West of Wichita: Settling the High Plains of Kansas, 1865-1890 by Craig MinerReview by: C. Robert HaywoodThe American Historical Review, Vol. 92, No. 2 (Apr., 1987), pp. 493-494Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1866785 .

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United States 493

sponses as a means of coping with transformations that otherwise seem beyond the individual's control?

ANITA CLAIR FELLMAN

Simon Fraser University

JOSEPH C. PORTER. Paper Medicine Man: John Gregoiy Bourke and His American West. Norman: U niversity of Oklahoma Press. 1986. Pp. xviii, 362. $29.95.

Most historians of the Far West regard John G. Bourke as a talented soldier and writer who chron- icled the exploits of Brigadier General George Crook during the Indian wars of the late nineteenth century. With literary skills that equalled a novelist's, Bourke penned an epic account of the Apache campaigns, On the Border with Crook (1891), which has become a regional classic. But this image of Bourke as little more than Crook's Boswell is far removed from reality. As Joseph C. Porter demon- strates in this beautifully crafted biography, Bourke was one of the foremost ethnologists of his day, and his historical significance may well be greater than that of his f'avorite commander.

Bourke was an unlikely candidate to become one of' America's pioneering anthropologists. Born in 1846 into an Irish immigrant family, Bourke served in the ranks during the Civil War and later attended West Point. After graduation he was posted to the Far West. At first his attitude toward Indians dif- fered little from the prejudices entertained by most Americans. TI'he tribes needed a heavy hand to speed the civilizing process, Bourke believed, and he saw the military as providing a necessary chastise- ment to rmodify undesirable behavior. But Bourke did not hold these views for long; unlike most residents of the frontier, the young offlicer was a serious scholar-possibly a quality acquired in his f'ather's bookstore. Armed with intellectual curiosity, Bourke began a diligent study of the American Indian, and in time he found that his pi-econiceived notionis did not coincide with direct observation. 'The Indians, Bourke discovered, had complex cul- tures and possessed many admirable traits. By the mid-1870s he had commenced serious ethno- graphic work, albeit under military aegis. Within little miiore than a decade, he became a prominent figur-e in the movenment for Indian rights, even though these efforts danmaged his chances for pro- motion. He died somewhat disillusioned in 1896 at the age of f'orty-nine, without seeing his friend and admirer, 'Theodore Roosevelt, become president.

TFhis gracefully written and well-researched study is the first full-length biography of Bourke. 'The author was aided in his investigation by the diary Bourke kept on a regular basis throughout his long years of' frontier service. A little more inf'ormation about Bourke's famnily and his finanicial status would

have been useful, but this does not detract from the overall work. Porter is at his best when discussing Bourke's theories of civilization, derived from Lewis Henry Morgan, which posited that human nature was constant throughout time. The observation of primitive people, Morgan argued, gave caref ul viewers a window into their own civilizations at an earlier stage of development. In the twentieth cen- tury much of this grand civilization theory has been discarded, but it has not lessened the value of Bourke's observations, many of which are unique.

Even Bourke's Indian informants sometimes re- alized the importance of his notebook entries. At the Sun Dance of 1881 Oglala Chief Red Dog said to Bourke: "Our grandfathers taught us to do this. Write it down str-aight on the paper" (p. 94). Amer- ican ethnology is indebted to the talented Irishman who did not allow personal prejudices to prevent his detailing such ceremonies as the Sioux Sun Dance or the Zuni Urine Dance.

This is the biography that John G. Bourke has long deserved. With this book Bourke has emerged f'rom the shadow of George Crook, and author Porter has earned our praises. Like Bourke himself, he got it straight on the paper.

GERALD 'ITHOMPSON

University of Toledo

CRAIG MINER. West of Wichita: Settlirng the High Plaim of Kansas, 1865-1890. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. 1986. Pp. viii, 303. $19.95.

'This book is regional history at its best. 'Taking a limited area (Kansas west of' the sixth principal meridian) during a limited time period (the end of the Civil War to 1890) Craig Miner has fused personal narrative sources with quantitative data to demonstrate the unique challenge of western Kan- sas "in nineteenth-cenitury agriculture civilization" (p. 4). Many of the traditional tales of' early hard- ships-grasshopper plagues, Indian attacks, the stress of loneliness and isolation, drought, blizzards, prairie fires, and the unaccustomed hazards of na- ture-ar-e retold with vigor and a sense of' im-imedi- acy. 'hese gritty tales of pioneer persistence and stubbornness are used to illustrate the region's cycli- cal history of hope and despair fed by "the famous variability of' the Great Plains" (p. 232). This vari- ability, one might add, is largely responsible f'or the love-hate anmbivalence that characterized Kansanis' attitude toward the state. Miner has bolstered the personial accounts with new quantification of' such wide-ranging materials as price data, average an- nual rainf'all, railroad expansion, boorm-and-bust land transactions, and individual, corporate, and relief contributionis. Trhe blending of' these two re- search techniques makes for an entertaining and

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494 Reviews of Books

convincing study of the early development on the Kansas plains.

Miner's use of this approach to provide excellent, chapter-length coverages of topics is one of the pleasant rewards of the book. Among the chapters three or four stand out. The brief description of the impact of the violent raid through Kansas by Dull Knife's Northern Cheyenne places in clear perspec- tive the settlers' shift from lukewarm sympathy for the Indian's plight to red-hot condemnation and demand for vengeance. The author discusses "the red-haired men in silk ties," the exuberant land agents who helped fuel the land boom of the mid- 1880s, and concludes that the "boys who talked about towns in their heads were clever: men who accepted similar visions were dangerously gullible" (p. 215). He traces the history of the coming of the railroad and its effect on the raw settlements as well as the later "gaudy atmosphere of high boom" of 1886-87 (p. 202). Further, Miner provides insights into the early irrigation projects, which more than any other response to the drought of 1880 were "a central element of the regional boom" (p. 184) and which sparked the "sorghum sugar craze."

Miner makes clear that the illusions the pioneers brought with them made settlement in the region a highly risky venture. Technological masking, for instance, has remained an important intermediary influence on perceptions of western Kansas up to the present. In the concluding chapter Miner warns that the victory of people over nature, which seemed a safe goal as late as the 1950s, has not yet been assured.

Not the least of Miner's talents is his engaging style-no turgid prose here. Images are alive, pro- gression of the story lively, and the analysis convinc- ing.

This first-rate book is an important addition to the history of Kansas and, more broadly, to the study of western settlement.

C. ROBERT HAYWOOD

Washburn University

PHILIP V. SCARPINO. Great River: An Environmental History of the Upper Missasslppi, 1890-1950. Colum- bia: University of Missouri Press. 1985. Pp. viii, 219. $24.00.

In this relatively brief work Philip V. Scarpino has assigned himself the duty of initerpreting the human impact on the ecosystem of the upper Mississippi River, one of the greatest waterways in the world. For that reason the book offers promise of synthe- sizing the many disparate forces that operate in the basin of the "Father of Waters." Unfortunately, because the author addresses too many issues in too

little space to do them justice, the study lacks cohe- sion, focus, and depth.

One recognizes that mnany more questions sur- faced in the course of the research than the author at first imagined. This may explain why the book hurriedly describes the building of Keokuk Falls hydroelectric project, the changing nature of the river on being dammed, the exploitation of mussel beds for pearl-button manufacture, the formation of a wildlife refuge prompted by pressure from the Izaak Walton League, and the pollution above St. Louis caused by urbanization after the turn of the century. The only correlation between these subjects is their geographic location, and little is done to reveal the integration of the parts to the whole.

Another explanation for the book's lack of conti- nuity is Scarpino's heavy reliance on printed sources and secondary works. This not onily restricts analysis to the concepts chosen by their authors but also ignores the broader significance of such factors as bureaucratic infighting, political machinations, and lack of public concern for environmental damage in exchange for economic security. Scarpino dis- courses at length on the dynanics of such matters in other parts of Anmerica but has not delved deeply enough in the sources for his region to show whether the upper Mississippi valley paralleled or deviated from these trends. Scarpino could have gone beyond the Congressional Record and docu- ments from the House and Senate by more closely consulting the archives of the Army Corps of Engi- neers, the various state offices of natural r-esources and engineering, and the personal correspondence of civic and political leaders eager to promote basin- wide development and economnic self-interest.

The book demonstrates both the potential and perils awaiting those who seek the meaning of the Mississippi's existence. Scarpinio offers insight into several little-studied corners of twentieth-century American history, especially the struggle to main- tain the virtues of Progressive era conservation in the consumer-oriented 1 920s. Perhaps the direction toward which he points will become more clear as scholars of environmental history look more deeply into the souls of the "enemy" (the attitudes of modern America) and recognize that perhaps the way we live shapes our uses (and abuses) of re- sources such as the "Great River."

MICHAEL WELSH

Universitv of New Mexico

DAVID M. GORDON et al. Seomented Work, Divided Workers: The Historical Transformation oflLabor in the United States. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1982. Pp. xii, 288. Cloth $34.50, paper $9.95.

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