In" Iowa Past to Present," originally published in 1989, Dorothy Schwieder, Thomas Morain, and Lynn Nielsen combine their extensive knowledge of Iowa s history with years of experience addressing the educational needs of elementary and middle-school students. Their skillful and accessible narrative brings alive the people and events that populate Iowa s rich heritage. This revised edition brings the story into the twenty-first century and makes a paperback edition available for the first time.Beginning with Iowa s changing geological landforms, the authors progress to historical,...
In" Iowa Past to Present," originally published in 1989, Dorothy Schwieder, Thomas Morain, and Lynn Nielsen combine their extensive knowledge of Io...
The United States has more public libraries than it has McDonald s restaurants.By any measure, the American public library is a heavily used and ubiquitous institution. Popular thinking identifies the public library as a neutral agency that protects democratic ideals by guarding against censorship as it makes information available to people from all walks of life. Among librarians this idea is known as the library faith. But is the American public library as democratic as it appears to be?In "Main Street Public Library," eminent library historian Wayne Wiegand studies four emblematic...
The United States has more public libraries than it has McDonald s restaurants.By any measure, the American public library is a heavily used and u...
What is life about but the continuous posing of the questions: what happens next, and what do we make of it when it arrives? In these highly evocative personal essays, Douglas Bauer weaves together the stories of his own and his parents' lives, the meals they ate, the work and rewards and regrets that defined them, and the inevitable betrayal by their bodies as they aged.His collection features at its center a long and memory-rich piece seasoned with sensory descriptions of the midday dinners his mother cooked for her farmer husband and father-in-law every noon for many years. It's this...
What is life about but the continuous posing of the questions: what happens next, and what do we make of it when it arrives? In these highly evocative...
During the 1850s and early 1860s, Iowa, the westernmost free state bordering a slave state, stood as a bulwark of antislavery sentiment while the decades-long struggle over slavery shifted westward. On its southern border lay Missouri, the northernmost slaveholding state. To its west was the Kansas-Nebraska Territory, where proslavery and antislavery militias battled. Missouri slaves fled to Iowa seeking freedom, finding opponents of slavery who risked their lives and livelihoods to help them, as well as bounty hunters who forced them back into bondage. When opponents of slavery streamed west...
During the 1850s and early 1860s, Iowa, the westernmost free state bordering a slave state, stood as a bulwark of antislavery sentiment while the deca...
The American Midwest is an orphan among regions. In comparison to the South, the far West, and New England, its history has been sadly neglected. To spark more attention to their region, midwestern historians will need to explain the Midwest's crucial roles in the development of the entire country: it helped spark the American Revolution and stabilised the young American republic by strengthening its economy and endowing it with an agricultural heartland; it played a critical role in the Union victory in the Civil War; it extended the republican institutions created by the American founders,...
The American Midwest is an orphan among regions. In comparison to the South, the far West, and New England, its history has been sadly neglected. To s...
The Drake Relays are one of the iconic events of track and field in the United States. World and Olympic champions test their speed and stamina on the famed Blue Oval in Des Moines, Iowa, every April, and by spring 2013 they had set fourteen world records and fifty-one American records. But unlike most other top meets, this one also features college athletes from all over the country and high school athletes from across Iowa, giving them the experience of a lifetimecompeting on the same track with the elite in their sport. This mix brings many enthusiastic spectators to the stadium and makes...
The Drake Relays are one of the iconic events of track and field in the United States. World and Olympic champions test their speed and stamina on the...
The Indian spiritual entrepreneur Maharishi Mahesh Yogi took the West by storm in the 1960s and '70s, charming Baby Boomers fed up with war and social upheaval with his message of meditation and peace. Heeding his call, two thousand followers moved to tiny Fairfield, Iowa, to set up their own university on the campus of a failed denominational college. Soon, they started a school for prekindergarten through high school, allowing followers to immerse themselves in Transcendental Meditation from toddlerhood through PhDs.
Although Fairfield's longtime residents were relieved to see that...
The Indian spiritual entrepreneur Maharishi Mahesh Yogi took the West by storm in the 1960s and '70s, charming Baby Boomers fed up with war and social...
A Store Almost in Sight tells the story of commercial development in central Missouri from the early days of American settlement following the Louisiana Purchase to the Civil War. Focusing on those counties near or on the Missouri River, historian Jeff Bremer confirms that the history of the frontier is also the history of the spread of capitalist values. The letters, journals, diaries and travel accounts of Missouri settlers and visitors reveal how small decisions made by Missouri's rural white settlers - ranging from how much of a certain crop to plant to how many eggs to take to...
A Store Almost in Sight tells the story of commercial development in central Missouri from the early days of American settlement following th...
Every year in early August, a breeze borne by silent messengers from another time blows through Iowa. It carries a whiff of something wonderful, something far off and a bit unclear, yet oddly familiar. It's a reminder that an extraordinary annual event is about to take place, just as it has for more than 150 years: the Iowa State Fair. In 2013, Kurt Ullrich set out to chronicle the magic of the Iowa State Fair in words and photographs. Join him as August days and nights blow warm and easy over the fairgrounds, brushing lightly against fellow travelers on this earth, both human and not....
Every year in early August, a breeze borne by silent messengers from another time blows through Iowa. It carries a whiff of something wonderful, somet...
Atop a scenic bluff overlooking the Mississippi River and downtown Dubuque there once lay a graveyard dating to the 1830s, the earliest days of American settlement in Iowa. Though many local residents knew the property had once been a Catholic burial ground, they believed the graves had been moved to a new cemetery in the late nineteenth century in response to overcrowding and changing burial customs. But in 2007, when a developer broke ground for a new condominium complex here, the heavy machinery unearthed human bones. Clearly, some of Dubuque's early settlers still rested there--in fact,...
Atop a scenic bluff overlooking the Mississippi River and downtown Dubuque there once lay a graveyard dating to the 1830s, the earliest days of Americ...