Nebraska during the New Deal by Marilyn Irvin Holt

Author:Marilyn Irvin Holt [Holt, Marilyn Irvin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS036090 History / United States / State & Local / Midwest (ia, Il, In, Ks, Mi, Mn, Mo, Nd, Ne, Oh, Sd, Wi), HIS036060 History / United States / 20th Century
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press

Not only did altered directives slow the guidebooks’ completion but Washington’s editorial supervision also often hampered the states’ progress. Umland believed that FWP editors were of “the highest quality.” Their job was to question and to point out disparities in the narrative. Sometimes editors threw up their hands over poor writing, but Nebraska largely avoided this experience by removing overblown prose before Washington saw it. As one example, the national office did not see this description attached to one of the driving tours: “But, lo, what is that in the distance? A town you say. Yes, sure enough, it is that old historic scene, Fort Atkinson, which is now Fort Calhoun.” Washington editors and ultimately readers of the guide instead saw a less imaginative but more factual narrative that began with “Fort Calhoun . . . (309 pop.), on a bluff rising abruptly from the Missouri River, was incorporated in 1858 and named for John C. Calhoun. . . . [Turn] left on Court St. to the Site of Fort Atkinson. 0.5 m., on the farm of A.W. Beal, marked by a monument erected in 1927.”29

When FWP editors questioned the wording of Nebraska’s state guide, it was usually the content that received attention. In one instance, the FWP told Nebraska that “the federal government cannot endorse the CIO [Congress of Industrial Organizations],” but Nebraska’s completed guide still referred to it by noting that the CIO was involved in “extensive organizing activity” among migrant workers in the state’s sugar beet fields and was “making progress in organizing workers in the packing houses, the steel plants, and other industrial establishments.” For good measure, the state guide also noted the American Federation of Labor, the Industrial Workers of the World, the Farmers’ Alliance, and the Workers Alliance of America.30

In another situation, Henry Alsberg called into question the interpretation of events regarding the “Indian outbreak” of 1864 when Cheyennes, Arapahos, and Sioux led coordinated attacks against wagon trains, stagecoach stations, and road ranches along the Platte and Little Blue River Valleys. The draft suggested that the outbreak was “accidental,” but Alsberg disagreed, telling J. Harris Gable that it was the result of white encroachment and planned. “It looked like a good time for the original owners of the land to reclaim it,” concluded Alsberg. The solution for the NFWP editors working on the final manuscript was to sidestep the entire issue of white intrusion on native land. Instead, they vaguely noted the events of 1864 in a mishmash of references that mentioned Frank North and his Pawnee Scouts and the Sioux-Cheyenne War in the Black Hills without any context for their relevance to the Plum Creek and Little Blue Massacres.31

As for the term “massacre,” Kellock instructed Gable “to train his workers” not to use the word. Never mind that these attacks had been called massacres since the time they had occurred and that historical markers in the area used the word. It was time to revise people’s thinking and the terminology commonly used. Certainly

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.