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from the issue of September 23, 2004
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Book overflows with details of the Great Plains
BY MARY JANE BRUCE, UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
The region known as the Great Plains is the Rodney Dangerfield of the United States: It doesn't get any respect. That may change with the publishing of a ground-breaking reference book, the Encyclopedia of the Great Plains, said David Wishart, the book's editor and chair of the Department of Anthropology and Geography at UNL.
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| | | David Wishart edited the recently released the Encyclopedia of the Great Plains, a project of the Center for Great Plains Studies and the University of Nebraska Press. Wishart is chair of the Department of Anthropology and Geography at UNL. Photo by Alan Jackson/Jackson Studios.
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"The Great Plains is a poorly understood region. Nobody knows where it is or what it is," Wishart said. "The Encyclopedia of the Great Plains pulls together a lot of what's important about the region and gives the Great Plains a definition and an identity."
The encyclopedia is a cooperative project of the Center for Great Plains Studies at UNL and the University of Nebraska Press. The reference book provides a wealth of information in 27 chapters with 1,316 entries contributed by almost 1,000 scholars. From the Paleo-Indians who hunted mammoth 12,000 years ago to the influx of emigrants from all over the world, the book gives the Great Plains a place in history and a regional character.
Geographically, the Great Plains stretches from the Rocky Mountains to the Missouri River and from the Rio Grande to the forests of Canada. It sprawls across all or parts of Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
From the Great Plains came events like the Dust Bowl, the Wounded Knee massacre, the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, the Tulsa Race Riot and the story of the Roswell alien landing. The region produced Charlie Parker, Jim Thorpe, Malcolm X, Calamity Jane, Bonnie and Clyde and Willa Cather. The Encyclopedia of the Great Plains covers information about the region's temperamental climate, its geographic and human diversity and its contributions to music, literature, athletics and politics.
The publishing of the book is the end of a long road for Wishart, who devoted 10 years to the project on top of his duties as a department chair and professor. Wishart led a small production team of associate editors and researchers charged with formulating the project, deciding what to include and how to organize the information, finding authors, doing research and even raising money.
"It was overwhelming at first and it had a pace all its own. It couldn't be hurried," he said. "But we kept a sense of humor and we laughed a lot. Our philosophy was if we were ahead today from where we were yesterday, it would eventually get done."
The man who led the effort to define the Great Plains grew up far from the region he now calls home. Wishart grew up near the North Sea in a coal-mining village on the coast of Northeast England. He came to Nebraska in 1967, and it took time to appreciate the expansive landscape and sky of Nebraska.
Today, Wishart feels at home in a state that is 1,000 miles from the ocean. He enjoys traveling in the Great Plains region and has a lot of favorite places, including the Pine Ridge area of Nebraska. Wishart is still sometimes surprised by his adopted home state, like he was one morning last summer when he went running near Crawford, Neb., and spotted a bobcat.
Wishart hopes the Encyclopedia of the Great Plains helps clear some misconceptions Americans have about the region. For example, the Great Plains, once labeled "The Great American Desert," is considered by some to be a dull and uniform place. But Wishart said the region's physical diversity is matched by the diversity found among its people, both historically and today.
"When the Native Americans were here alone, there were many diverse languages and lifestyles. The European Americans came from a variety of countries. And today, diversity has been increased by an influx of Asian and Latino Americans. There's a misconception that the Great Plains is a culturally uniform area, but it never has been and it isn't now," Wishart said.
The encyclopedia adds to UNL's reputation as a center for knowledge on the Great Plains. The Center for Great Plains Studies is dedicated to studies, research, teaching, service and extension activities related to the Great Plains region. Students also benefit from the years of research that went into producing the Encyclopedia of the Great Plains.
"One of the reasons we do research is to bring it back to the classroom," Wishart said. "I'm teaching historical geography this fall, and I know so much more now and if I can't remember it all, I know where to go to find the information. I know I'll do a better job in the classroom because of this experience."
Wishart is also the author of An Unspeakable Sadness: The Dispossession of the Nebraska Indians. With the Encyclopedia of the Great Plains on bookstore shelves, Wishart is working on new projects, including a book on the impact of the drought of the 1890s among settlers on the Great Plains.
The Encyclopedia of the Great Plains is available at a list price of $75. The project was funded by two grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Support was also provided by the Nebraska Humanities Council, the government of Canada and the University of Nebraska Foundation.
GO TO: ISSUE OF SEPTEMBER 23
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