Journal features Texas folk songs, WWII in Saskatoon, farm women

In the summer issue of Great Plains Quarterly, an academic journal published by the Center for Great Plains Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, researchers wrote about Texas folk songs, World War II patriotism in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and farm women on the prairie during the latter half of the 19th century.

In "'It's Now We've Crossed Pease River': Themes of Voyage and Return in Texas Folk Songs," Ken Baake writes about the underlying plots of human narratives in song writing. "The hardship of travel and its ensuing lessons is a common theme," writes Baake, associate professor of English at Texas Tech University. Baake recorded samples of Texas folk songs such as "The Buffalo Skinners," "Dakota Land," and "Hell in Texas," which can be heard on the quarterly's website: www.unl.edu/plains/publications/GPQ/gpq.shtml.

Brendan Kelly, a doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto, looked at newspaper accounts in Saskatoon to assess the response of Canadian citizens in supporting World War II in Europe in his article, "Bringing the War Home: The Patriotic Imagination in Saskatoon, 1939-1942." Kelly wrote, "Unlike London or Leningrad, North American cities like Saskatoon never experienced bombardment. For patriotism to flourish in such locales, the war overseas had to be imagined -- and, to a degree, vicariously experienced -- at home."

In "'Picturing the Past': Farm Women on the Grasslands Frontier, 1850-1900," Sara Brooks Sundberg describes the experiences of 52 prairie farm women through their diaries and letters written between 1850 and 1900. Sundberg wrote, "As some of the first white farm women to experience settlement on the vast grasslands in the northern United States, Minnesota farm women's experiences are important indicators of how women could respond to the Great Plains grassland regions farther to the west." Sundberg is associate professor of history at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg.

Current issues of Great Plains Quarterly may be purchased in the Great Plains Art Museum gift shop, 1155 Q St., or by calling the center at (402) 472-3082. Order forms are available online at www.unl.edu/plains.

WRITER: Linda Ratcliffe, Publications Specialist, Center for Great Plains Studies, (402) 472-3965