayne	The Old Country School: The Story or Rural Education in the Middle West	Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1982			SU
Furman, Necah Stewart	Walter Prescott Webb	Albuquerque: U. of New Mexico Press, 1976	A sound biography.		SU
Gard, Wayne	The Great Buffalo Hunt	New York: Knopf, 1959 Reprint, Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1972	Concentrates on the era of buffalo-hunting, thus not as comprehensive as Dary's book. Reflects understanding of bison history in mid-20th century, a simple matter of commercial slaughter.		SU
Gilfillan, Archer B.	Sheep: Life on the South Dakota Range	New York: Little, Brown & Co., 1929 Reprint, Minneapolis: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1993	A first-person account with excellent detail on the daily and yearly routine in the life of a herder. Charming, humorous, yet literary style.		SU
Giraud, Marcel	The Metís in the Canadian West, translated by George Woodcock	2 vols., Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1986			SU
Grant, Michael Johnston	Down and Out on the Family Farm: Rural Rehabilitation in the Great Plains, 1929-1945	Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002
Gray, James H.	Men Against the Desert	Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1967	Farming the Palliser Triangle "the greatest Canadian success story since the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway," for "Canada could not have existed without the settling and farming of the Palliser Triangle." Story of conservation and farming after the 1930s blow-out--the PFRA and other efforts. Includes out-migration of farmers.
Gray, James H.	The Winter Years: The Depression on the Prairies	Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1966	Part anecdotal and descriptive history, part memoir. No particular regional consciousness, but emphasis on boyhood and hardship in Winnipeg.		TC
Great Plains Committee	The Future of the Great Plains	Washington: Government Printing Office, 1937	The New Deal view of social, environmental, and economic problems of the region. Contains recommendations for resettlement and conservation, based on regional, environmental view of proper institutions and land use.		SU
Green, Donald E.	Land of the Underground Rain	Austin: U. of Texas Press, 1973	An outstanding history of ground water irrigation in West Texas.		SU
Greene, Candace & Russell Thornton, Eds.	The Year the Stars Fell: Lakota Winter Counts at the Smithsonian	Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007			SU
Greene, Jerome A.	Washita: The U.S. Army and the Southern Cheyennes, 1867-1869	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press	Solid, authoritative exposition of the events leading up to the Battle of the Washita, the battle itself, and the consequences.		TI
Gregg, Josiah	Commerce of the Prairies	New York: H.G. Langley, 1844. Reprint, Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1990	The standard primary narrative on the Santa Fe trade.		SU
Gump, James O.	The Dust Rose Like Smoke: The Subjugation of the Zulu and the Sioux	Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1994	A nifty piece of comparative work, beginning with Isandhlwana and Little Big Horn, then broadening out to consider conflicts attendant to imperialist expansion against native cultures.		SU
Hagan, William T.	Quannah Parker, Comanche Chief	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1993
Hamalainen, Peter	The Comanche Empire	New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008	A sweeping revision of Comanche history emphasizing native agency and assertiveness. This work is a touchstone for the reinterpretation of Indian-white relations on the plains.		SU
Hampsten, Elizabeth	Read This Only to Yourself: The Private Writings of Midwestern Women, 1880-1910	Bloomington: Indiana U. Press, 1982			SU
Hampsten, Elizabeth	Settlers' Children: Growing Up on the Great Plains	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1991	A history of children's experiences in the settlement generation of North Dakota. Hampsten, in a rather bleak depiction of children's lives, poses a distinctly different interpretation from that of Elliot West (see below).		SU
Hargreaves, Mary Wilma M.	Dry Farming in the Northern Plains, 1900-1925	Cambridge: Harvard U. Press, 1957	The standard work on dry farming in the region.		SU
Hargreaves, Mary Wilma M.	Dry Farming in the Northern Great Plains: Years of Readjustment, 1920-1990	Lawrence: U. Press of Kansas, 1993	Takes up where the author's earlier work left off chronologically. The second book makes important points about land use vs. land retirement on the northern plains.		SU
Harris, Katherine	Long Vistas: Women and Families on Colorado Homesteads	Boulder: U. Press of Colorado, 1993	Focus on northeastern Colorado. This author interprets homesteading as a broadening opportunity for women, giving them the chance to acquire control over capital and providing the setting for flexibility in gender roles.		TC
Harrison, Dick	Unnamed Country: The Struggle for a Canadian Prairie Fiction	Edmonton: U. of Alberta Press, 1977	A literary history focusing on "the struggle for an indigenous prairie fiction." Two influences: landscape, and "inherited culture." Best single secondary work on prairie fiction. Strong treatment of literary themes and symbols.		TC
Harrod, Howard L.	Becoming and Remaining a People: Native American Religions on the Northern Plains	Tucson: U. of Arizona Press, 1995	Focusing on the Mandan and Hidatsa, Harrod deals with origin myths, culture heroes, renewal rituals, and religious adaptation among these village farming peoples.		SU
Haywood, C. Robert	Cowtown Lawyers: Dodge City and Its Attorneys, 1876-1886	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1988
Haywood, C. Robert	Victorian West: Class and Culture in Kansas Cattle Towns	Lawrence: U. Press of Kansas, 1991			SU
Hewes, Leslie	The Suitcase Farming Frontier	Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1973	Geographer's view of the phenomenon of suitcase farming--the practice of owning and farming land on the high plains, but living in towns elsewhere--a device for the manipulation of scarce capital on the plains.		TC
Hickey, Joseph V.	Ghost Settlement on the Prairie: A Biography of Thurman, Kansas	Lawrence: U. Press of Kansas, 1995	A community study focusing on the "post office community" of Thurman, in the Flint Hills of Kansas. A good combination of grass-roots research and social-science theory, this book chronicles a failed community.
Hill, Pamela Smith	Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer’s Life	Pierre: South Dakota State Historical Society Press, 2008	Literary biography of Wilder, which not only chronicles her writing life but also deftly sorts out the nature of the collaboration with her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane
Hoig, Stan	The Sand Creek Massacre	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1961	Sound narrative history of one of the most infamous incidents in the history of United States Indian relations.		SU
Holder, Preston	The Hoe and the Horse on the Plains: A Study of Cultural Development among North American Indians	Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1970	This is a classic work dealing with cultural change among plains Indians and with the contrasting (as well as complementary) cultures of riverine horticulture and open-plains bison hunting.		SU
Hope, Clifford R., Jr.	Quiet Courage: Kansas Congressman Clifford R. Hope	Manhattan: Sunflower U. Press, 1997	Congressman Hope, of Garden City, as ranking member and as chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture, was an important figure in the shaping of farm policy from the 1930s to the 1950s and a spokesman for the interests of the wheat belt.
Howard, Joseph Kinsey	Strange Empire: A Narrative of the Northwest	New York: William Morrow & Co., 1952 Reprint, Minneapolis: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1994			SU
Howard, Joseph Kinsey	Montana: High, Wide, and Handsome	New Haven: Yale U. Press, 1943 Reprint, Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1983			SU
Hoxie, Frederick E.	Parading Through History: The Making of the Crow Nation in America, 1805-1935	New York: Cambridge U. Press, 1995			TC
Hoy, James F.	The Cattle Guard: Its History and Lore	Lawrence: U. Press of Kansas, 1982	Along with Baker's Windmills, one of the few good studies of material culture on the plains. (Cattle guards are grids used in place of gates to hold cattle in a pasture but admit autos.)		SU
Hoy, Jim and Tom Isern	Plains Folk: A Commonplace of the Great Plains	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1987	A collection of personal essays in the history and folklore of the North American plains.		SU
Hoy, Jim and Tom Isern	Plains Folk II: The Romance of the Landscape	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1990	Continuation of Plains Folk--essays on folklife of the Great Plains.
Hunter, J. Marvin	The Trail Drivers of Texas	Nashville: Cokesbury, 1925 Reprint, Austin: U. of Texas Press, 1985	A collection of first-person accounts by cowboys and drovers who went up the trail. A classic primary source.		SU
Hurt, R. Douglas	The Dust Bowl: An Agricultural and Social History	Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1981	The most balanced of the various recent histories of the Dust Bowl.		SU
Hyslop, Stephen G.	Bound for Santa Fe: The Road to New Mexico and the American Conquest, 1806-1848	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 2002
Innes, Harold A	A History of the Canadian Pacific Railway	Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1923	The Innes approach: "The history of the Canadian Pacific Railroad is primarily the history of the spread of western civilization over the northern half of the North American continent." Highly nationalistic--how the National Policy accomplished the "diversion" of western Canadian commerce to eastern Canada.		TC
Innis, Harold A.	The Fur Trade in Canada: An Introduction to Canadian Economic History	Revised edition, Toronto: U. of Toronto Press, 1962	The premier work of an old-time political economist, in his time Canada's premier historian. Two-fold importance: classic account of the fur trade as economic history; and statement of staples theory, which presents Canadian nationhood in economic and geographic terms.
Iorio, Sharon Hartin	Faith's Harvest: Mennonite Identity in Northwest Oklahoma	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1999
Irving, John A	The Social Credit Movement in Alberta	Toronto: U. of Toronto Press, 1959	Last volume (10) of Social Credit in Alberta Series, sponsored by Social Science Research Council of Canada. Treats Social Credit as "a phenomenon of mass psychology" based on social unrest and dissatisfaction. Social Credit, through its prophet, William Aberhart, addressed the shortage of consumers by paying dividends.		TC
Ise, John	Sod and Stubble: The Story of a Kansas Homestead	New York: Wilson-Erickson, 1936. Reprint, Lawrence: U. Press of Kansas, 1996	The best memoir of pioneer life on the American plains (set in northwest Kansas). A wealth of cultural history in this account by a natural resource economist from the University of Kansas, the son of German immigrant homesteaders.		SU
Iseminger, Gordon L	The Quartzite Border: Surveying and Marking the North Dakota-South Dakota Boundary, 1891-1892	Sioux Falls: Center for Western Studies, Augustana College, 1988			SU
Isenberg, Andrew C	The Destruction of the Bison: An Environmental History, 1750-1920	Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000			SU
Isern, Thomas D	Bull Threshers and Bindlestiffs: Harvesting and Threshing on the North American Plains	Lawrence: U. Press of Kansas, 1990			SU
Isern, Thomas D	Custom Combining on the Great Plains: A History	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1981	A history of a classic agricultural adaptation to the Great Plains, the system of itinerant wheat harvesting outfits that originated during World War II and still work the harvest from Texas to Saskatchewan		SU
Isern, Thomas D	Dakota Circle: Excursions on the True Plains	Fargo: NDSU Institute for Regional Studies, 2000	Essays in the history, folklife, and culture of the northern plains, drawing on the author's newspaper column, Plains Folk		SU
Iverson, Peter	When Indians Became Cowboys: Native Peoples and Cattle Ranching in the American West	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1994			SU
James, Marquis	The Cherokee Strip: An Oklahoma Boyhood	New York: Viking Press, 1965	A memoir of growing up in the Cherokee Strip of Oklahoma		TC
Jenish, D’Arcy	Epic Wanderer: David Thompson and the Mapping of the Canadian West	Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2003	Outstanding biography of this explorer of the Canadian West, the first European to descend the Columbia to the Pacific. As a map-maker Thompson greatly advanced knowledge of the geography of the northern plains.		TI
Jones, David C.	Empire of Dust: Settling and Abandoning the Prairie Dry Belt	Edmonton: U. of Alberta Press, 1987	A readable, insightful history of how settlement tried and failed in southeastern Saskatchewan		SU
Jordan, Terry G.	Trails to Texas: Southern Roots of Western Cattle Ranching	Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1981	A major re-interpretation of the history of the range cattle industry, emphasizing its origins in the American South, stretching west from Carolina, rather than its Hispanic origins. (Jordan holds the Webb Chair at the University of Texas.)		SU
Jordan, Terry G.	North American Cattle-Ranching Frontiers: Origins, Diffusion, and Differentiation	Albuquerque: U. of New Mexico Press, 1993			SU
Killoren, John J.	"Come, Blackrobe": De Smet and the Indian Tragedy	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1994	A life-and-times treatment of De Smet emphasizing the decline and end of Plains Indian buffalo culture.		TC
Kostash, Myrna	All of Baba's Children	Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers, 1977	Ostensibly a history of Ukrainian Canadians, but more than that. Statement of modern Canadian Ukrainian seeking roots, rejecting romanticization of history and trivialization of culture, rejecting consensus view of immigration experience (a stolid peasantry fitting into the national design).
Kraenzel, Carl Frederick	The Great Plains in Transition	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1955	By a sociologist, the greatest of the refiners of Webb's thesis. Suggests that adaptation to the plains is not confined to settlement times, but needs to continue in contemporary times. Sketches a model of community organization on the plains. Identifies mobility, flexibility, and reserves as keys to survival on the plains.		SU
Kramer, Reinhold, and Tom Mitchell	Walk Towards the Gallows: The Tragedy of Hilda Blake, Hanged 1899	New York: Oxford U. Press, 2002
Lamar, Howard Roberts	Dakota Territory, 1861-1889: A Study of Frontier Politics	New Haven: Yale U. Press, 1956. Reprint, Fargo: NDSU Institute for Regional Studies, 1996	Sound political history of the formation of Dakota Territory, the working of the territorial system, the division and statehood movements, and the rise of agrarian insurgency		SU
Lamb, W. Kaye	History of the Canadian Pacific Railway	New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1977	Uses the CPR company records. Covers not only construction, but also developments to the 1970s--competition from other lines, nationalization, the Crow's Nest Pass Agreement, good years leading to depression, modern diversification. The standard work on the CPR.		TC
Lass, William E.	Navigating the Missouri: Steamboating on Nature's Highway, 1819-1935	Norman: Arthur H. Clark, 2008	Navigation of the Missouri to the 1930s, from the opening of the fur trade to the short-haul days of the 20th century.
Lawson, Michael L	Dammed Indians: The Pick-Sloan Plan and the Missouri River Sioux, 1944-1980	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1982			SU
Laycock, David	Populism and Democratic Thought in the Canadian Prairies, 1910-1945	Toronto: U. of Toronto Press, 1990			TC
Leckie, William H	The Military Conquest of the Southern Plains	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1963	A classic account of army-Indian conflict on the southern plains.		TC
Lindgren, Elaine	Land in Her Own Name: Women as Homesteaders in North Dakota	Fargo: North Dakota Institute for Regional Studies, 1991			SU
Lipset, Seymour Martin	Agrarian Socialism: The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation in Saskatchewan	Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1950			SU
Loewen, Royden K	Family, Church, and Market: A Mennonite Community in the Old and New Worlds, 1850-1930	Urbana: U. of Illinois Press, 1993			SU
Lookingbill, Brad	Dust Bowl, USA: Depression America and the Ecological Imagination, 1929-1941	Athens: Ohio U. Press, 2001
Low, Ann Marie	Dust Bowl Diary	Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1984	Primary account of North Dakota in the 1930s.		SU
Lowie, Robert H	Indians of the Plains	New York: McGraw-Hill, 1954. Reprint, Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1982	This is a good synthesis of anthropological work to the 1950s, particularly strong on aspects of material culture.		SU
Luciuk, Lubomyr and Bohdan S. Kordan	Creating a Landscape: A Geography of Ukranians in Canada	Toronto: U. of Toronto Press, 1989
Lynch, Gerald	Roughnecks, Drillers, and Tool Pushers: Thirty-Three Years in the Oil Fields	Austin: U. of Texas Press, 1987
Lynn-Sherow, Bonnie	Red Earth: Race and Agriculture in Oklahoma Territory	Lawrence: U. Press of Kansas, 2004	Environmental and cultural history of territorial Oklahoma. Exploring settlement patterns of whites, blacks, and Kiowas, Lynn-Sherow concludes that whites’ mechanized agriculture predominated, producing ecological “simplification.”		TI
Lysenko, Vera	Men In Sheepskin Coats: A Study in Assimilation	Toronto: Ryerson, 1947	Narrative and anecdotal history of Ukrainian immigration. An odd balance--glorification of Ukrainian culture, while exalting assimilation. The "destiny" of Ukrainians in western Canada.
MacGregor, James G	A History of Alberta	Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers, 1972	The standard history of the province		SU
MacGregor, James G	Vision of an Ordered Land: The Story of the Dominion Land Survey	Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1981	Survey according to section-range-township pattern began in 1869. Good narrative history of activities of some 1300 surveyors.
Mackintosh, W.A.	Economic Problems of the Prairie Provinces	Toronto: Macmillan Company, 1935	The peculiar economic conditions of Alberta and Saskatchewan, emphasizing local government, marketing, the wheat economy, taxation, and impact of depression. Definite regional slant, not frontier. Vol. 4 of Canadian Frontiers of Settlement.
Mackintosh, W.A.	Prairie Settlement: The Geographical Setting	Toronto: Macmillan Company, 1934	Still the standard source for the physical geography of the Canadian plains. Some topical chapters and some regional chapters. First volume of Canadian Frontiers of Settlement Series.
Macleod, R.C.	The NWMP and Law Enforcement, 1873-1905	Toronto: U. of Toronto Press, 1976	Tries to explain success and popularity of NWMP. Considers them generally exemplary, but not a whitewash. Origins, administrative history thereafter, then topical chapters--liquor laws, for instance.		TC
MacPherson, Ian	Each for All: A History of the Co-operative Movement in English Canada, 1900-1945	Toronto: Macmillan Company of Canada, 1979	Covers all of Canada, but prairies most of all. Mainly marketing pools, but some attention to cooperative stores and other enterprises.		TC
Magnuson, Stew	The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder and Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns	Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2008	Racially charged incidents and conflicts, with the 1972 death of Raymond Yellow Thunder in Gordon, Nebraska, as focus.
Malin, James C	The Grasslands of North America: Prolegomena to Its History with Addenda	Lawrence: The Author, 1961	A monumental work on the environment, scientific thought, and human culture of the plains. Impossible to characterize		SU
Malin, James C	Winter Wheat in the Golden Belt of Kansas: A Study in Adaptation to Subhumid Geographical Environment	Lawrence: U. of Kansas Press, 1944	A well-focused study of agricultural adaptation in a sub-region of the plains. Malin is among the most important refiners of the Webb thesis.		SU
Malone, Michael P	James J. Hill: Empire Builder of the Northwest	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1996			TC
Mandelbaum, David G	The Plains Cree: An Ethnographic, Historical, and Comparative Study	Washington: American Museum of Natural History, 1940 Reprint, Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center, 1979			SU
Manfred, Freya	Frederick Manfred: A Daughter Remembers	St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1999	The focus of the memoir is on the time immediately preceding Manfred's death in 1994, but the work in general is highly illuminating as to the place of this author in regional literature and culture.		SU
Martynowych, Orest T	Ukrainians in Canada: The Formative Period, 1891-1924	Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1991
Mattes, Merrill J	The Great Platte River Road	Lincoln: Nebraska State Historical Society, 1969	History of the Overland Trail with emphasis on the Great Plains portion.
Matthews, Anne	Where the Buffalo Roam	New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1992	A chronicle of the controversy over the "buffalo commons" proposal of Frank and Deborah Popper.		SU
Mayhall, Mildred P	The Kiowas	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1962 2d Ed., 1971			SU
McCourt, Edward A	The Canadian West In Fiction	Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1949	Use with Harrison on literature of the Canadian west. Essays on: Charles William Gordon, Frederick Niven, Frederick Philip Grove, and "some others."
McCoy, Joseph G.	Historic Sketches of the Cattle Trade of the West and Southwest	1874 Reprint, Washington: Rare Book Shop, 1932	This memoir is a primary source on the origins of the long drive, McCoy being the entrepreneur who brought the cattle trade to Abilene. Notable illustrations by the artist Henry Worrall.	Kansas Collection, KU: Historic Sketches online
McIntosh, Charles Barron	The Nebraska Sand Hills: The Human Landscape	Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1996	An impressive work of historical geography about a distinctive sub-region of the plains. Wonderful, if somewhat complex, maps.
McMurtry, Larry	The Last Picture Show	New York: Dial Press, 1966 New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1994	Besides being a fine novel by Texas's best crafter of fiction, this work is a literary depiction of the collapse of small-town culture on the plains during the generation after World War II.		TC
Mellis, Allison Fuss	Riding Buffaloes and Broncos: Rodeo and Native Traditions in the Northern Great Plains	Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 2003	This work treats Indian rodeo as an instrument whereby the tribes adapted and persisted in their identities, subverting white officials’ attempted to force assimilation. Concentrating on the Crow, Lakota, and Northern Cheyenne, Mellis chronicles the rise of Indian rodeo in the first half of the 20^th century and the crystallization of an all-Indian rodeo circuit in the second half of the century.
Meredith, Howard	Dancing on Common Ground: Tribal Cultures and Alliances on the Southern Plains	Lawrence: U. Press of Kansas, 1995			TC
Micheaux, Oscar	The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer	Lincoln: Woodruff Press, 1913 Reprint, Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1994	Narrative of a black settler in South Dakota, including treatment of claim-seeking, town speculation. The author dedicated his work to Booker T. Washington.		SU
Miller, David Humphreys	Ghost Dance	New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1959 Reprint, Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1985
Miller, John E.	Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Woman Behind the Legend	Columbia: U. of Missouri Press, 1998	Wonderfully judicious biography of the famed author.		TC
Miller, John E.	Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little Town: Where History and Literature Meet	Lawrence: U. Press of Kansas, 1994	This work of social history provides context for the famous Little House series--and also has broader applicability to community history on the plains.