Author: Kirke MechemPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Kansas
Languages : en
Pages : 684
Book Description
The Washington Historical Quarterly
Author: Bucking the Railroads on the Kansas Frontier
Author: John N. MackPublisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786470291
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
As the Civil War ended, thousands of Union veterans imagined Kansas as a place to make a new beginning. Many veterans settled in the southeastern part of the state. In their struggle to establish lawful, ordered communities the settlers came into conflict with railroads intent on building through southeast Kansas to reach warm-water ports in Texas. To the settlers the railroads represented both a promise and a threat. By linking farmers and businessmen with eastern markets, the railroads guaranteed the prospects of economic gain. However, when they claimed rights to the land that settlers had already claimed, railroad monopolies were identified as a new manifestation of the same threat to republican values they had fought against in the recently concluded War. This book tells the story of the settlers' opposition to and victory over railroads and the impact on the evolution of political thought in Kansas and the American west.
The Southwestern Historical Quarterly
Author: The Kansa Indians
Author: William E. UnrauPublisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 9780806119656
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294
Book Description
After their first contacts with whites in the seventeenth century, the Kansa Indians began migrating from the eastern United States to what is now eastern Kansas, by way of the Missouri Valley. Settling in villages mostly along the Kansas River, they led a semi-sedentary life, raising corn and a few vegetables and hunting buffalo in the spring and fall. It was an idyllic existence-until bad, and then worse, things began to happen. William E. Unrau tells how the Kansa Indians were reduced from a proud people with a strong cultural heritage to a remnant forced against their will to take up the whites' ways. He gives a balanced but hard-hitting account of an important and tragic chapter in American history.
The Revenger
Author: Aaron WoodardPublisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 149303393X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 185
Book Description
The Revenger: The Life and Times of Wild Bill Hickok examines Wild Bill’s life in the context of 19th Century American history, from his birth, through his early manhood, and to his eventual demise. Woven into his life story are the significant role played by the Civil War in the development of his character and philosophy, the role played by popular media in the creation of his legendary status, and the changing of the western landscape and lifestyle that began to eliminate the need for gunmen such as Wild Bill. The book discusses Hickok’s early jobs in law enforcement and his associations with other significant westerners and recounts the events that transformed Hickok from a formidable lawman into a national celebrity and popular hero. Details of Hickok’s most famous gunfights, including weapons used and participants and outcomes and, of course, the end of his career including his famous death at the hands of an assassin in a saloon in Deadwood South Dakota are all explored. The book also incorporates changing views of historiographical interpretation of lawmen/gunmen in general and Wild Bill in particular. The book will have extensive illustrations—archival photos of Wild Bill, his contemporaries, his guns, etc.
John Brown to Bob Dole
Author: Virgil W. DeanPublisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 070061723X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 424
Book Description
From radical abolitionist John Brown to presidential candidate Bob Dole to visionary environmentalist Wes Jackson, Kansas history is bursting with fascinating stories of individuals who made a difference to the nation and whose lives reveal much about our collective past. Prominent Kansas historian Virgil Dean has gathered a distinguished team of writers-Thomas Isern, Craig Miner, and others-who have crafted incisive portraits of 27 notable men and women, covering 150 years of Kansas and American history. Here are agitators who moved their fellow citizens to action over political, social, and economic problems: not only John Brown, but also proslavery agitator William H. Russell; Mary Elizabeth Lease, lecturer for the Farmers' Alliance and Populist Party; Gerald B. Winrod, a.k.a. the "Jayhawk Hitler"; and Esther Brown, who challenged segregation in public schools. Here, too, are motivators, like women's rights activist Clarina I. H. Nichols; William Allen White, the "Sage of Emporia"; and favorite sons Dwight D. Eisenhower and Bob Dole. Then there are the innovators, from trailblazers like Joseph G. McCoy, who changed the face of the cattle industry, and wheat king Theodore C. Henry to Wes Jackson, a pioneer in the sustainable agriculture movement, and the multitalented Gordon Parks, photographer, filmmaker, and author of The Learning Tree. Reformers and preachers, publishers and artists, these fascinating personalities are brought vividly back to life by Dean and his fellow authors. They offer a fresh and engaging look at many of the important themes of Kansas history-especially the state's identification with some of the great radical movements, including abolitionism, populism, and civil rights--and ultimately recapture the true spirit of Kansas and its meaning for the rest of the nation.
Before Lewis and Clark
Author: Shirley ChristianPublisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1466813032
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 658
Book Description
Shortly after Meriweather Lewis reached St. Louis in 1803 to plan for his voyage to the Pacific with William Clark, he prepared his first packet of flora and fauna from west of the Mississippi and dispatched it to President Jefferson. The cuttings, which were later planted in Philadelphia and Virginia, were supplied by Lewis's new French friend, Pierre Chouteau, who took them from a tree growing in the garden of his mansion. One of the best-known families in French America, the Chouteaus had guarded the gates to the West for generations and had built fortunes from fur trading, land speculation, finance, and railroads, and by supplying anything needed to survive in the region between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. Patrician in their origins, they nevertheless won the respect and allegiance of dozens of Indian tribes. From their St. Louis base, the Chouteaus conquered the more-than-two-thousand-mile length of the Missouri River, put down the first European roots at the future site of Kansas City and in present-day Oklahoma, and left their names and imprints on lands stretching to the Canadian border. Before Lewis and Clark: The French Dynasty that Ruled America's Frontier is the extraordinary story of a wealthy, powerful, charming, and manipulative family, who dominated business and politics in the Louisiana Purchase territory before the famous Lewis and Clark expedition, and for decades afterward. "A fine history of a French family that enjoyed great influence—and deservedly so—in the early trans-Mississippian West." - Kirkus Reviews
Hell by the Acre
Author: Daniel A. MastersPublisher: Savas Beatie
ISBN: 161121713X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 673
Book Description
Explores the pivotal Stones River Campaign of 1862-1863, detailing the intense battles and firsthand accounts that turned the tide for the Union Army. The waning days of 1862 marked a nadir in the fortunes of the Union. After major defeats at Fredericksburg in Virginia and Chickasaw Bayou in Mississippi, it fell to Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans and his Army of the Cumberland to secure a victory that would give military teeth to the Emancipation Proclamation set to take effect on January 1, 1863. Rosecrans moved his army out of Nashville on the day after Christmas to Murfreesboro, met Gen. Braxton Bragg’s Army of Tennessee, and fought one of the largest and bloodiest battles of the war. The full campaign, with extensive new material and coverage, is the subject of Daniel Masters’ new Hell by the Acre: A Narrative History of the Stones River Campaign, November 1862-January 1863. The opposing armies, 44,000 men under Rosecrans and 37,000 under Bragg, locked bayonets on December 31, 1862, in some of the hardest fighting of the war. Bragg’s initial attack drove the Federals back nearly three miles, captured 29 cannons, and thousands of prisoners. Somehow the Union lines held firm during the critical fighting along the Nashville Pike that afternoon against repeated determined attacks that left both armies bloodied and exhausted. The decisive moment came two days later when, in the fading afternoon of January 2, 1863, Bragg launched an assault on an isolated Union division on the east bank of Stones River. Once again, the Confederates enjoyed initial success only to be repulsed by 58 Union guns arrayed along the west bank and a daring counterattack. This repulse broke Bragg’s hold on Murfreesboro. He retreated the following night, leaving Rosecrans and his army victors of the field. Stones River was the quintessential soldiers’ battle. Prior books focus more on the generalship and high-level commands than the often-forgotten men in the ranks. Masters constructed his study from the ground up by focusing on the experiences of the front-line troops through hundreds of archival and firsthand accounts, many of which have never been published. Hell by the Acre is an unparalleled soldier’s view of Civil War combat and tactical command. Stones River marked a turning point for Federal fortunes in the Western Theater, and this fresh and original study sets forth the hefty cost of securing that victory for the Union.
North & South
Author: Kansas
Author: H. Craig MinerPublisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 560
Book Description
Chronicles the history of Kansas from 1854 to 2000, discussing how specific people and events shaped the culture of the state.