Tarleton State University Research Articles

Editor's notes

New Directions for Student ServicesVolume 1996, Issue 73 p. 1-2 Editor's Note Editor's notes Wanda L. Mercer, Wanda L. Mercer Wanda L Mercer is vice president for student services at Tarleton State University. She has served on the board of directors for the Association of Student Judicial Affairs and is currently president of the Center for Academic Integrity.Search for more papers by this author Wanda L. Mercer, Wanda L. Mercer Wanda L Mercer is vice president for student services at Tarleton State University. She has served on the board of directors for the Association of Student Judicial Affairs and is currently president of the Center for Academic Integrity.Search for more papers by this author First published: Spring 1996 https://doi.org/10.1002/ss.37119967302Citations: 1 AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article.Citing Literature Volume1996, Issue73Spring 1996Pages 1-2 RelatedInformation

Research in Western American Literature: 1994–95

J A N R O U S H Utah State University Research in Western American Literature: 1994-95 This year’s research in western American literature follows closely the trends noted in last year’s assessment, reflecting both an increased awareness o f the environm ent as well as a recognition of the culturally diverse groups who inhabit that environm ent, both past and present. This year, however, the m ajor emphasis is on Native Americans, for out o f the sixteen m asters’ theses and sixty-four dissertations that comprise the studies of western American literature, thirty focus in some way on the pervasive im pact that Native Americans have had on the land. The range of such studies is immense: some, such as “R obert Henri: Portrait of the American Indian” or “Native Americans in Paintings and Sculp­ tures in the U nited States Galleries of the Fine Arts Palace at the 1893 W orld’s Columbian Exposition” relate the perceived images of Native Americans by the white culture. Others, such as “Creation of an Identity: American Indian Protest A rt” and “T urde and Lizard Images in Lakota Art: A Case Study in Interpretation” in art or ‘Tricky Tribal Discourse: T he Poetry, Short Stories, and Fables of Creek W riter, Alex Posey” and “Inseparable and Distinct: An U nderstanding of Navajo N adleehi in a Traditional Navajo Worldview” in literature attem pt to portray a Native American corrective for such images by rendering a m ore accurate portrait. Individual voices who speak out for this Native American worldview, in addition to Alex Posey, include Louise Erdrich, Leslie M armon Silko, and Gerald Vizenor. Following Native American literature or art, the m ajor em phasis in the research is on a sense of place—them es of nature, wilderness, or the environm ent; eighteen different theses and dissertations focus on these concerns, represented by “Place and Landscape in Midwestern Ameri­ can Literature” or ‘T h e Ethics of Identity: Constructions of Self and 410 Western American Literature Other in the Nineteenth-Century American Landscape.” Closely en­ twined or overlapping with these are such studies as “Cartographies of Undomesticated Ground: Nature and Feminism in American Women’s Fiction and Theory” and “Toward a Postmodern Pastoral: Contempo­ rary Women Writers’ Revisions of the Natural World”with its treatment of authors Gretel Ehrlich, Leslie Marmon Silko, Joy Harjo, and Annie Dillard, that fuse women’s political and “gender” awareness with their awareness of nature. Twelve separate studies are about women’s impact on western American literature, with another fifteen focusing on four individual writers: Erdrich (4), Cather (4), Austin (4), and Silko (3). Twain, with six treatments, is the only other individual author to receive sustained attention, although there is increased interest in Rudolfo Anaya with two dissertations focusing solely on his works and others commenting on his significance as a part of the overall Chicana/o literature in the West. I would like to offer the premise that one of the earliest indicators of what is happening—or will happen—in any discipline can be found in the research being done by entering scholars. If that premise holds true, then I would add that the field of western American literature is indeed undergoing a profound metamorphosis, one that reflects both an enlightened and inclusive attitude toward the American West. COMPLETED MASTERS THESES: American Literature Crippen, Larry Lee Huck, Tom, and No. 44: The Tripartite Twain. (M.A.) University of North Texas, 1994. Davis, Elizabeth (Lisa) J. Ultima as Earth Mother in Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima. (M A) Texas Women’s University, 1993. Frenzel, Lois Payne Letters of a Pioneer Woman in Texas: A Study. (M.A.) Texas A&M University-Kingsville, 1994. Research 411 Lamont, Victoria Elizabeth Writing Women Into America: Women, Democracy, and the Western, 1902-1920. (M.A.) University of Guelph (Canada), 1993. Leonard, Lisa C. Tracking and Trapping the Narrative Strategies of Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine, The Beet Queen, and Tracks. (M.A.) McGill University (Canada), 1994. Power, Sherry Decker The Theme of Change: The Thread Running Through Six Kelton Novels. (M.A.) Tarleton State University, 1994. American Studies Geherin, Christopher David Vanishing the Indian...

Nueva Granada: Paul Horgan and the Southwest by Robert Franklin Gish

Reviews 187 conceived graduate thesis that proves the scholar’s fam iliarity with the stan­ dard literary and critical works without contributing significant new interpre­ tation of Carver’s fiction. Introducing the study, N esset places Carver in the tradition of Hemingway, Anderson, O’Hara, Cheever, Kafka, Turgenev, and Chekov, claim ing for Carver’s fiction a moral center w hile it explores the disenchantments of post­ modern humanity. Chapter One, “ ‘This Word L ove’: Sexual Politics and Silence in Will You P lease Be Quiet, P lease ?” explores particularly the force o f love and the issue of the lim itations of language as they appear in Carver’s first volum e of fiction. Characters find that love com plicates and dominates their lives, often com ­ pelling them to engage in sexual politics that further encumber them and lead them to ineffectual use of language or to silence. Even so, these characters usu­ ally continue their struggles rather than surrender to them. In the second chapter, “The Power o f Style in What We Talk A bout When We Talk About L ove,” N esset responds to the labeling of Carver as a m inimal­ ist w hile claim ing that Carver consistently “affords his characters liberty to act as they might . . . in a fictive universe . . . fundamentally lacking in individual freedom s.” N esset calls Carver’s style hyperextended realism and his treatment sympathetic. “Insularity and Self-Enlargem ent in C athedral” explores the stories that suggest the ability of man to insulate him self or to expand outward through gained awareness o f self. N esset focuses upon sym bols and metaphors Carver em ploys both as thematic matter and signature in the stories critics have called “affirm ative.” “ ‘Things Clearly Within My Pow er’: Communication and Control in the Last Stories” claim s that Carver renewed his original interest in characters who “struggle, mainly unsuccessfully, to comprehend the bleak realities o f their liv es,” and who “not only recognize freedom but typically articulate their recognitions, even if only to vent dismay at how im possible such freedom seem s in relation to their lives.” N esset states that these last stories are “more com prehensive, fuller rhetorically and thematically, while at the same time lighter in tone than the earlier work.” Characters persist, som etim es moving toward a crossroads, a better life, helped along by a degree of hope. DELORES W ASHBURN Hardin-Simmons U niversity Nueva Granada: Paul Horgan and the Southwest. By Robert Franklin Gish. (C ollege Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1995. 139 pages, $22.50.) Number Two in the Tarleton State University Southwestern Studies in the Humanities, Nueva Granada is a collection of eight essays on Paul Horgan and 188 Western American Literature two interviews with Robert Gish. The essays are reprints and revisions of papers which have previously appeared in scholarly journals over a period of some fourteen years (1979-1993). One interview is printed here for the first time. The essays address different aspects of Horgan as a writer of short fiction, novels, and historical-biographical works over more than fifty years. Each essay is com plete in itself, presenting a different dimension of a “remarkable but unfortunately neglected talent,” in the words of Lawrence Clayton. Several concentrate on his evocation of the Southwest, others on his historical writings with an emphasis on his comprehensive approach to presenting history, similar to the “omnidirectional history of Parkman.” Given his lengthy career and the number of his publications, this collection underlines the thematic unity that characterizes Horgan’s work— in Anaya’s words, the “magic realism of place.” Like W illa Cather, Horgan never fails to project the dynamics of the interaction between the character and his space, or as Gish phrases it, Horgan’s sympathy for “humanity and the places of its liv ­ ing.” M exico Bay, W hitewater, The Common H eart evoke powerfully this sense of people, place, and time. M ost of the essays, in one way or another, and parts of the two interviews address the theme of Horgan as a regionalist writer, a label Horgan him self does not seem to find particularly endearing— a non...

Professional Development: Reflective Journals: Enhancing Mathematics Staff Development

In 1993 tarleton state university sponsored the Pre-Algebra Experience, which was developed to improve mathematics instruction in the middle grades with funding from the Eisenhower Mathematics and Science Program. The major goal of this project was to stress to middle school mathematics teachers the content necessary for students to succeed in high school algebra.

Forging Revolution: Metalworkers, Managers, and the State in St. Petersburg, 1890–1914 by Heather Hogan

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 701 struggle. The “backwardness” of the Choletais by the early 20th cen­ tury was therefore not determined by geography or other structural factors. It was instead primarily influenced by the actions of small producers who, in their efforts to preserve their importance within the local economy, also condemned themselves to a future of poverty, marginalization, and uncertainty. Small producers determined their own fate in the Choletais. But it is doubtful whether this fate was any better than if it had been imposed on them by entrepreneurs. Christopher E. Guthrie Dr. Guthrie is an associate professor of history at Tarleton State University. His current research centers on the reasons why socialism appealed to segments of the rural population in late-19th-century France. Forging Revolution: Metalworkers, Managers, and the State in St. Peters­ burg, 1890—1914. By Heather Hogan. Bloomington: Indiana Uni­ versity Press, 1993. Pp. xiv + 319; tables, notes, bibliography, index. $35.00. At the turn of this century, Russian society underwent fundamental economic and political change that was triggered by rapid industrial­ ization, student and labor unrest, and the intransigence of the tsarist regime to meet the needs of political reform. Heather Hogan’s study of the Petersburg metalworking industry sheds new light on the rela­ tionship between the tsarist state, factory owners, managers, engi­ neers, and workers in a crucial sector of the Russian economy during this period. Based on extensive archival research and a thorough reading of all the major contemporary journals and newspapers, Forging Revolution extends our understanding of the impact of the forces of modernization, political revolution, and radicalization of the workforce on large metalworking factories. Hogan focuses on the period 1892—1912 and the Petersburg metal­ working factories that were the center of the empire’s production. The chapter organization is largely chronological, rather than the­ matic. In successive chapters, Hogan discusses the status of the metal­ working industry and the importance of the state in promoting growth of the sector through contract orders; the growth of the in­ dustry in the 1890s, and the nature of worker-manager and workerintelligentsia relations; the impact of a subsequent economic down­ turn; the revolution of 1905 that nearly toppled the tsarist regime and resulted in a limited constitutional monarchy; and the increasing militance but waning power of metalworkers’ unions over the next seven years. Just as in Western industry, the conflict between skilled laborers and managers intensified when efforts to control the labor process through various attempts to deskill the worker were intro­ duced. These included the introduction of automatic machine tools, scientific management, and new accounting and bookkeeping 702 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE schemes. Hogan also briefly examines the relationship between the rank-and-file workers and the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. Hogan is interested in explaining the radicalization of the workers and the development of class consciousness because of the politics of the relationship between factory and manager on the shop floor (at the point of production). It would have been better to describe the production process more vividly, since Hogan says that the disempowering of labor was a product of the structural changes in the metalworking industry. Interestingly, the most radical workers were those who were the most highly skilled and literate and who had worked in the factories for years. Hogan explains that these workers’ consciousness was framed by the constant failures of their strikes. Indeed, more so than in other industries, metalworkers had relatively higher numbers of literate workers of higher income and skill. They also were tied more to the city than workers in other industries, more of whom maintained ties with their peasant families and villages. Hogan’s study could have been improved by a more detailed and analytical account of the role of the tsarist state in worker-manager relations. In addition, she does not fully follow through on her prom­ ise to discuss the reception of scientific management (for example, Taylorist thought) of Russian engineers and managers. She rightly points out that conditions were propitious for these individuals to embrace progressivist doctrines of rational management. Polytech­ nical education was on the upswing. Conflict between owners, manag­ ers, and workers had readied epidemic...

Changing a Rural School to Better Meet the Needs of its Young Adolescents

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsMichael G. AllenMichael G. Allen teaches at Georgia Southern University.Ronnie L. SheppardRonnie L. Sheppard teaches at Tarleton State University, Stephenville, Texas.Diane BathDiane Bath teaches at Stilson Elementary School, Brooklet, Georgia.

Bad Hand: A Biography of General Ranald S. Mackenzie

Journal Article Bad Hand: A Biography of General Ranald S. Mackenzie Get access Bad Hand: A Biography of General Ranald S. Mackenzie. By Robinson Charles M.III. (Austin: State House Press, 1993. xviii + 392 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. $29.95, cloth; $17.95, paper.) Michael D. Pierce Michael D. Pierce Tarleton State University, Stephenville, Texas Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Western Historical Quarterly, Volume 25, Issue 1, Spring 1994, Pages 118–119, https://doi.org/10.2307/971101 Published: 01 February 1994

Histoire technique de la production d’aluminium: Les apports français au développement international d’une industrie ed. by Paul Morel

944 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE importance of consumer demand (and the cultural factors which shaped this demand) in determining the nature and extent of technological change. Christopher E. Guthrie Dr. Guthrie is an associate professor of history at Tarleton State University and is currently working on a book that examines the historiography of the period between 1815 and 1851 in Europe. Histoire technique de la production d’aluminium: Les apports français au développement international d’une industrie. Edited by Paul Morel. Grenoble: Presses Universitaires de Grenoble, 1992. Pp. 352; illustra­ tions, tables, glossary, notes, bibliography, index. F 220.00 (paper). Aluminum, although the most common of metals in nature, and now one of the most common in everyday use, has a short history, having been isolated (in minute quantities) less than 200 years ago. It proved difficult to produce chemically in any quantity, although it was so produced after 1850, first in France, then in England and the United States. Its relatively high price led its proponents to search almost wildly for profitable uses, for it exercised a powerful fascina­ tion on metallurgists and industrial chemists. Modern production dates from 1886 when, almost simultaneously, C. M. Hall in the United States and P. Hérault in France invented an electrolytic method of production (simple electrolysis having proved impractical); the two methods differed only slightly, and botfi were used in both countries until World War I. This method, essentially what is used now, involves the electrolysis of purified alumina (the oxide, in France always derived from bauxite) in molten cryolite (a naturally occurring aluminum-fluoride compound, mainly found in Greenland), using carbon anodes and a cast-iron or steel box (pot, vat, cuve) lined with carbon as both the cathode and the cell. The use of this method led to the formation of Alcoa in the United States and to numerous works in France, of which the most notable was and is that founded by Pechiney, now, after many amalgamations, known by his name. This firm has sponsored an institute for the history of aluminum, which has produced the work under review, each chapter by a different hand. After a quick review of 19th-century developments (usefully sum­ marized in the conclusion), successive chapters deal in detail with the gradual development of ever-larger assemblies of cuves, everimproved anodes and arrangements of them, ever-higher electric currents (the aim being to raise the current to well over 100,000 amperes while keeping the “density”—amperes per centimeter squared—as low as possible), improved anodes of different types, improved arrange­ ments of cuves, the treatment of the metal, and the history of electrical sources (initially all hydroelectric). TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 945 Of greatest interest to readers of Technology and Culture will be chapter 2, on the protection of the environment in and outside the factories, and chapter 6, on the history and organization of research facilities. The production of aluminum is the production of powerful pollutants in great quantity, including carbon monoxide and gases rich with fluorine. The first factories were built in the mountains to utilize hydroelectricity on site, and although the gaseous emissions devastated the countryside, it was, as so often in the 19th century, thought cheaper to pay compensation to farmers for the loss of cattle by fluoride poisoning than to control emissions. Gradually, it was seen to be cheaper to control emissions by improved recovery of the fluorine to save cryolite and to protect the workmen, initially exposed to cruel levels of gases and high temperatures, and ultimately this gave improved production. Research facilities as such were initially minimal: every works had its laboratory, at first only for quality control. Only slowly did research expand from mostly factory-floor improvements in production to the setting up of genuine, separate, research facilities. This latter move­ ment, mainly (as with Alcoa) a development of the period between the world wars, was hindered by the economic crisis of the 1930s and, in France, by the devastation of French economic life during World War II, caused by German occupation. After the war, the French economy experienced a resurgence, partly stimulated by surveys of American and German firms...

Research in Western American Literature: 1991–92

J A N R O U S H Utah State University Research inWestern AmericanLiterature: 1991-92 The ten theses and seventy-two dissertations listed in Dissertation Abstracts International for 1991-92 that relate in some way to western American literature reveal an increasing trend toward landscape: not only the awareness ofand concern for the land that has long been a part of fiction and nonfiction alike but a new ecological consciousness that crosses regional boundaries to fuse eastern and western perspectives, bringing Thoreau and Berry in alignment with Dillard, Snyder, Lopez, and Abbey. Such topics proliferate at a time when the program for this year’s WLA conference presented no fewer than ten sessions focusing on land and its place in western American literature; a new release entitled Seeking Awareness in American Nature Writing: Henry Thoreau, Annie Dillard, Edward Abbey, Wendell Berry, and Barry Lopez appeared on the literary scene; and a new journal, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, has declared it will “provide a forum for critical studies . . . address[ing] environmental considerations” across disciplines. The leading topic, however, isNative Americans, with twenty-three theses or dissertations discussing some aspect of their literature or culture. This trend, too, wasechoed by the WLA,which at itsconference in October honored Louise Erdrich with its 1992 Distinguished Achieve­ ment Award, scheduled a reading by Gerald Vizenor, and included a number of sessions devoted to Native American topics. Interestingly, enough topics appeared in the DAIon other minority and ethnic groups to indicate an increase in multicultural awareness. Of particular note were those that focused on Chinese-Americans in the West. Of those theses and dissertations that focused on a single author, Mark Twain and Willa Cather remained far ahead of the field, with fourteen and eight treatments respectively. New to the recent scholarly scene, however, is Steinbeck, with five dissertations devoted exclusively to his works. COMPLETED MASTERS THESES: American Literature Anderson, Karen Margretta The American Family inJohn Steinbeck’s Novels. (M.A.) SanJose State University, 1991. 350 Western American Literature Burns, William David The Tao of Pynchon: Society, Culture, and Politics in Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland. (M.A.) Boise State University, 1992. Cannariato, Susan Bacilek Recursive Time in the Works of Louise Erdrich. (M.A.) University of Houston-Clear Lake, 1991. Hawke,Judith Crowell Art and Nature in Four Cather Novels. (M.A.) Southern Connecticut State University, 1991. Lewis, Terrie Elliott Distant Drums: Old and New in the Fiction of Louise Erdrich. (M.A.) Tarleton State University, 1991. Lyke, Patrice Phelan Female Characters inJack Kerouac’s Fiction. (M.A.) Texas Woman’s University, 1991. Matlock, Phil D. Deculturation: Richard Brautigan and the Conditioned Reader. (M.A.) Boise State University, 1992. Stockton,Jim John Steinbeck’sHidden Western: A Biographical and Folkloric Interpreta­ tion of To a God Unknown. (M.A.) Boise State University, 1992. Anthropology, Archaeology Cranston, Vanita Renee Vernacular Ranch Architecture: An Ethnohistorical Study. (M.A.) University of Nevada, Reno. CulturalAnthropology Butler, Kristie Lee Along the Padres’Trail: The History of St. Michael’s Mission to the Navajo (1898-1939). (M.A.) Arizona State University, 1991. Chirinos, Sally Elizabeth Cultural Restructuring Among the Lakotas: A Case Study in Forced Accul­ turation and Human Adaptation. (M.A.) The University ofTexas at Arlington, 1991. United StatesHistory Hietter, Paul Thomas The Last Ride of the Younger Brothers; or, Missouri Outlawry and Minne­ Research 351 sota, and How Their Histories Influenced the Outcome of the Great Northfield Raid. (M.A.) University of Minnesota, 1991. Johnson, David Harmon The Development of the Sonora and Mono Wagon Road. (M.A.) SanJose State University, 1991. COMPLETED Ph.D., Ed.D., AND D.A. DISSERTATIONS: Mass Communication Bouse, Derek The Wilderness Documentary: Film, Video, and the Visual Rhetoric of American Environmentalism. (Ph.D.) University of Pennsylvania, 1991. Speech Communication Marshall, Gary Thomas William Stafford: A Writer Writing. (Ph.D.) Southern Illinois at Carbondale, 1990. GeneralLiterature Borthwick,John Stephan Travelling Writing, Writing Travelling: The TextAsJourney,theJourney As Text. (Ph.D.) University ofWollongong (Australia), 1991. Nielsen, H. Richard,Jr. The Personal and Political Rhetorics of Clifford Odets and Mari Sandoz in the 1930s. (Ph.D.) The University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 1991. Salyer, Gregory Signs, Symbols, and the Sacred: Representation and Meaning in...

Shattering: Food, Politics, and the Loss of Genetic Diversity by Cary Fowler and Pat Mooney

404 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE in winegrower families less arduous but has simultaneously reduced employment opportunities for both men and women in the vineyards and thus deprived many small growers of the part-time wages that had helped them stay afloat earlier in the century. And, most important, technological modernization has often been refracted by the persistence of local traditions and environmental factors. In the case of Lower Languedoc and Roussillon, this has resulted in the increased production of gros rouge while the market for this commod­ ity has progressively weakened. The low prices produced by this situation have prevented southern growers from sharing in the prosperity of the more specialized northern growers and has placed their future participation in viticulture in jeopardy. Far from being a uniform and generally beneficial development, the “wine revolution” in 20th-century France has been a fragmented and uneven process in which unique local variables played (and continue to play) a major role in determining success or failure. Christopher E. Guthrie Dr. Guthrie is an associate professor of history at Tarleton State University and is completing a book manuscript on the evolution of political conflict in 19th-century Narbonne, a commercial city in the heart of the viticultural region of Lower Languedoc. Shattering: Food, Politics, and the Loss ofGenetic Diversity. By Cary Fowler and Pat Mooney. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1990. Pp. xvi + 278; tables, notes, index. $24.95 (cloth); $12.95 (paper). In the past decade or so, environmental concerns have focused on increasingly worldwide problems, the most obvious being global warming. At first glance, Shattering, by Cary Fowler and Pat Mooney of the Rural Advancement Fund International, focuses on a seem­ ingly small and innocuous problem—the growing loss of genetic diversity in plants. But for those who suspect genetic diversity is not a major concern in a world threatened by apparently larger issues, this book will change such thinking. Fowler and Mooney are best at describing, in rich detail, what genetic diversity in plants means, and how a loss of such diversity threatens world agriculture. They explode the myth, still touted by many agricultural scientists, that the miracles of “modern agricul­ ture,” including the hybridization of staple crops throughout the world, whose success depends on capital-intensive petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides, are somehow better than local, traditional varieties that have been developed over the millennium. Besides showing the scientific reasons for the importance in main­ taining a crop’s genetic diversity, Fowler and Mooney also place the problem in an appropriate social and historical context. They note, for example, that the Irish potato was the first known crop to be TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 405 devastated because of genetic uniformity. Brought to Europe by the colonial conquerers in the 16th century, the potato, a native plant of the Andes, grew with wild abandon there and in many other parts of the world. By the 19th century it had become a staple of the rural poor in Ireland. But between 1845 and 1850, the potato blight, or Phytophtora infestans, contributed to the deaths of one to two million Irish and to the migration of as many to America and England. In the Andes, such a disease would have affected only a very small percent­ age of the thousands of varieties that grow there. Most countries, including the United States, recognize this problem and have attempted to prevent further losses by maintaining seed banks. The authors discuss these efforts and show how clearly this approach has not worked because of the inevitable degeneration of stored seeds. Their answer lies in promoting local crop varieties and discouraging the continuing process of crop uniformity that has increased at an alarming rate since World War II. There are some minor problems in this study. At times, the sources cited are out-of-date without being so acknowledged. Further, refer­ ences such as “moral majority and other right-wingers” belie the subtleties involved and show that some of this material has not been reworked since the early 1980s. Nevertheless, readers cannot help but conclude that, although U.S. agriculture is currently the most productive in the world and al­ though the American consumer pays...

Research in Western American Literature: 1990–1991

JAN R O U S H Utah State University Research in Western AmericanLiterature: 1990-1991 An examination of the twenty-six theses and ninety-six dissertations written during the pastyearwhich have some bearing on western Ameri­ can literature reveals a dramatic increase in topics related to Native Americans. Of the five most frequent subjectswritten about, discussions of some aspect of Native American literature, history, or culture led the way with a total of thirty-four, compared to thirteen on women or gender issues, eight concerning landscape or nature, and twelve each devoted to a discussion of the works by a single author: Twain and Cather. The remaining theses and dissertations covered the usual wide spectrum of topics, some esoteric: Splittingin the Thirties:A Psychoanalytic Study ofRoth, Steinbeck, Hemingway, and Slesinger, some more mundane: The Quest for Freedom in the Changing West of Edward Abbey and Larry McMurtry. At a time when preparations have begun for revising The LiteraryHistory oftheAmerican Westand discussion focuses on whether the old format with its initial outlining of general themes and subsequent treatment by regions is sufficient to withstand the revision, it is interest­ ing to note that research trends, at least as reflected in theses and dissertations, reveal little need to substantially revise the format except in this one area of Native American literature. COMPLETED MASTERS THESES American Literature Lerma, Panfila Pamela Women in Their Realities. (M.A.) Texas A&I University, 1990. (Discusses three short stories by Willa Cather: “Coming, Aphrodite!” “Old Mrs. Harris,”and “The BestYears.”) Li, Bo The Chinese as Portrayed in the Writings of Several Prominent American Authors. (M.A.) Stephen F. Austin State University, 1989. 344 Western American Literature Hall, Robert Lee Natural Innocence in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the Nick Adams Stories, and The Old Man and the Sea. (M.A.) University of North Texas, 1990. Tokkonen, Tellervo Orvokki Europe in Mark Twain’s Travel Writing. (M.A.) Florida Atlantic University, 1990. American Studies Anderson, Michael Taylor The Life and Tools of the Rocky Mountain Free Trapper. (M.A.) Tarleton State University, 1990. Architecture Chappel,Jill A. Homestead Ranches of the Fort Rock Valley: Vernacular Building in the Oregon High Desert. (M.S.) University of Oregon, 1990. Canadian History Hewlett, Lorraine Louise Development, Decay, Re-development: The Politics of the Northwest Terri­ tories. (M.A.) Carleton University (Canada), 1990. CulturalAnthropology Bulette, Elizabeth Anne Crossing the Water: An Interpretation of Six Indian Women Educated in the West. (M.A.) Michigan State University, 1989. Claeys-Shahmiri,Janet Suzanne Ethnohistorical Investigation of the Battle ofVillage Creek, Tarrant County, Texas, in 1841. (M.A.) The University ofTexas at Arlington, 1989. Fast, Phyllis Ann. Naatsilanei and Ko’ehdan: A Semiotic Analysis of Two Alaska Native Myths. (M.A.) University ofAlaska Anchorage, 1990. Ford, Susan Wise Lorenzo D. Creel and the Purchase of Land for Washoe Colonies, 1917. (M.A.) University of Nevada, Reno, 1989. Research 345 Joy, Mary E. Traditional Medicine at an Indian Reserve. (M.A.) Michigan State University, 1990. Kerisit, Michele Feathers, Furs, and Fringes: A Semiological Analysis of Powwow Regalia. (M.A.) Carleton University (Canada), 1989. United States History Beaumont, Philip,Jr. One Man’sValiant Efforts to Negotiate for His Crow People: The Outcomes in Decades to Follow. (M.A.) The University ofArizona, 1991. Brown, Vanessa Lee Payre John Moore Shannon: The Legacy of a West Texas Sheepman, 1883-1928. (M.A.) The University of Texas at Arlington, 1989. Cashion, Peggy Mullarkey Women and the Mexican War, 1846-1848. (M.A.) The University of Texas at Arlington, 1990. Cashion, Robert Tyrus An Examination of Frontier Violence at Fort Griffin, Texas. (M.A.) The University of Texas at Arlington, 1989. Daniels,John David The Political Philosophy of Sam Houston. (M.A.) University of North Texas, 1990. Golda,John Frederick Nelson A. Miles’ Winter Campaign of 1876/77 and the Battle of Wolf Mountain. (M.A.) SanJose State University, 1990. McGraw, Ursula Gerta RobertJustus Kleberg: Founding Father. (M.A.) Texas A&I, 1990. (Discusses the frontier experience of Texas pio­ neers, the Texas Revolution, and the Civil War and Reconstruction.) Mellis,Jana Elaine White Canyon, Utah: A Place and Its People. (M.A.) California State University, Fullerton, 1989. Oberg, Michael Leroy National Politics, the Supreme Court...

The Emergence of the Cotton Kingdom in the Old Southwest, 1770–1860 by John Hebron Moore

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 177 refining”) would eliminate nearly all of its archaic aspects. Yet the sugar business of the 18th century nonetheless remains an important example of how an industry could prosper and grow within the limits imposed by the Old Regime. Anyone interested in this question, or in the more general issue of the possibility of technological and com­ mercial innovation within the context of a rigid political and social environment, should read this outstanding little book. Christopher Esco Guthrie Dr. Guthrie is an assistant professor of history at Tarleton State University and has published “The Battle for the Third Republic in the Arrondissement of Narbonne, 1871—1872” in French History (March 1988). He is currently preparing a study comparing the rank-and-file participants in the French Revolution with those in the provincial insurrections of 1871. The Emergence ofthe Cotton Kingdom in the Old Southwest, 1770—1860. By John Hebron Moore. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988. Pp. xii + 323; tables, notes, appendixes, bibliography, index. $40.00 (cloth); $17.95 (paper). This book is the product of a long and distinguished scholarly career. John Hebron Moore has drawn on his vast knowledge of the antebellum South to produce a richly detailed and highly informative account of the rise of the Cotton Kingdom in the pre—Civil War era. His focus is on Mississippi, but many of his insights and interpreta­ tions apply as well to other states of the Old Southwest. The book traces the economic and social development of Mississippi from the late 18th century, when settlement was mainly confined to the Old Natchez District, to the outbreak of the Civil War, when the state was fully occupied. The driving force behind that development was the rapidly expanding demand for raw cotton. It was what drew people into the Southwest Territory to cultivate the area’s rich soils. It explains the widespread adoption of the plantation-slave system, which was ideally suited to cotton production. It supplied the incen­ tive for utilizing waterways and building railroads that could deliver the fiber to coastal markets. The appearance and growth of interior commercial centers owed much to the demand for goods and services originating with cotton farmers. Response to the demand for cotton not only set the parameters for the association between master and slave; it also played a significant role in shaping the social structure and relationships within the white community. Finally, Mississippi’s nearly singleminded devotion to commercial cotton was an important factor in its decision tojoin other Confederate States in seceding from the Union in 1861. Moore’s Mississippians were vitally interested in making their farming operations as efficient as possible. To this end they adopted 178 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE a wide array of new technology. They experimented with different varieties of cotton until they found one appropriate for their partic­ ular soil and climatic conditions. They employed the latest hand tools and animal-drawn equipment, and they harnessed steam power to their cotton gins and presses. Some even attempted to preserve and to improve the quality of their soils by applying fertilizers, practicing crop rotation and contour plowing, and constructing drainage sys­ tems. Slave labor sometimes imposed special constraints on the adoption of new technology because it created the need for additional training in its use and for closer supervision to guard against sabotage. But Mississippi farmers and planters overcame these and other difficulties as they responded to the income-enhancing oppor­ tunities provided by technological developments. Moore’s is a synthetic rather than an empirical study. He weaves together the results of his own work and that of many others to present a comprehensive overview of Mississippi’s antebellum Cotton Kingdom. One might complain that the book is more anecdotal than analytical. This is especially true of the sections on the adoption of technology, which offer example stacked on example without attempting—or reporting on the attempts of others—to assess the results systematically. Moreover, Moore probably overstates the eager­ ness of Mississippians to embrace new technology; most historians see greater resistance to innovation than his description suggests. Moore also exaggerates the South’s dependence on outside sources of...

First Record of Plecotus rafinesquii in Central Arkansas

A specimen of Rafinesque's big-eared bat, Plecotus rafinesquii macrotis, was collected at Camp Robinson, Pulaski Co., Arkansas. The specimen, a male, was taken on 23 March 1986 inside an abandoned building. The bat is deposited in the Tarleton State University mammal collection, Stephenville, Texas. In Arkansas, P. r. macrotis is only known to occur in the western and southern counties (Barbour and Davis, 1969; Jones, 1977; Sealander, 1979; Hall, 1981). This record from Pluaski County, Arkansas, is noteworthy, as it fills in the gap between Crawford and Drew Counties extending Rafinesque's big-eared bat into central Arkansas (Sealander, 1979).

New County Record in Missouri for the Texas Mouse (Peromyscus attwateri)

sparse grass cover. The collection of this specimen represents a new county record and a range extension of approximately 61.2 km northeast from Branson, Taney Co., Missouri (Hall, 1981). The specimen is a male measuring 171 mm (total length), 89 mm (length of tail), 23 mm (length of hind foot), and 19 mm (length of ear). The specimen was identified by Dr. Hershel W. Garner and is deposited in the Tarleton State University Mammal Collection, Stephenville, Texas.

Land subsidence session

A session on land subsidence caused by withdrawal of groundwater was held December 10, 1985, in San Francisco, Calif., at the AGU Fall Meeting. The symposium was organized by William E. Strange (National Geodetic Survey, Rockville, Md.) and Thomas L. Holzer (U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Menlo Park, Calif.) and was cosponsored by the AGU Geodesy and Hydrology sections. Nine papers were presented on topics that ranged from evaluations of the suitability of the new satellite‐based Global Positioning System (GPS) to theoretical analyses of land subsidence.T. N. Narasimhan (Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories, Berkeley, Calif.) introduced the general subject of subsidence with a review of relevant physical processes. Compaction, although conceptually simple, involves several complexities, including plastic deformation and translation of deep‐seated deformation through the overburden. Sashi Mathur (Tarleton State University, Stephenville, Tex.), in a paper coauthored with M. Yavuz Corapcioglu (City College of New York, New York), analyzed deformation in the unsaturated zone above a falling water table. Their theoretical formulation was able to reproduce results from laboratory studies of sand columns.

The Best Western Stories of Wayne D. Overholser ed. by Bill Pronzini and Martin H. Greenberg, and: The Best Western Stories of Steve Frazee ed. by Bill Pronzini and Martin H. Greenberg

Reviews 141 arise from the affliction the town and its people suffer but do not comprehend. Though the novel is melodramatic in structure, with a fated quality like Greek tragedy hanging over all the characters, Woolley is a master of the shifting empathic viewpoint that makes Time & Place not just one person’s, but every­ one’sstory. Professor Tom Pilkington of Tarleton State University is editor of this new TCU series, whose aim is “to both publish and preserve significant Texas literature.” With these fine volumes, both illustrated and designed by the Whiteheads of Austin, the series is out of the gate at a gallop. MARSHALL TERRY Southern Methodist University The Best Western Stories of Wayne D. Overholser. Edited by Bill Pronzini and Martin H. Greenberg. (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois Uni­ versity Press, 1984. 199 pages, $14.95.) The Best Western Stories of Steve Frazee. Edited by Bill Pronzini and Martin H. Greenberg. (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984. 296 pages, $14.95.) These two volumes mark the beginning of a new series on western writers to be published by the Southern Illinois University Press which will be a welcome addition to the growing literature by and about popular western storytellers. The collection of sixteen of Wayne D. Overholser’s stories isintro­ duced by his son, Stephen Overholser. While Stephen Overholser’s introduction does lack a detached, scholarly perspective, it offers an evocative and sensitive description of the development of a major writer of popular Westerns who began his professional life as a school teacher and who disciplined himself to work at writing diligently and persistently until he became one of those privileged few who could support himself and his family by writing alone. Stephen’s account of his father’s development as a successful writer is a fine case study for those interested in the marketplace training so many of our talented popular storytellers received in the pulp world of the 1930s and 1940s. Wayne D. Overholser produced over four hundred short stories and a hundred novels during his writing career. Always interested in incorporating “historical realities” into his fiction, he was also interested in encouraging his readers to establish an understanding with their past. One notable lack in the volume is an explanation of the criteria used to select these sixteen stories as the “best” of Overholser. As a testament to Overholser’s abilities as a fine western writer, this volume is long overdue and will, upon careful examination, substantiate the claims the editors and Stephen Overholser make for his literary achievements. 142 Western American Literature The collection of eleven of Steve Frazee’s stories is preceded by an analytical introduction directed at countering a negative assessmentof Frazee’s work contained in the Encyclopedia of Frontier and Western Fiction. Steve Frazee, with fifty-three books and about a hundred short stories to his credit, has not been as prolific as Wayne D. Overholser. Yet Bill Pronzini maintains that Frazee did develop an admirable prose style marked by five strengths: 1. “the ability to tell a convincing, satisfying and unusual story even when employing stock characters,” 2. an “understanding of the nuances of character, of what motivates people, of the good and bad that exist side by side in the human animal, of the conflicts that rage between enemies and friends,” 3. “the ability to vividly and realistically depict a variety of Western settings and to do so in such a way that the settings become primary characters in their own right,” 4. “the ability to build and maintain suspense,” and 5. “his prose style,” which is “always terse, smoothly constructed, evocative, it takes on at times a kind of dark, rough-edged lyricism, . . At least in this volume we are provided with reasons for including these eleven stories which are all from the 1950s, a time when most of Frazee’s fiction was published. To quarrel with the choice of stories in these volumes is probably not worthy of our time and efforts as students of popular western literature. But to study these stories and decide for ourselves what contributions the authors have made to American letters is both proper and pleasurable. We probably ought to...

New hydrology program set

A hydrology program leading to a bachelor of science in hydrology will begin this fall at Tarleton State University, a part of the Texas A&M University system. The 4‐year program aims to prepare students for entry‐level positions leading to professional, hydrology‐related careers and for appropriate graduate academic programs.Included in the program's core curriculum are courses in calculus, statistics, chemistry, biology, physics, geology, soil science, computer science, and water‐related courses in mechanics, hydraulics, hydrology, groundwater, water treatment, water quality, and water resource management. The program will be guided by a director in conjunction with an external advisory board of professionals knowledgeable about and concerned with the responsible use and management of water resources.

Student Placement Utilizing Incomplete Data Records

A method is proposed for the construction of a classification rule based on both complete and incomplete data records. This method incorporates the Hocking-Smith estimation procedure to find estimates of the mean vectors and variance-covariance matrices from samples which may contain incomplete data vectors. The resulting estimates are used to construct a discriminant function. We will demonstrate that these incomplete observation vectors contain information relevant to classification and should not be discarded. The proposed method is applied to the placement of students into one of two college algebra courses at Tarleton State University. The standard procedure that ignores incomplete observation vectors in the construction of a classification rule is also applied to the same data, and comparisons are made between the two methods. The proposed method that utilizes the incomplete observation vectors correctly classifies a higher percentage of students than does the standard method.