The Great Medicine Road: Narratives of the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails, Part 2: 1849 by Michael L. Tate, with Will Bagley and Richard L. Rieck, and: The Great Medicine Road: Narratives of the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails, Part 3: 1850–1855 by Michael L. Tate, et al., and: The Great Medicine Road: Narratives of the Oregon, California, and Mormon

Abstract

466 OHQ vol. 121, no. 4 THE GREAT MEDICINE ROAD: NARRATIVES OF THE OREGON, CALIFORNIA, AND MORMON TRAILS, PART 2: 1849 edited by Michael L. Tate with Will Bagley, and Richard L. Rieck Arthur H. Clark Company, Norman, Oklahoma, 2015. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. 328 pages. $39.95, cloth. THE GREAT MEDICINE ROAD: NARRATIVES OF THE OREGON, CALIFORNIA, AND MORMON TRAILS, PART 3: 1850–1855 edited by Michael L. Tate contributions by Kerin Tate, Will Bagley, and Richard L. Rieck Arthur H. Clark Company, Norman, Oklahoma, 2017. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. 308 pages. $45.00 cloth. THE GREAT MEDICINE ROAD: NARRATIVES OF THE OREGON, CALIFORNIA, AND MORMON TRAILS, PART 4: 1856–1869 edited by Michael L. Tate contributions by Kerin Tate, Will Bagley, and Richard L. Rieck Arthur Clark Company, Norman, Oklahoma, 2020. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. 328 pages. $45.00 cloth. For more than a century, the Arthur Clark Company, through its years in Ohio, California, and Washington, and then as an imprint of the University of Oklahoma Press, has been a nonstop publisher of valuable collections of primary sources. These collections include series on pioneer women and trail narratives, among others. The three volumes under review here are part of The Great Medicine Road and the much larger American Trail Series. A review of the first in the four-volume Great Medicine Road series, by this reviewer, programs that led to “healing” (Chapter 12), the “conflicting uses” (Chapter 13) of extractive activity and appreciation of nature and wildness , and then the “invasion” (Chapter 16) of vacation resorts and wealthy transplants by which parts of Eastern Oregon “moved into the postindustrial, post-agrarian, post-pastoral world” (p. 245). The book ends with stories of both conflict and compromise at the turn of the twenty-first century, and concludes with Cox’s weaving of environmental change and identity: “to me it seems clear there was and is an Eastern Oregon, a place shaped by both what it has been and what it is, a place self-consciously distinct from the rest of the state” (p. 304). Cox draws on an impressive array of source material (from government reports to novels and memoirs) and provides a variety of stories and depth of detail that are all the more impressive considering the limited space in which he surveys the immense size, diversity, and complexity of Eastern Oregon. The book also succeeds in focusing on the region’s people, exploring their perspectives, decisions, and actions, rather than portraying it as a powerless sideshow to the politics, culture, and economy west of the Cascades. In Cox’s persuasive telling, Eastern Oregon possesses incredible and, for western Oregonians, surprising ecological diversity; the western part of the state seems homogeneous and even boring in comparison. It would be easier to understand these environments if the book included more maps, especially a full map of Eastern Oregon — the boundaries of that region and its various subregions remain unclear. The book’s narrative inclines perhaps too much and too easily toward resolution, particularly in the twenty-first century, when the political chasm between eastern, rural Oregon and western, urban Oregon can seem unbridgeable . But Cox’s narrative and analysis provides a scholarly perspective that offers not division and aggressive confrontation, but appreciation and understanding of Eastern Oregon’s history and identity. Bob H. Reinhardt Boise State University 467 Reviews appeared in the Oregon Historical Quarterly, Summer 2015. These three volumes follow the same organization as volume one. The fifteen items in volume 1, seven in volume 2, nine in volume 3, and nine in volume 4 are organized chronologically , 1840 to 1869. The three volumes under review cover the period from the Gold Rush in 1849 to the first transcontinental railroad in 1869. Especially helpful are the volume introductions in which series editor Michael Tate, a specialist in western trail history, lays out the important national and western events that, in part, shaped trailing experiences across the trans-Mississippi West. Even more beneficial are the revealing headnote pages prefacing each selection. These brief introductions provide useful accounts of the authors and their families, their westward travels, and their lives after the journeys. The series editor...