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Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for

Spring 2008

Constructing a Home on the Range Homemaking in Early- Twentieth-Century Plains Photograph Albums

Christina E. Dando University of Nebraska at Omaha

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Dando, Christina E., "Constructing a Home on the Range Homemaking in Early-Twentieth-Century Plains Photograph Albums" (2008). Great Plains Quarterly. 1346. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/1346

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. CONSTRUCTING A HOME ON THE RANGE HOMEMAKING IN EARLY~TWENTIETH~CENTURY PLAINS PHOTOGRAPH ALBUMS

CHRISTINA E. DANDO

Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam, Where the deer and the antelope play, Where seldom is heard a discouraging word And the skies are not cloudy all day.l

These lyrics capture a yearning for a place is flatness, austerity, emptiness. Not all would to call home. But what landscape is associ­ consider this an ideal landscape for home. So ated with this longing? For people living near how did the people who settled on the Plains the coasts or mountains of America, it must "view" this landscape? What did they see? be hard to imagine longing for a "home on How did this land come to be recognized as the plains"-but many Americans have had, that of home? In Walter Prescott Webb's The and still have, a home on the Plains. The Great Plains (1931), Webb argues that when stereotypical American image of the Plains the Plains settlers had to adapt to their new environment, "they were compelled to make a radical readjustment in their way of life."z Key Words: home, landscape, Montana, North In p~rticular, Webb focused on the "treeless, Dakota, photograph albums, photography, visual flat, and semiaridity" of the Plains and the culture key developments of railroads, barbed wire, windmills, and improved farm machinery and Christina E. Dando is an assistant professor of geography methods.3 But another technology was key to at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and a fellow the transformation of the Plains: photography. of the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her work on the Great Plains and I argue that photography was central to Plains on media geography has been published in the Journal settlers' "radically readjusting" to living on the of Cultural Geography; Aether: The Journal of Plains and conceptually recognizing the Plains Media Geography; Acme: An International E­ as home. Journal for Critical Geographies; The Encyclopedia Photographs taken during the settlement of World Climates (2005); and Climatic Change and Variation: A Primer for Teachers (2008). process reveal how Plains settlers were "placing themselves" into the landscape as they were [GPQ 28 (Spring 2008): 105-331 constructing their homes on the Plains. More

105 106 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2008 significantly, photographing the Plains aided we make about and for ourselves? ... On settlers in learning "Plains-viewing," that is, in a broader scale, how important are such learning the "new ways of seeing" that would variables as historical period, technological transform the Plains from an unfamiliar land­ developments, regional and cultural varia­ scape to home. Photograph albums capture the tions to what appears in these portraits of physical as well as conceptual "place-making" family life and in snapshot photography in of the Plains, constructed as they were by indi­ general?7 viduals to reflect their particular view of the Plains and their lives. Billions of amateur photographs have been To explore place-making in Plains pho­ taken since photography's development. They tograph albums, I begin with an overview of are a tremendous potential source for research­ photograph albums and photographic analysis. ers interested in exploring the experiences of Next, I provide an overview of place-making, common people and can be explored using a specifically "homemaking" in the Great Plains range of methodologies, from content analysis context. Finally, I examine a representative to narrative analysis. sample of photograph albums created on the At the turn of the twentieth century, Plains for evidence of place-making through there was a boom in photography and Plains images. Plains people took great pride in images. The twentieth century brought easier, their transformation of the landscape and more accessible cameras, promoting amateur documented the process with photographs. By photography, particularly through Kodak's taking and keeping photographs of this pro­ point-and-shoot cameras, first introduced in cess, the photographers are claiming as their 1889.8 By 1896 Kodak had sold an estimated own this landscape and acknowledging their one hundred thousand cameras. Kodak's roles as creators and shapers of landscape, as if point-and-shoot cameras revolutionized pho­ to say "I made this."4 . tography, taking it from an expensive practice to something almost anyone could both afford ANALYZING PHOTOGRAPH ALBUMS and do. Individuals could now take their own photographs rather than rely on professional The subject of amateur Plains photography, photographers. At the same time, the Plains the snapshots and albums created by non­ were being settled by Americans and Europeans professional photographers for their own use, who were documenting their experiences with has not been systematically addressed to date. their new Kodaks. But what did they do with Amateur visual culture has been increasingly the images once they were developed? Some explored in the social sciences, led by the photographic prints were passed around at groundbreaking work of Richard Chalfen.5 family or social gatherings; others were sent Much recent work on amateur photography to family and friends as postcards or utilized focuses on fairly recent photographs; seldom to decorate parlors (note photographs on the are historic works explored, but there are a few wall, Fig. 1). Some photographs were formed noteworthy studies, particularly the work of into photograph albums. Marilyn Motz.6 Chalfen writes: Photograph albums can be created by anyone for a range of purposes. When created Important questions fundamental to the by individuals to document their lives and social sciences and the humanities lie buried interests, albums allow people to construct in our home media. What are ordinary their life stories as they want to see them and people saying about themselves and their as they want others to see them.9 Albums can conditions of human existence? What can be carefully constructed narratives designed to we learn about ourselves as social and cul­ reveal as much as they conceal, to be selective tural beings through studies of photographs about moments, events, people, and places, CONSTRUCTING A HOME ON THE RANGE 107

FIG. 1. "Grace Binks Price"; "Margaret Majors"; "Grace's Parlor Corner"; "Grace's Kitchen Corner." Grace Binks Price album, Montana Historical Society, Helena (PAC 96-62, page 6).

not unlike a diary. to Even if the album was albums created in the period from about 1880 just "slapped together," with seemingly little to approximately 1920 that had a strong land­ thought to its organization, it is still an act of scape component to them. Photography was preservation, made with the intent to keep the widely practiced on the Plains during this photographs in a formal manner. Albums can time, a time that also represents a great boom be revealing sources about the photographers in Plains settlement. The qualifier "strong and their subjects. As albums are usually cre­ landscape component" was essential to my ated to be shared, they have the potential to interest in human perception of landscape: I shape or reshape their audience's perceptions of was attempting to winnow out the "portrait people and places.!l Further, they are a form of albums" from the photograph albums that "personal document" and serve a record keep­ would have landscape photographs in them. ing function, as well as guiding and structuring By specifying "albums," I was focusing on con­ memory "of a specific collection of people for a structed collections of photographs, usually specific collection of people."12 with some additional information available. For this study, I used simple criteria to There are thousands of Plains photographs identify photograph albums in archives: available from this period, with many of the 108 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2008 photographs unidentified loose images.!3 The reader can interpret the image. The placement researcher is faced with the task of making of images, the juxtaposition of images, their sense out of thousands of images floating in captions, and the number of images on a page time, having no date, no caption, no sense of impact the interpretation of the images. We authorship. Albums have images presented in can go a step further and say that the entire context, retaining some sense of their original context, whether an album or a book, defines usage and meaning. We are, however, missing the interpretation of the image. a significant portion of the album: the verbal The snapshot of Grace is in fact from narrative that its creator would have provided. her photograph album, appearing on page 5 Half the story is provided; it is up to the of the album (Fig. 3). In the corners of the researcher to investigate the creator, the place, page are placed four images, three of which and the people, and to flesh out the storyline. are labeled "Grace's Land," and one "Grace's With my broad search parameters, I was able to House" (outhouse?). The placement of these locate seventeen albums in four state histori­ images in the corner of the page, along with cal societies.!4 For an overview of the albums the "compass rose" on the bottom of the page, utilized in this study, see Table 1. suggests that the four directions (corners?) We can learn much by "unpacking" photo­ are being represented or invoked on this page graphs, but how might we go about this task? and in the images. While one label may have Recognizing photographs as a form of text, and sufficed, Grace has labeled each to make it drawing from literary analysis, it is possible to perfectly clear that this is all her land. At the excavate various levels of meaning captured center, surrounded by "Grace's Land," is a pho­ on film. Photographic analysis is a well-estab­ tograph of Grace herself on the Plains, "plac­ lished qualitative field in the social sciences.!5 ing" her, surrounding her, with her land. She If we were to encounter Figure 2 randomly, in is labeled, too. Are we being shown "Grace's an antique store or in a box of miscellaneous Land" through Grace's eyes? (And if so, who photographs, we would be free to interpret it took the photograph of Grace?) Also on this any way we wish. There is nothing to fix its page is a newspaper clipping describing how meaning. When an image is given a caption, on Grace was homesteading in Montana, provid­ its back or under it in a photograph album or ing an authoritative voice that explains where magazine, it fixes or guides the image's mean­ Grace is and the significance of "Grace's Land." ing and interpretation. Without a caption, it is While Grace's snapshot may have been unim­ just an old picture of a woman holding onto her pressive as an isolated image, in the context hat in a breeze. It could be any woman, virtu­ of its page, it takes on a richer, fuller meaning ally anywhere. Include the caption to Figure 2, and narrative tone. The repetitious images and "Grace Binks Price," and it suddenly becomes labeling drive the message home that Grace someone. We still do not know much except owns her own land. The newspaper clipping that she has a name. lets the viewer know that Grace's homestead­ The placement of photographs onto a page ing experience is notable. and/or assembled into an album further shapes Photograph albums can be created by and refines their interpretation. A carefully anyone for a range of purposes, reflecting a created album, complete with captions, has common human desire to document lives and boundaries placed on its interpretation. It pres­ interests. In general, these photographs tend ents stories to its viewers, stories scripted by its to represent material assets, achievements, creator and imbued with their creator's percep­ and "snippets of satisfaction (parties, picnics, tions, preferences, and own take on reality. and holidays)."16 Traditional albums are usu­ The page on which it is situated, its context, ally constructed around a central subject, may give us clues to its meaning and interpre­ such as trips or vacations, a theme or hobby, tation, while restricting the possible ways the a major event like a wedding, or they can be CONSTRUCTING A HOME ON THE RANGE 109

TABLE 1 PHOTOGRAPH ALBUMS USED IN THIS STUDY Collection and Creator Dates Location Number of albums, Focus of reference number pages, and images album North Dakota Charles L. Hall 1896-1909 Fort Berthold and 1 album of 29 pages, Missionary State Historical family Elbowoods, North 87 images work, family Society (Col. 110) Dakota life South Dakota John R. 1900-1917 Pine Ridge Album 1: 72 pages, Life and State Historical Brennan and Reservation, 143 images improvements Society (H. 72.2) daughter Ruth South Dakota Album 2: 50 pages, on the 147 images reservation, Album 3: 34 pages, family life 105 images North Dakota Elizabeth 1900-1905 Amidon, North Col. 302, AL2: 14 Homestead State Historical Roberts Dakota pages, 62 images and family Society (Col. 302 Col. 302, AU: 46 life, ranching, albums 2, 3, and pages, 73 images landscape 4; Col. 308) (images missing) Col. 302, AL4: 44 pages, 74 images Col. 308: 44 pages, 74 images (images missing) North Dakota Alden and 1902 Medora, North 1 album of 61 pages, Ranch life, State Historical Howard Eaton Dakota 233 images dude ranch Society (Col. 286) activities North Dakota William H. Undated, Hettinger and 1 album of 90 pages, Promoting State Historical Brown Land ca. 1906- Morton counties, 100 images area Society (Brown Company 1908 North Dakota (five similar albums settlement 389-487) held at North Dakota State Historical Society: another album in held at Montana State Historical Society) Wyoming State Hazelle 1907-1908 Wheatland, 1 album of 50 pages, Social life, Museum Ferguson Wyoming 103 images art? North Dakota Robert E. 1909-1910 Mott, North 1 album of 46 pages, Mott State Historical Trousdale Dakota 46 images cityscapes Society (Col. 1-1-53 ) North Dakota Pauline 1911-1916 Mercer Coul).ty, Black album: 14 pages, Homestead State Historical Shoemaker North Dakota 39 images life, social life Society (Col. 196) Crowley Gray album: 11 pages, 21 images Montana State Grace Binks 1911-1914 Rosebud County, 1 album of 45 pages, Homestead Historical Society Price Montana 188 images life, social life (PAC 92-62) Montana State Glass Brothers ca. 1912 Big Timber, 1 album of 82 pages, Promoting Historical Society Land Company Montana 82 images area (PAC 378-001) settlement Montana State Ed Kopac ca. 1925 Hardin, Montana 1 album of 70 pages, Farming, Historical Society 70 images landscape, (PAC 81-65) (A striking homestead travel image by Kopac is held at South Dakota State Historical Society.) 110 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2008

nationallevel.18 In analyzing narratives, schol­ ars consider the narrative on a variety of levels, including why the story is being told (purpose), how it is being told (structure, elements, and form), and where it is told (setting as well as the telling). Photographs and photograph albums are a form of "photo-narrative": "a set of photo­ graphs arranged to create a storyline within the constraints of a particular format."19 Kodak has advocated photography's links to storytelling:

The function of snapshots and home movies was not simply to help preserve family events but to have a privileged role in this story "telling" ritual. A 1950 ad reads "Snapshots remember when you forget." In fact, "Your snapshots tell the story best" (1951).20

While the role of narrator is important to the narration as well as to photograph albums, we do not always have this luxury. Albums do not tell a whole story; rather, they are meant FIG. 2. Detail of Grace Binks Price album. Montana to be shared by the creator with their audi­ Historical Society, Helena (PAC 96-62, page 5). ence, walking the viewer through the pages, explaining the images and their significance.21 With historical studies, this verbal narrative autobiographical. In Grace's case, her album is is seldom available. But the sharing element centered on her homestead experiences. The of albums needs to be acknowledged, for the process of creating an album involves taking or sharing of images can shape or reshape the purchasing photographs, selecting images to be audience's perceptions of people and places.22 utilized, organizing the images in a meaningful Photograph albums are not just mnemonic way, assembling the album, adding captions devices to assist individuals to remember stories and other forms of information to the pages, that are then conveyed orally. They can also and sharing the album with an audience. The be described as a sort of topographic map of selection of images and their organization in individual lives, mapping out the "high points" the album can be random, but more often it and serving as signposts for specific memories. takes on a chronological approach, from a By paging through an album an individual can trip covering days or weeks to an entire life. trace out both the temporal and spatial journey Assembling the images, the pages, and the of their lives. Some may trace a clear path from captions results in the creation of a narrative, the cradle to the grave, others' paths may be and narrative analysis provides another way to discontinuous. Through the album pages, time approach photograph albums. and space are transcended. In this "memory­ Narrative analysis crosses many disciplines scape," distant family are brought near, the and has been utilized in many different dead are returned to life, and landscapes are situations, from folktales to oral interviewsP rewound to earlier states of development.23 Central to this approach is the understand­ Important to analyzing photograph album ing that humans tell stories, on an indi­ narratives is researching the history of the vidual level, on a community level, even on a albums, establishing its creator and its function, CONSTRUCTING A HOME ON THE RANGE 111

FIG. 3. "Grace's House"; "Grace B. Price"; "Grace's Land"; "Grace's Land"; "Grace's Land." Grace Binks Price album, Montana Historical Society, Helena (PAC 96-62, page 5). becoming what James and Lobato call a "privi­ an antiques store in Oregon. But from her album leged reader"-this "compensates for the lack we can construct the following narrative: Grace of context, stabilizes the ambiguities, reveals arrives in Montana and establishes her home­ underlying tensions, and allows the viewer to stead. She spends time in Montana and develops read the subtext behind the photographic codes friendships with the neighbors. Time passes, and conventions."24 With such research, we can portrayed by harvests, snows, and train station begin to place the albums into a socio-historical visits representing trips home. Eventually Grace context, recognizing them as creations of an proves up her homestead, documented in the individual, utilized for specific reasons. It has album with the required newspaper announce­ unfortunately been difficult to learn much about ment of proving up her claim. "And so, farewell Grace, other than the simple basics that she was to Montana!," written on one of the last pages of from Ottumwa, Iowa, homesteaded with her the album, provides a conclusion. Our heroine girlfriends in Montana, and eventually married has triumphed: she has survived, reached her a man in Seattle. Her album later turned up in goal, and moved on. 112 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2008

For me, analysis of albums is multifaceted, PLAINS HOMEMAKING as I "unfold" the narrative as much as possible without "forcing" it. Analysis begins with gath­ Before we grapple with Plains homemaking, ering background material on the albums and we must first address "home" in general and the its creator, locating them in time and space. role the visual plays in homemaking. The con­ Next, a rudimentary content analysis of the cept of home has been associated with a variety album provides an overview of the album.25 of important human needs and emotions, such Content analysis, while often criticized for as privacy and refuge, security and control, fragmenting data and removing it from its creativity, symbol of self, permanence and context, is useful in studies such as this where continuity, family, center of activity and life, there are many elements to be examined.26 A and material structure.31 The concept of home series of classifications is established prior to is a complex one for most individuals. Few the construction of the analysis, structured Americans could describe the significance of around the goals and interests of the research home in a few words. It cannot simply be boiled (Table 2). Each photograph is examined and down to the space where we lay our heads. "graded" according to its "focal theme" and While it emanates from some form of structure, the results compared and contrasted.27 The what is more significant are the experiences advantage of content analysis is that it permits connected with this location: "The marker comparison of multiple photographs and can (wall, road, line, border, post, sign) is static, provide an overview of large data sets (useful dull, and cold. But when lived (encountered, when each album is composed of anywhere manipulated, touched, voiced, glanced at, from 15 to 150 photographs). Individual pho­ practiced) it radiates a milieu, a field of force, tographs may be exaJUined for cultural codes a shape of space."32 Home is "a material and an and narrative imbedded in the image. Work affective space, shaped by everyday practices, then shifts to narrative analysis, returning the lived experiences, social relations, memories images to their context and examining the and emotions .... The meanings and lived album as a whole. The use of multiple methods experiences of home are diverse."33 Most, but is crucial to "keeping our ears wide open" in not all, individuals have positive feelings and order to hear the voices and stories, especially experiences of home. So easily can the refuge the voices that may have been silenced even become a prison and family the torturers. One before the passage of time.28 must be sensitive to the possible experiences Finally, we might think in terms of albums, of home, which can vary on so many levels determining whether all the photograph albums (gender, age, ethnicity, experiences, etc). It can constructed in a particular place and time may mean so many things to so many people, and be have certain commonalities in their narratives expressed in a wide variety of mediums. The and their treatment of certain themes. Albums multifaceted nature of home calls for multidis­ are artifacts of popular culture, composed of ciplinary research.34 similar materials (paper, binder, photographs, So how did settlers make a home on the captions), depending on a common "lan­ Plains? The psychological process of "home­ guage," building with similar experiences and making" on the Plains begins with the decision a common landscape.29 It is not far-fetched to to move to the Plains, to leave a familiar place consider that photograph albums constructed and people and migrate to a new location. It is on the Plains during settlement might share a decision to leave a "home" and create a new common themes, common landscapes. While "home." As one departs the old home, with its their focuses and usages may differ, they are packing and good-byes, one intends to find, building with the same blocks. Together they create, or identify a new home. This new home are writing the history of their landscape and is anticipated: through readings and conversa­ their place in the arena of public memory.30 tions an impression of the new home is already CONSTRUCTING A HOME ON THE RANGE 113

TABLE 2 CONTENT ANALYSIS CRITERIA

LANDSCAPES Wildlife HUMAN ACTIVITIES Town, exterior Deer Work Town, interior Antelope Plowing Railway stations Bison Planting Railway lines Rattlesnakes Harvesting Roads Coyotes Range work Town elements Wolves Corral work Homes Birds (specify) Haying Stores Cutting wood Churches Non-Plains landscapes (specify) Feeding animals Grain elevators Domestic School TRANSPORTATION Cooking Railroad station Train Laundry Post office Horseback Cleaning Rural elements Wagon Other (specify) Homestead, exterior Automobile Leisure activities Homestead, interior Bicycle Picnics Homestead, identified Other (specify) Suppers Homestead, unidentified Camping Homesteads with HUMANS Climbing occupants Active Swimming Sod house Male Fishing Farm buildings Female Dancing Well Group, all male Other (specify) Corral Group, all female Reservation life Outhouse Group, mixed Doles Other buildings (specify) Passive Celebrations Domestic Male Schooling Sheep Female Hunting Cattle Group, all male Farming Horses Group, all female Chickens Group, mixed TYPES OF IMAGES Hogs Identified Snapshots Goats Male Formal portraits Geese Female Bought photographs Crops Unidentified Postcards Grains Male Other (specify) Corn Female Other (specify) Ethnicity Native American landscape White, nonspecific Tipis Native American Earthlodges Identified ethnicity Homes Native Americans Reservation buildings Dress, traditional Schools Male Other Female Badlands Dress, contemporary Plains Male Rivers/streams Female Other landscapes 114 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2008 taking shape. As people travel, move through were flexible. The husband might help with the landscape, they are moving away from an housework. Women and children might work old home toward what they hope will be a new alongside fathers and husbands in the fields home. Because most people migrate in pursuit and farmyard.39 Everyone worked together to of a better life, they look forward to the new become established. In the case of single home­ land and the new life.35 steaders, men or women might do a majority As settlers arrive at their new locations, of the tasks or hire help, be it a male neighbor their immediate concern is shelter and becom­ for fieldwork or a female neighbor for baking ing established in this new place. A location for or laundry. As time went by, a more substan­ "home" is selected, chosen for its proximity to tial house might be built, as basic farm needs water, perhaps, or neighbors, refuge, or its loca­ were met and the owner had the money and tion that reminds them of the old home land­ inclination for a permanent structure.40 The scape.36 Location might also be influenced by temporary shanty or soddie, the "old home," the lifestyle pursued, be it farming or ranching, would be recycled into a barn or storage shed. each requiring different geographic conditions. Between the two spheres, the exterior and the Temporary shelter may be used as "home" if interior, the site is molded by its residents. By more permanent shelter is not available: a placing their personal stamp on their domestic claim shanty, a dugout, or a "soddie" might environment, by becoming familiar with it and be constructed. Once shelter is established, its quirks, and by living in the place, the place steps are taken to make this structure "home" becomes associated with "home." by unpacking belongings, arranging familiar The establishment of home is a significant things, constructing new furniture (sometimes event. A Scribner's Monthly reporter commented from packing boxes), and adding personal on western Kansas homesteaders in 1879: "The touches. Traditionally, these actions are in Kansans have a phenomenal genius for homes. the realm of the wife/mother, as the creators They reverse the old order of pioneering, and and caretakers of the domestic space, although make the home the foundation, instead of the single male and female homesteaders also outcome, of their struggle with nature."41 On might "homemake."37 Women contribute to the eastern frontier, land needed to be cleared the "homemaking" process by the traditionally of timber for farming and could be a significant feminine responsibilities of cooking familiar task in timbered regions. In contrast, the Plains foods, setting up their household, and keeping did not need to be cleared, merely plowed, but their families clean and clothed. While the new there was no cover available other than what home and conditions may be different from the settlers constructed. If there was to be shel­ those of the old home, the maintenance of such ter from the storm, the settlers had to construct basic rituals allows a sense of control over their it themselves. Home not only provides shelter environment and the maintenance of a certain from the elements but it is deeply intertwined lifestyle.38 Women took rough dwellings and with notions of family and self-identity, par­ added their own "civilizing" touches-cur­ ticularly in the Victorian era. In a new location, tains, rugs, flowers-transforming them into home ties the family together, as the site of both something akin to the homes they left behind. the people and their familiar possessions. As the The husband/father might concentrate his family becomes established, their home reflects activities on the realm outside, once a home their values and traditions as well as personali­ structure was established: constructing a well ties. Memories develop about the place and are and shelter for livestock, plowing and sowing tied to it and the life lived there.42 Further, in a first crop. While we might speak in gener­ uncertain times, homes represent stability and alities of women constructing the "interior refuge.43 Establishing a home was an essential space" and the men the "exterior space" on the task in adjusting to the new landscape of the turn-of-the-Iast-century "frontier," gender roles Plains. CONSTRUCTING A HOME ON THE RANGE 115

The physical transformation of the land­ stead," homemaking can extend beyond the scape continues, moving out concentrically landowner's boundaries. Residents might name from the home. Of immediate concern is the topographic features or associate directions "center or centering," establishing a residence, with other homesteads in conversation with planting a vegetable garden, and creating a family or acquaintances (as in "I caught our farmyard to care for existing livestock. Once stray cow over by the Olsen place the other day. these are established, work might begin on Can't believe she made it that far"). The named the fields, plowing, planting, and establishing environment serves as the basis for a common boundaries to the land. Trees might be planted language and common memories, allowing a close to the home, a tree claim established, or community to communicate as well as unit­ an orchard attempted (encouraged by promis­ ing them in a common shared landscape.47 ing booster images). Trees were a much-missed The local landscape is learned and commu­ aspect of the environment for settlers: their nicated, from the best places for fuel or berry planting provided a visual break on the Plains picking, to the locations of historic events. As but also served another end. There was a wide­ place knowledge and human modification of spread theory, put forth in both scientific and landscape increase, feelings of vulnerability popular literature, that the establishment of decrease. It is a matter of not only identifying trees on the Plains would modify its climate, a place as home but also establishing a "topo­ bringing more precipitation into the region. graphical orientation," knowing where you are By planting trees, settlers believed that they and where you fit in.48 would be changing not only the landscape but As these molding processes occur, people are also the climate of the Plains. Well-meaning establishing connections to others who live in but misled, settlers believed the myth, as they this area, connections that are both physical did the myth that rain would follow the plow, and social. The knowledge of the geographi­ for decades before it was finally eradicated.44 cal area grows concentrically from the home Nevertheless, the planting of trees and gardens outward.49 Landmarks are recognized. Paths to around the home molded the immediate area neighbor's homes are learned, as are the paths or to the needs and personalities of the homemak­ roads to the nearest towns and railroads. Social ers. With the construction of shelter and other connections develop as the new residents meet buildings, gardens, wells, and fields, space is their neighbors and begin to make friends. A brought under control.45 But it was not just a sense of community develops. Perhaps family, matter of control; it was replacing the unfamil­ old-home neighbors, or church members might iar with the familiar. A Nebraska homesteader also migrate and settle nearby, providing estab­ explained how, by introducing trees and plants, lished social ties and commonalities. they "try to the best of our ability, to transplant Landscape transformation continues with to central Nebraska the comforts and home the establishment of social institutions such environment of Iowa."46 The familiar shapes, as churches and schools.50 These institutions scents, and colors would shorten the distance often begin in homes, with families jointly between the old home and the new. As the hiring a teacher or taking advantage of a pass­ landscape is transformed, wildlife are replaced ing minister and the schooling or services held by domestic or introduced species, prairie in homes. As more people express an interest plants by domesticated species, the wilderness in schooling for children or family worship, by aspects of a familiar landscape. But only momentum grows for permanent solutions. aspects, for not all new plants did well in this Ministers might be requested from established environment; settlers had to adapt to their religions; teachers from teaching institutions or environment. state or territorial governments. Entire families While the physical transformation of the might be involved in the founding of schools, land might be most visible on the "home- post offices, churches, and in encouraging 116 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2008 social interaction through various gatherings, And they are both the product of territorial­ such as dances, bees, and clubs. izing forces.,,54 Territorializing forces involve On a larger scale, towns might also be the attachment of an individual to a place and "instigated" by residents as they seek to address a recognition of this attachment by others. The their own needs. It might begin simply with a visual has been significant in claiming terri­ homesteader maintaining the local "post office" tory, be it as border markers, graffiti, or a river. in their home. A little store might be added Maps have classically been used to delineate to take advantage of the needs of neighbors as territory by nations but photographs offer a they dropped by for their mait.51 Perhaps the simpler solution for individuals, allowing them school and/or church might be located near to claim space and to share this claim with the "post office." With the railroad boom on others. But it is not just claiming space, it is the Plains, established "towns" lobbied for a developing a working knowledge and a set of railroad line to pass through their town, adding experiences tied with the location that leads to to its importance and its potential, while new the identification of a place as home. towns were speculated and created along pro­ On the Plains, as time passes, as people jected rail lines. work and travel the land, as settlers interact in and with the place, the place comes to be seen VISUALiZING HOMEMAKING as home. It becomes indelibly imprinted on the memory as well as the heart, particularly on Creating a new home, not surprisingly, can the young, as home. Geographer Ronald Rees be a difficult process. Yi-fu Tuan writes: suggests that the "psychological adjustment to a new land can begin only when the bond of Even in the most sophisticated societies, memory is broken.... To feel at home, emi­ people must use words to plan and build a grants, or their descendants, must acquire new home; moreover, after .its completion, what ways of seeing.,,55 The "homemaking" is a form the occupants say to one another, and about of visual patterning, a process of becoming the spaces they share, makes a real differ­ familiar with a place and with its patterns. And ence to their home's ambience.52 it did require new ways of seeing, for the Plains were a radically different landscape for most While there is no discounting the power people. of words and communication, not enough Coming from regions with more topographic emphasis is placed on the visual in homemak­ relief and an abundance of trees, settlers ing. The architect cannot use words alone to experienced the Plains as a well-documented convey to the builder how the building is to shock. Some settlers, men and women alike, be constructed; designers cannot convey their found beauty in the new landscape before "vision" of their rooms in magazines by words them. Julie Roy Jeffrey, in her study "'There Is alone. Drawings were used before the written Some Splendid Scenery': Women's Responses word to convey a sense of home: one of the to the Great Plains Landscape," examines both earliest known maps of the world is a 6200 the positive and the negative responses to the B.C. wall painting depicting the community Plains landscape. Jeffrey writes: of <;atahoyiik in what is now Turkey, including individual homes. 53 Communicating a sense of "It all seemed like a picture," Mary O'Neil home, whether orally or visually, is important said of the North Dakota landscape. Her use not only to the individual, but it is significant of the word picture indicates not only her to communicating identity: "It is not the place interest in the scenic character of her sur­ we 'come from'; it is a place we are. Home and roundings but also her aesthetic preference territory: territory and identity ... They are of for a landscape that, like a picture, had some course inextricably linked [home and identity]. kind of definition.56 CONSTRUCTING A HOME ON THE RANGE 117

Others found it too open, leaving them their dorm rooms with reminders of their old exposed, and left as soon as they could:57 hometowns, such as pictures from high school or hometown slogans, were more likely to drop One woman who came to the valley of the out than freshmen who seemed to adopt their Elkhorn River in Nebraska in the late 1850s new "home": wrote, "This is the picture as I see it plainly in retrospect-a country ... with a smooth, The dropouts were less likely to have deco­ level, gray surface which appeared to go on rations showing investment in and com­ toward the west forever and forever.... Ten mitment to people, places, and activities or twelve log cabins broke the monotony of in the new environment.... Students who the treeless expanse that stretched far away, chose to leave college had many symbols of apparently to a leaden sky.,,58 attachment to the hometown, few to the new environment, and showed a narrower Whether using the word "picture" or "land­ range of interests and activities in the new scape," both terms imply the human gaze setting.60 on this spatial expanse, and with the gaze comes value judgment, the gaze being shaped Be it Plains settlers or college freshmen, the by our experiences and sense of taste. In the visual images they surround themselves with above quote, the woman viewing the Elkhorn can indicate their "view" of their new home. obviously was not impressed, given her use In examining photographs taken by Plains of the terms "level, grey, forever and forever, immigrants, it is possible to see how photo­ monotony, leaden." Human reaction to the graphs contributed to "homemaking" on the Plains landscape might be communicated in Plains. Plains dwellers and settlers actively pho­ letters to family, in a diary, or in reminiscences tographed and documented their new homes reflecting on their experiences. Others chose and home landscapes. By taking photographs, more artistic means of communicating their they were creatively viewing their land as well reactions to landscape, through literature and as claiming authorship of the changes they art. Northrup Frye has remarked that no land were bringing about in the land. But this claim is home until it has been imaginatively digested of land is not a firm one: "As photographs give or absorbed.59 In communicating reactions to people an imaginary possession of a past that is the landscape, be it through art or literature, unreal, they also help people take possession of there are two possible responses: To find new space in which they are insecure."61 To look at means to express the new forms or stay with the land through the camera's lens distanced the old means and tailor the new forms to fit photographers from the landscape, requiring them. In other words, homesick Plains set­ them to view the land with an "eye" toward tlers might frame the Plains in terms of "Old constructing an image that appealed to their World" imagery, so that a painting of the Plains aesthetic sensibilities. In turn, the aesthetic appears more like a painting of some place sensibilities applied to the Plains were shaped in Europe rather than a place on the Plains. by the visual and textual images encountered Or Plains settlers would attempt to capture before their arrival, including camera manu­ the new landscape as it appeared to them, als and guides and Plains promotional images. the sensation of being on the Plains with the Camera guides and handbooks focused atten­ great sky overhead. This "place adjustment" tion on how to photograph as well as what to is not unique to the Plains but can be seen in photograph: other situations where individuals encounter a new landscape. Barbara Brown and Douglas Part guide book, part catalogue, Motoring Perkins found in a behavioral study of college extolled the delights of bringing along a freshmen that the freshmen who decorated camera: "Of what shall you make pictures? 118 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2008

What shall you take? Rather, what shall you moters' claims.67 David Wrobel estimates that not take? On an automobile tour, what do "in any given year there would have been mil­ you take the most of? Scenery. Very well, lion of copies of Western promotional books take pictures of scenery." Its illustrations and pamphlets in circulation in the United suggest what many Kodak magazine adver­ States and Europe."68 These accounts of the tisements suggest-photographing rural Plains provide an interpretation of the land­ scenery was a woman's job. Husbands drove scape and the life, directing the reader/viewer the motor cars; wives watched for perfect to associate the landscape with the view they rural landscapes, commanded husbands to present.69 Even before arrival, impressions of a halt, then aimed and "snapped" the camera. new home and a new geographical identity are According to several magazine experts, being established.7° The creation of "home" using a camera improved one's ability to see; elaborates on or otherwise modifies these prior by extrapolation, carrying a camera while images. automobiling sharpened one's notice of While Kodak may not have specifically beautiful rurallandscape.62 called for the documenting of human changes to the land, the company in its advertise­ To "photographically see" was a means of "dis­ ments did suggest appropriate subjects for . covering the beautiful, a method to know and photography. The Kodak Company encour­ experience the world."63 aged Americans through its catchy slogans Newspaper accounts, personal accounts, to use snapshots to preserve memories, be it guidebooks, and railway fliers all provided of a vacation or a childhood. By 1910 all the an image of the place ..A Dutch immigrant major themes that occur in Kodak advertising to Manitoba describes the Canadian govern­ campaigns had been introduced-snapshot as mental recruitment poster that inspired their memory, camera as storyteller, photographs as move: capturing time and extending the moment, and telling stories through photographs.?! On a large billboard in the Hague we had Landscapes important to the photographers seen a picture of a farm in Canada. It was quickly came to be "kodaked," capturing a beautiful poster. A golden grain field, friends and family in their domestic settings, waving in the breeze, a young farmer in a at play and at work. As time passed and family white shirt behind a beautiful set of horses, a landscapes changed, the photographs became young wife with a baby in her arms, bringing an important connection to a past landscape, a basket of goodies from the field.64 representing a connection to a place.72 Plains settlers were also being shown that The "framing" of a place in the media serves as individuals were changing the Plains land­ a guide to the behavior of those who then visit scape and that this change could be visually or settle in the place.6s The narratives Plains seen and even documented with photographs. promoters told through their literature and the They were being shown that they too can at visual evidence they provided were positive, least visually achieve success on the Plains and progressive accounts of Plains as "Garden," that these successes can be visually measured with bountiful rainfall and harvest and great and even documented to preserve the memo­ potentia1.66 Promotional materials focus on the ries of the homemaking process. "Before and narrow field of topics they believe their audi­ after" photographs in land company brochures ence should know about, such as agricultural illustrate the initial shanties or soddies of prospects, community, growth and develop­ settlers and the subsequent homes they con­ ment. All are presented in rosy terms, assert­ structed as they thrived on the Plains.?3 The ing that this is nothing but "fact" bolstered by March 1, 1918, edition of the Dakota Farmer, a "experts" whose statements support the pro- regional agricultural journal, featured "before" CONSTRUCTING A HOME ON THE RANGE 119 and "after" images on its cover of the "Farm and culture." On the other hand, we have "the Home of H. G. Halvorson, Brookings Co., inmates" and "gloomy earth walls," language S.D." It appears Plains settlers were being that suggests a prison rather than a home. Yet encouraged to photograph and share their the homemaker had attempted to provide all the experiences. Kodak certainly made it possible niceties of a proper parlor in the dugout, even with their point-and-shoot cameras for Plains reportedly playing "Home! Sweet Home" on her settlers, who were already "can-do" individuals, organ. Obviously the visitor and the settler's to document their own success stories. Using wife had very different views of the dugout. photography, Plains immigrants documented A similar description can be found in Covered their experiences and imprint on the land­ Wagon Days (1929) where a dugout officially scape, especially their homes, their businesses, becomes home with the laying of a Bible and their community connections, as well as the a photograph album on the family's table.77 To Plains themselves. Assembling these photo­ have a parlor, be it a designated room or even a graphs into albums, with its bookish format, corner, was an acknowledgment of the family's sequencing of photos, and captions added if belonging to "proper" society. The parlor was they wished, allowed them literally to write not only a space designated to formally rep­ themselves into American history.74 resent the family to visitors but also a "place" where cultural and family values were passed PLAINS PHOTOGRAPH ALBUMS AND THE on from parents to children. Photographs CONSTRUCTION OF HOME on the wall (Fig. 1), perched on the organ, arranged in an album, or in the form of ste­ Physically, photograph albums formed reographs were an important element in the part of the homemaking process, taking up parlor, serving to identify the space as well as residence next to the family Bible, adding to identify visually the family and their interests: the new home an elegant reminder of past "Material cultures, through their installation, parlors, as well as the hope for future parlors to are critical in the formation of new politi­ house these components of "home."75 An 1880 cal identities, carving out new landscapes of description of a Kansas dugout bears this out: belonging."78 When a family moves or builds a new home, the hanging of photographs or the In one of those dug-outs which I visited on placing of albums in the new home, along with a certain rainy day, an organ stood near the the rest of their belongings, contributes to its window and the settler's wife was playing recognition as "home," as familiar furnishings "Home! Sweet Home." ... take up residence in the new structure. Many of those "dug-outs" ... gave evi­ Psychologically, photograph albums provide dence of the refinement and culture of the another mode of constructing home, beyond inmates.... The wife had been reared in the that of an artifact, working on a variety of older states, as shown by the neat and taste­ levels, ranging from the identification of a fully-arranged fixtures around the otherwise place as "home" in the pages of the album to gloomy earth walls .... the sharing of the album and its constructed A neat polished shelf, supported by pins associations with friends and family. The driven into the walls, contained the holiday placement of images of the new landscape, of gift books, album, and that indispensable the new home, in the family albums represents household treasure, the family Bible.76 a more intellectual adoption of place. People take photographs of landscapes they iden­ The visitor's reaction to the dugout is an inter­ tify with and want to remember, just as they esting set of contrasts. On one hand we have photograph and "keep" individuals they wish the organ, neat polished shelf, book, album, to claim a connection to, just as names are and Bible, all "evidence of the refinement entered into family Bibles.79 Their placement 120 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2008 in albums is an act of preservation and identifi­ pictures and they were good. Then walked cation. In the case of pictures of home, it places over to Carrie's place.83 the new home in the context of the family and its interests, often juxtaposed with the "old" Marilyn Motz has documented the use of cam­ home.8o It may even be labeled as "home": this eras by midwestern women to record and com­ naming or identification process is part of the municate the details of their environment. Prior process of constructing place, calling a place to widespread use of cameras, women would into being.81 However, in my sample of Plains attempt to describe their new western homes albums, I did not find such a juxtaposition of in letters to friends and loved ones, adding old and new homes, just the documentation of wallpaper samples or snippets of fabric to illus­ the Plains homes they constructed. Additional trate their descriptions. Photographs allowed images of the home landscape serve to further women a means of accurately capturing their reinforce and define the sense of place, espe­ new homes.84 Women documented the interior cially if the family members are photographed as well as the exterior of the homes they were with it. These images can range from interior creating (Figs. 1 and 4). By sharing these photo­ shots displaying living areas to exterior shots graphs, they reinforced their own ties to a place, placing the home in the context of the physical as well as encouraged others to connect the environment. "homemaker" to the place. Much of the study As the family constructs the home and out­ of photograph albums focuses on women as the buildings, plants trees, breaks sod, participates creators; however, the Plains albums I used in in the organization of churches and schools, this study were created by both men and women, they are constructing and shaping their envi­ although women were the only ones to include ronment, strengthening and literally building interior shots.85 But it is not just the photo­ ties to the landscape. Photographs of this pro­ graphs of the home that are significant, it is the cess serve to establish a form of "authorship" capturing of their lives lived in this location, of the landscape.82 It is a recognition of the "the presence, habits, and effects of spouses, changes individuals can make on the land, the children, parents, and companions."86 molding of a "raw" landscape into a "finished" Finally, albums serve as memory and docu­ product. Grace Jacobsen's diary, dating from mentation of the homemaking _process. Many 1912, describes how a young woman home­ of the people who moved to the Plains in the steader documented her "homemaking": later booms, such as Grace, came with the idea of homesteading to make a little money August 21, Wednesday and have an adventure. "Snapshots" captured Papa and Frank, Pat, Richard and Harry images from their "adventures" for viewing all worked on my house. Auntie, Ma and I later, serving as a record of their experience. took dinner down to them and took some People want to remember the "good old days," pictures. Then Carrie and I cleaned up and of old friends and old landscapes that no longer baked and Mama and Auntie went over to exist. These are generally "good memories" Carrie's place .... and seldom capture more negative experiences. People want to remember and be remembered August 29, Thursday as successful and happy.87 Richard Chalfen Got up quite early. After breakfast took writes: some more pictures. Then went home, picked some choke cherries, lost my Kodak on the In a sense, we can think of an album (or way home, went back and found it. Carrie photographic collection in general) as a and I shocked Grain after dinner. It began storehouse, a holding bin, or even a filing raining so we had to quit. We darned stock­ system for views and memories of the past. ings and made Jelly, after supper developed Indeed, one common response people give CONSTRUCTING A HOME ON THE RANGE 121

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FIG. 4. "Sitting Room-Roberts Ranch." Elizabeth Roberts Collection, State Historical Society of North Dakota, Bismarck (0302-Album 2-p166).

for making snapshots is "the preservation of their home, which was also their mission on memories."88 Fort Berthold, and their place in the structure, literally with portraits of the family in the Albums are undoubtedly a component of the home and of their travels around the reserva­ homemaking process. But the questions still tion, their home landscape. remain: How did people who made a home on The fact that we even have photographs to the Plains see the Plains? And in what ways do examine suggests their role in homemaking. In their albums reflect their "views" of the "home the few images of Plains home interiors that are on the Plains?" available, photographs are visible on the walls The photographs taken by Plains settlers of the areas designated as parlors. Although in serve to document their ties in this new place, the case of Grace (Fig. 1) the "parlor" is only ties that were both physical as well as personal. a corner, there is an attempt to have an area The most obvious are the homes. Ed Kopac, to receive guests. Parlors were constructed to a Nebraska-raised son of Czech immigrants, receive and entertain guests and represented documented his homes, such as the Okaton, a formal view of the family to the public. South Dakota, homestead he shared with his Photographs were an important aspect of the brothers (Fig. 5). Pauline Shoemaker, a woman "formal family view" constructed in parlor homesteader in North Dakota, captured her furnishings, with photographs and photograph "claim house" (Fig. 6). Grace Binks Price, a albums available for the visitors to view.89 woman homesteader in Montana, captured her While we cannot "see" photographs albums in claim shanty and the homes of other home­ this photograph, but just the photographs on steaders (Fig. 1). The Hall family documented the walls, the album is available for us to see. 122 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2008

FIG. 5. "On our homestead at Okaton S.D." Ed Kopac album, Montana Historical Society, Helena (PAC 81-65, page 8).

Not only was it constructed, but it still exists, her sisters who seemed to have followed her to valued enough to be kept over the years and Montana. Pauline's photographs also capture donated to the Montana Historical Society a changing social landscape. She moves to where it might be preserved for future genera­ North Dakota to homestead, socializes with tions as well as used for scholarship. the neighbors, including the Crowley family, Through "community" images, it is possible and eventually marries one of the Crowley to "view" the social circle of Plains settlers. boys. Grace and Pauline both portrayed themselves Community extended beyond immediate as part of a community, with photographs of neighbors and family to the civic structures with neighbors and friends and their homes and which they were involved, especially the schools land, along with images of their own homes and churches. In a landscape where settlers and family, documenting the ties between have no history, and may not have close family, them and their locale. In Grace's photograph social structures replace family, providing a sup­ album, it is possible to observe a shift in her port network to share joys and sorrows. Plains community, as her social landscape changes. immigrants tended to document extensively She begins homesteading with friends, but their community and its development, from they only appear in the first half of the album, the construction of churches and schools to replaced in the second half of the album by special events. Elizabeth Roberts documented CONSTRUCTING A HOME ON THE RANGE .123

FiG. 6. "The D.A.'s and Pauline's claim house." Pauline Shoemaker album, Sheila Robinson Family Collection, State Historical Society of North Dakota, Bismarck (0196-126). 124 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2008

FIG. 7. "Harvesting." Panorama, Elizabeth Roberts Collection, State Historical Society of North Dakota, Bismarck (0003-860). Note: This is a loose photograph from the Roberts Collection and not from one of her photograph albums. the schools she helped found in Slope County, celebration and promotional event. It would North Dakota, as well as the teachers who were have been hard to miss the booster slogan of brought in. While her primary concern was her "Mott the Spot." The "spot" on the banner is own children's education, other children were to echoed in "spots" or targets on the building benefit from her work. on the right edge of the photograph. We are Business was another aspect of life that visually being shown "the Spot." For Trousdale, Plains photographers documented. Pauline Mott was the spot, for it was the center of his and Ed photographed and represented in business interests and even the center of his their albums their bu'siness ventures. Pauline, world. The livelihoods of Trousdale and other a schoolteacher, depicts her schoolhouse and Plains businessmen, as well as their lifestyle, students as well as her "claim house," although are tied to place and their interactions with the for a while they were one in the same. Ed has landscape, both "domesticated" and wild. From images of his farming ventures in Nebraska, schools and churches to towns and communi­ South Dakota, and Montana as well as the ties, all these social landscape developments Holt machinery he and his brother Emil sold. were documented by Plains photographers, Elizabeth took photographs of the Percheron capturing the evolving social and physical horses her family raised on their ranch. There landscape. are numerous examples of Plains farmers Many Plains immigrants also attempted to documenting their harvests or their livestock capture the wild landscapes, the "undomes­ in images that appear to be right out of the ticated" shortgrass and tallgrass prairies, that promotional literature (Fig. 7). compose part of their personal landscapes. By Small-town businessmen such as Robert "wild landscapes" I mean those classic wide­ Trousdale of Mott, North Dakota, documented open Plains wilderness images with not an iota their businesses and their cities, often serv­ of human presence, conveying a sense of time­ ing as civic boosters of their communities. lessness and immense space. While these wild "Welcome to Mott the Spot" reads a banner in landscapes can be difficult to "capture," many an image from Trousdale's photograph album, Plains immigrants documented them. Pauline's celebrating the arrival of two railroads in Mott landscapes are nearly lost in her medium of small (Fig. 8). The arrival of the railroads was a sig­ snapshots, but she still attempted to capture nificant event for the people of Mott, connect­ them. Ed's large-format camera captures beauti­ ing it to the rest of the country. The railroad's ful scenic images of wild lands, photographed arrival was also an occasion for community for their visual appeal, although also perhaps gatherings and celebrations as well as a city for memory. Ed goes further and combines, in CONSTRUCTING A HOME ON THE RANGE 125

FIG. 8. The barbecue held on arrival of two railroads at Matt, ND 1910. Robert Trousdale album, State Historical Society of North Dakota, Bismarck (OOOl-53-p13) .

a single photograph album, images of scenic images to professional photography, Plains pho­ beauty from around the American West with tographers documented their experiences with images of the Badlands, placing them into the the "wild" landscape. context of the American West and into the From the range of "wild" Plains landscape national landscape (Fig. 9). Elizabeth Roberts images taken by settlers, the majority appear to obtained an early panoramic camera and used be attempting to capture their experiences of it to document her landscape of western North living on the Plains. While few had the luxury Dakota, despite having little to no background of a panoramic or large-format camera, there in photography. Panoramic cameras were and are ample snapshots that attempt to capture still are a bit of a rarity and are difficult to use. the Plains. It is nearly impossible to judge why Roberts managed to master panoramic images they documented these lands, except perhaps and used them to great effect (Fig. 10). In from clues in the captions: it may have been many ways, panoramic images are the ultimate their visual appeal, for memory, or perhaps to means of capturing the Great Plains landscape, represent the "before" to their "after." Roberts's combining in a ISO-degree image both earth use of the caption "Badlands Scenery" (Fig. 10) and sky. Whatever the means, from "snapshot" suggests a positive view of the Badlands, while 126 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2008

FIG. 9. "(Victory) Cheering their comrade." Ed Kopac album, Montana Historical Society, Helena (PAC 81- 65, page 22). Note the small figures waving from the highest peak.

Kopac's "Victory" (Fig. 9) suggests pride in con­ creation of the rising communities. By taking quering (by climbing) this landscape. These and keeping photographs of this process, the "wild" landscapes cover the spectrum from photographers are claiming as their own this spectacular Badlands formation to the classic landscape and acknowledging their roles as flat open spaces of the Plains. There seems to creators and shapers of landscape, as if to say "I be no aspect of the Plains landscape that was made this," as in the example of Grace Binks left undocumented, even the very flattest of Price with her "land."9o As a result, there are the open Plains without any visible presence of available amateur photographs of the processes humans, except perhaps the photograph itself associated with settling the Plains, such as (as in "Grace's Land"). The wide-open Plains sod breaking, home building, and establishing were part of immigrants' Plains-viewing, and schools or churches. They also portrayed the they did not appear to flinch from attempting open spaces and the rough "badlands," often to capture it, even going out of their way to identifying the features by name, documenting portray it in their photographs. the full range of Plains landscapes, all in a posi­ Plains people took great pride in their tive vein. Keeping with the celebratory nature transformation of the landscape. The pho­ of photographs, few if any images could be tographs of the Great Plains during the identified as negative-no images of drought, period of settlement document this process, of failed crops, of blowing dust, although recording the roles individuals played in the this may reflect the climate at the time the CONSTRUCTING A HOME ON THE RANGE 127

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photographs were taken. Plains immigrants it is a smaller community than we imagine: reveled in their roles as participants in the occasionally it is possible to see the overlap in American dream: they were not only making the albums. For example, Elizabeth has photo­ a place for themselves but also participating graphs of Nell Crowley, Pauline's sister-in-law, in the making of America. They shaped some in two of her albums. Nell was a teacher at the portion of the land as they envisioned it, and Slope County school that Elizabeth helped they photographed themselves doing it as they establish. Ed Kopac included a photograph of wished, thus shaping the land as well as their the Eaton Ranch in Wyoming in his album memory of it. Nowhere is this better illustrated (the Eatons moved from North Dakota to than in the photographs of Ed Kopac, the son Wyoming in 1903). For the most part, life on of Czech immigrants. While we do not see the Plains is portrayed as good, with hardly a him establishing community ties, the family hint of negativity. This may be a reflection of stands out clearly, as does the appreciation of outlook, of album construction, or of a boom the American landscape. We are shown the period in Plains agriculture. In many ways, the marks that he and his family were making albums echo the positive image of the Plains on the American landscape, from their farms found in booster literature. As settlers learned to the figures posed in the Badlands, literally how to work with the land, grew familiar with documenting their victory over nature.91 Plains species and the cycle of seasons, devel­ The narrative constructed in Plains photo­ oped memories in this place, they chronicled graph albums captures the transformation of their experiences through devices such as dia­ the land and the self. These albums, created by ries or photograph albums. They captured the individuals for their own use and to share with practice and the process of homemaking on the friends and family, cover the accomplishments Plains, the "diverse ways people 'do' and feel and experiences of those living on the Plains. home ... the dynamic processes and transac­ There is no single storyline to the albums; tions that transform a 'dwelling unit . .. into a there is no clear-cut beginning and ending to home in the context of everyday life."'93 Their them. Rather, they present a documenting of albums preserve a sense of a well-lived life, full the ins and outs of life over a period of time, of "memorable" moments, connecting these what might be termed "habitual narratives."92 individuals to a place and a community over There is a sense of the passage of time, a sense a period of time,94 Albums played a powerful of action, and of central players or actors. And role, providing visual evidence, visual truth, of 128 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2008 the changes brought about in the land and in photograph by Ed of his South Dakota home­ individuals. stead at night (but not included in his album) illustrates the chapter on homesteading experi­ PHOTOGRAPHS AND ALBUMS AND THE ences in After the West Was Won: Homesteaders NATIONAL NARRATIVE and Town-Builders in Western South Dakota, 1900-1917.100 In this way, the photographs Now I "pan out" from viewing these albums taken by Pauline, Elizabeth, and Ed are more on an individual and a Plains level and think than just an individual's perspective on his in terms of a national narrative: "The family or her life, but represent the "settlement" of album represented genealogical and national the Plains, that is, "homemaking" on a large heritage-it became a social and historical scale. Through their tales and photographs, document of lineage and spatial belonging."95 they contribute to the collective memory of These albums represent both an artifact of an the community, recalling the land as it used to actual experience and a symbol of American be, the larger-than-life personalities who haunt experience on the Plains. Over time, as the it, and the changes that have occurred in their oral narrative is lost, they shift from the actual lifetimes, creating a new landscape of their and real to the symbolic, representing a funda­ united memories and images. mental American experience of homemaking Albums as objects that embody unity and on the frontier.96 community over time continue into the present. The photographs of Pauline, Elizabeth, Barbara Allen has documented "Homestead and Ed have taken on a new life, embodying Reunions" in Oregon that highlight the role Plains life and experiences and the expan­ of photography and photograph albums in sion of America westward. Several of Pauline's constructing and reconstructing place connec­ photographs appear in Land in Her Own Name, tions.101 Allen described the events of a particu­ exemplifying the experiences of women home­ lar reunion: people huddling over photograph steaders in North Dakota, as well as in a family albums spread over card tables; the "three-foot­ history written by one of Pauline's daughters.97 long photograph of the Fort Rock Valley in the As illustrating women homesteaders, Pauline's mid-191Os" taped to one wall, setting the scene; photographs are viewed as representative of the and the children and grandchildren of home­ experience of homesteading in North Dakota. steaders making a pilgrimage to homestead sites Elizabeth's photographs have also been used to take snapshots, "carefully framed to capture to illustrate women's experiences in the West: an image of the homestead site as it appeared in an image of her daughter Ella pumping water old photographs, even though there are few vis­ was used on the cover of Home on the Range: ible remains of buildings, windmills, wells, and A Culinary History of the American West.98 fences that the homesteaders constructed.,,102 Elizabeth's snapshot of Ella takes on new worth While the event they are commemorating took as an engaging image of a young woman on the place in the early part of this century, they are Plains, rather than a sentimental picture of Ella. tied to the place, to home, through memories Ironically, this image does not appear in any and photographs, creating new memories and of Elizabeth's albums. Elizabeth's images have photographs tied to a place they can no longer been used to represent the Badlands landscape call home. in books such as After Barbed Wire, "a pictorial history of the Homestead Rush into the north­ VISUAL PLAINS PLACE CONSTRUCTION ern Great Plains, 1900-1919," and Slope Saga, a AND ATTACHMENT history of Slope County, North Dakota.99 No longer tied to Elizabeth's experiences, they are Edith Ammons Kohl describes the transfor­ viewed as indicative of the landscape and the mation that occurred when she and her sister experiences at the turn of the last century. A homesteaded in western South Dakota in 1907: CONSTRUCTING A HOME ON THE RANGE 129

For Edith and Ida Mary Ammons, adjust­ changes were observed and documented-sod ment began when their box of possessions makes way for crops, buildings come and go, arrived from St. Louis. They cleaned the trees grow, people grow older-but the basic shack and used their rugs and pictures from landform does not change. Only an individu­ home to make it familiar. Gradually, their al's perception of it might change. sense of belonging expanded outdoors. Through the photographs taken by immi­ "Even against our will," Edith remembered, grants to the Plains we can "witness" the "the bigness and peace of the open spaces process of establishing "home" as well as the were bound to soak in.... We could not process of learning Plains-viewing. We can but respond to air that was like old wine. glimpse the landscape and lives experienced ... Never were moon and stars so bright." by these people as they have "written" it. We After a short time on the claim, their vision can view the claiming of space, the claiming "gradually adjusted itself to distance," and of territory. We can observe the imprinting of the sisters could pick out other shacks on the Plains upon the eyes and lives of the pho­ neighboring claims. Other homesteaders tographers as well as the Plains immigrants. heard of their arrival and dropped in to Each collection of photographs reflects the visit. "Almost without being aware of it we unique experiences of individuals and families ceased to feel that we had left St. Louis." on the Plains. Through multiple Plains collec­ Edith wrote. "It was St. Louis which was tions, we can begin to explore the full range of receding from us, while we turned more and Plains lives and landscapes and see how they more toward the new country, identified documented their lives and their homes. While ourselves with it."103 some settlers were thwarted by the negative aspects of Plains living, and some just found As Edith and Ida Mary constructed their home, more opportunities in a different landscape, they learned "Plains-viewing," adjusting their others found a place on the Plains they could vision for the distances on the Plains. Their "view" as home. focus, both in life and in sight/site, was no longer their childhood home of St. Louis, but ACKNOWLEDGMENTS on the Plains as the new center of their world and life. First and foremost, lowe a great deal to the I believe photography facilitated the accep­ patience and cooperation of the photo archi­ tance of the Plains as home. Photography vists at the Montana Historical Society, the represents a pathway to new ways of seeing. To State Historical Society of North Dakota, the photograph, to act as a photographer, requires South Dakota State Historical Society, and the photographer to step back and see the scene the Wyoming State Archives. Thank you all. before them from a distance. The photographer I am.particularly indebted to Todd Strand, for­ must decide how they want to frame the image, merly of the State Historical Society of North what to include, what to exclude, and then to Dakota, who introduced me to the spectacular snap the shutter at the right moment. While Roberts collection when I just happened to ask less thought might go into point-and-shoot about women photographers. My work with cameras than large-format cameras, there is albums began with that moment-Strand with still that required process of pointing and an armful of Roberts albums and photographs. shooting. Thanks also for the continuous support from Through photography, the family is placed my family, who all assisted me with taking on the Plains, the image is kept (loose or in an album notes at one point or another: William album), it can be looked at and discussed again and Caroline Dando, Bill Dando, Lara Dando, and again, and the process can be repeated and my husband, Ty Sabin, and daughter, over and over again. Over time, landscape Emmaline. Finally, thanks to my colleagues at 130 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2008 the University of Nebraska at Omaha-Susan "Picturing Practices: Research through the Tourist Maher and John Price-for their thoughtful Gaze," Progress in Human Geography 21, no. 3 (1997): 359-73. comments on my drafts and continuing sup­ 7. Chalfen, "Interpreting Family Photography," port of my research. 215. 8. Cara Finnegan, "Recognizing Lincoln: Image NOTES Vernaculars in Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture," Rhetoric and Public Affairs 8, no. 1 (2005): 31-58. See 1. John A. Lomax, Cowboy Songs and Other pages 41-42. Frontier BaUads (New York: Macmillan, 1931), 39-40. 9. Chalfen, Turning Leaves; Motz, "Visual 2. Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains (New Autobiography." York: Grosset and Dunlop, 1931), 507. 10. Timothy Dow Adams, "Introduction: Life 3. George O'Har, "Where the Buffalo Roam: Writing and Light Writing; Autobiography and Walter Prescott Webb's The Great Plains," Tech­ Photography," Modern Fiction Studies 40, no. 3 (Fall nology and Culture 47 (January 2006): 156-63. See 1994): 459-92. page 159. 11. Catherine A. Lutz and Jane L. Collins, 4. This paper is based on my dissertation as well Reading National Geographic (Chicago: University as on additional archival research: Christina Dando, of Chicago Press, 1993). "Imaging the Plains: Photographs, Photograph 12. Chalfen, "Redundant Imagery," 109. Albums, and the Great Plains Landscape, 1890- 13. I was shocked to learn that some archives 1930" (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, take albums apart and file the images by subject! 2000). (Author's conversation with a photo archivist.) This 5. Richard Chalfen, "Redundant Imagery: Some practice was also noted in Chambers, "Family as Observations on the Use of Snapshots in American Place," 97. Culture," Journal of American Culture 4, no. 1 (1981): 14. It is hard to put an exact figure on the number 106-13; Chalfen, Turning Leaves: The Photograph of Plains photograph albums available in historical Collections of Two Japqnese American Families societies and other collections. In my experience, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, at state historical societies and universities, albums 1991); Chalfen, "Interpreting Family Photography as are generally held in the collections but the dif­ Pictorial Communication," in Image-Based Research: ficulty lies in locating them. In some cases, they A Sourcebook for Qualitative Researchers, ed. J. Prosser, have not been catalogued. The researcher is forced 214-34 (London: Falmer Press, 1998). to rely on a patient archivist who will listen to what 6. Marilyn F. Motz, "Visual Autobiography: the researcher is looking for and is willing to dig if Photograph Albums of Turn-of-the-Century Mid­ necessary. This, unfortunately, does not happen at western Women," American Quarterly 41 (March all locations. In Table 1, I list all the albums used 1989): 63-92; Motz, introduction to Making the for the study. More albums were located but not American Home: Middle-Class Women and Domestic included in this study for a variety of reasons. Material Culture, 1840-1940, ed. M. F. Motz and P. 15. The following studies are excellent sources Browne (Bowling Green OH: Bowling Green State for photographic methodology: Patricia C. Albers University Popular Press, 1988). Other works on and William R. James, "Tourism and the Changing amateur historic photography include Deborah Photographic Image of the Great Lakes Indians," Chambers, "Family as Place: Family Photograph Annals of Tourism Research 10 (1983): 123-48; Albums and the Domestication of Public and Albers and James, "The Dominance of Plains Private Space," in Picturing Place: Photography Indian Imagery on the Picture Postcard," in Fifth and the Geographical Imagination, 96-114 (London: Annual Plains Indian Seminar: In Honor of Dr. 1. B. Tauris and Co., 2003); Martha Langford, John C. Ewers, 1980, ed. G. P. H. Capture and G. Suspended Conversations: The Afterlife of Memory Ball (Cody, WY: Buffalo Bill Historical Center, in Photographic Albums (Montreal: McGill-Queen's 1984); Albers and James, "Travel Photography: University Press, 2001); and Madelyn Moeller, A Methodological Approach," Annals of Tourism "Ladies of Leisure: Domestic Photography in the Research 15 (1988): 134-58; Michael S. Ball and Nineteenth Century," in Hard at Play: Leisure Gregory W. H. Smith, Analyzing Visual Data, vol. in America, 1840-1940, ed. K. Grover (Amherst: 24 of Qualitative Research Methods, ed. J. V. Maanen University of Massachusetts Press). For examples (London: Sage Publications, 1992); Chalfen, Turning of work on recent amateur photography, see Gillian Leaves; Crang, "Picturing Practices"; George W. Rose, "Family Photographs and Domestic Spacings: Dowdall and Janet Golden, "Photographs as Data: A Case Study," Transactions of the Institute of British An Analysis of Images from a Mental Hospital," Geographers NS 28 (2003): 5-18, and Mike Crang, Qualitative Sociology 12, no. 2 (1989): 183-213; Julia CONSTRUCTING A HOME ON THE RANGE 131

Hirsch, Family Photographs: Content, Meaning, and Primer," Computers and Qualitative Data: Qualita­ Effect (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981); John tive Sociology 7, nos. 1-2 (1984): 126-47. Collier Jr. and Malcolm Collier, Visual Anthropology: 26. Robert Philip Weber, Basic Content Analysis Photography as a Research Method, revised and (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1990). expanded edition (Albuquerque: University of 27. Albers and James, "Travel Photography," 145. New Mexico Press, 1986); Eric Margolis, "Mining 28. Ian Hodder, "The Interpretation of Docu­ Photographs: Unearthing the Meanings of Historical ments and Material Culture" in Handbook of Photos," Radical History Review 40 (1988): 32-48; Qualitative Research, ed. N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Madelyn Moeller, "Photography and History: Using Lincoln (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Photographs in Interpreting Our Cultural Past," 1994),401. Journal of American Culture 6, no. 1 (1983): 3-17; 29. Ibid., 399. James R. Ryan, Picturing Empire: Photography and the 30. Keyan G. Tomaselli, "The Geography of Visualization of the British Empire (London: Reaktion Popular Memory in Post-Colonial South Africa: A Books, 1997). Study of Afrikaans Cinema," in Qualitative Methods 16. Martha Langford, Suspended Conversations: in Human Geography, ed. J. Eyles and D. M. Smith The Afterlife of Memory in Photograph Albums (Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble Books, 1988), 137. (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001), 31. Graham Allan and Graham Crow, introduc­ 128. tion to Home and Family: Creating the Domestic Sphere, 17. Catherine Kohler Riessman, Narrative Analy­ ed. G. Allan and G. Crow, 1-13 (London: Macmillan, sis, vol. 30 of Qualitative Research Methods (Newbury 1989); Alison Blunt, "Cultural Geography: Cultural Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1993). Geographies of Home," Progress in Human Geography 18. William Cronon, "A Place for Stories: Nature, 29, no. 4 (2005): 505-15; Carole Despres, "The History, and Narrative," Journal of American History Meaning of Home: Literature Review and Directions 78, no. 4 (1992): 1347-76. See pages 1367-69. for Future Research and Theoretical Development," 19. Jan Baetens and Mireille Ribiere, "The Journal of Architectural and Planning Research 8, no. 2 Calaceite Conference on Photo Narrative," History (Summer 1991): 96-115; James S. Duncan and David of Photography 19, no. 4 (1995): 314-15. See page 314. Lambert, "Landscapes of Home," in A Companion to 20. Amy W. Loomis, "Kodak Women: Domestic Cultural Geography, ed. J. Duncan, N. Johnson, and Contexts and the Commercial Culture of Photog­ R. Schein, 382-403 (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, raphy, 1800s-1980s" (PhD diss., University of 2004); Shelley Mallett, "Understanding Home: Massachusetts, Amherst, 1994). See page 198. A Critical Review of the Literature," Sociological 21. Andrew L. Walker and Rosalind Kimball Review 52, no. 1 (2004): 62-89; Yi-fu Tuan, "Home," Moulton, "Photo Albums: Images of Time and in Patterned Ground: Entanglements of Nature and Reflections of Self," Qualitative Sociology 12, no. 2 Culture, ed. S. Harrison, S. Pile, and N. Thrift, 164- (1989): 155-82. See page 157. 65 (London: Reaktion Books, 2004); J. Macgregor 22. Lutz and Collins, Reading National Geo­ Wise, "Home: Territory and Identity," Cultural graphic. Studies 14, no. 2 (2000): 295-310. 23. Daniel James and Mirta Zaida Lobato, "Family 32. Wise, "Home: Territory and Identity," 297. Photos, Oral Narratives, and Identity Formation: 33. Blunt, "Cultural Geography," 506. The Ukranians of Berisso," Hispanic American 34. Mallett, "Understanding Home," 64. Historical Review 84, no. 1 (2004): 5-36. See page 25. 35. Barbara B. Brown and Douglas D. Perkins, 24. Ibid. See also Douglas Harper, "On the "Di-sruptions in Place Attachment," in Place Authority of the Image: Visual Methods at the Attachment, ed. 1. Altman and S. M. Low (New Crossroads" in Handbook of Qualitative Research, York: Plenum Press, 1992),287. ed. N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln (Thousand 36. Ronald Rees, New and Naked Land: Making Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1994); and Joan M. the Prairies Home (Saskatoon, SK: Western Producer Schwartz, "'We make our tools and our tools make Prairie Books, 1988),47-48,51. us': Lessons from Photographs for the Practice, 37. H. Elaine Lindgren, Land in Her Own Name: Politics, and Poetics of Diplomatics," Archivaria 40 Women as Homesteaders in North Dakota (Fargo: (Fall 1995): 40-74. North Dakota Institute for Regional Studies, 1991), 25. Albers and James, "Travel Photography"; Ball 52-53. and Smith, Analyzing Visual Data; Udo Kelle, ed., 38. Rees, New and Naked Land, 58; Motz, intro­ Computer-Aided Qualitative Data Analysis (London: duction to Making the American Home, 1. Sage Publications, 1995); K. Krippendorff, Content 39. Sherry Boland Ahrentzen, "Home as a Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology (Beverly Workplace in the Lives of Women," in Place Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1980); Robert Weber, Attachment, ed. 1. Altman and S. M. Low (New "Computer-Aided Content Analysis: A Short York: Plenum Press, 1992), 116; Katherine Harris, 132 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2008

"Sex Roles and Work Patterns among Home­ Environmental Knowing: Theories, Research, and steading Families in Northeastern Colorado, 1873- Methods, ed. G. T. Moore and R. G. Golledge 1920," Frontiers 7, no. 3 (1984): 43-49; Laurie K. (Stroudsburg, PA: Dowden, Hutchinson and Ross, Mercier, "Women's Role in Montana Agriculture: Inc., 1976). Vaclav Havel in Summer Meditations 'You Had to Make Every Minute Count,'" Montana, (1992) writes, "What a person perceives as home the Magazine of Western History 38, no. 4 (1988): 50- (in the philosophical sense of the word) can be 61; and Paula M. Nelson, After the West Was Won: compared to a set of concentric circles, with one's Homesteaders and Town-Builders in Western South 'I' at the centre." Havel expands the circles out­ Dakota, 1900-1917 (Iowa City: University of Iowa ward from home to encompass town and country: Press, 1986),50. "All the circles of our home, indeed our whole 40. Nelson, After the West Was Won, 32. natural world, are an inalienable part of us, and 41. Craig Miner, West of Wichita: Settling the High an inseparable element of our identity." See Vaclav Plains of Kansas, 1865-1890 (Lawrence: University Havel, Summer Meditations, translated from the of Kansas Press, 1986), 133. Czech by Paul Wilson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 42. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Rock­ 1992),30-31. berg-Halton, The Meaning of Things: Domestic 50. Nelson, After the West Was Won, 70. Symbols and the Self (Cambridge: Cambridge 51. John C. Hudson, Plains Country Towns University Press, 1981), 133. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 43. Brown and Perkins, "Disruptions in Place 1985),28. Attachment," 280. 52. Tuan, "Home," 165. 44. Rees, New and Naked Land, 1988, 100, 107; 53. Catherine Delano Smith, "Cartography in Thomas F. Saarinen, Perception of the Drought Hazard the Prehistoric Period in the Old World: Europe, on the Great Plains, Department of Geography, the Middle East, and North Africa," in Cartography University of Chicago, Research Paper no. 106 in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the (Chicago, 1966); and Henry Nash Smith, "Rain Mediterranean, ed. J. B. Harley and D. Woodward, Follows the Plow: The Notion of Increased Rainfall 54-102, vol. 1 of The History of Cartography (Chicago: for the Great Plains, 1844-1880," Huntington Library University of Chicago Press, 1987). Quarterly (February 1947): .169-93. 54. Wise, "Home: Territory and Identity," 297. 45. Mallett, "Understanding Home," 79. Duncan 55. Ronald Rees, "In a Strange Land ... and Lambert, "Landscapes of Home," term this Homesick Pioneers on the Canadian Prairie," "domestication of empire": "This involved the Landscape 26, no. 2 (1982): 1-9. See page 8. transference of a whole range of objects and ideas, 56. Julie Roy Jeffrey, '''There Is Some Splendid from architectural styles and plant material, to legal Scenery': Women's Responses to the Great Plains systems and aesthetic visions. The emphasis here is Landscape," Great Plains Quarterly 8 (Spring 1988): not on an untroubled projection of homespace ... 69-78. See page 71. imperial landscapes of home as a contested terrain 57. Rees, New and Naked Land, 37-40. rather than a confident imposition" (390). 58. Jeffrey '''There Is Some Splendid Scenery,'" 73. 46. Frances Reeder Eddy, "The Reeders and 59. Rees, New and Naked Land, 156. Eddys Stake Their Claims in Custer," in Pioneer 60. Brown and Perkins, "Disruptions in Place Stories of Custer County, Nebraska, contributed by Attachment," 290. more than one hundred present and former residents of 61. Susan Sontag, On Photography (New York: Custer County, ed. E. Purcell (Broken Bow, NE: E. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977), 8-9. R. Purcell, publisher, 1936), 51-53. 62. John R. Stilgoe, "Popular Photography, 47. Kevin Lynch, "Some References to Orien­ Scenery Values, and Visual Assessment," Landscape tation," in Image and Environment: Cognitive Journal 3, no. 2 (1984): 111-22. See pages 116-17. Mapping and Spatial Behavior, ed. R. M. Downs and 63. Kenneth Helphand, "The Bicycle Kodak," D. Stea (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, Environmental Review 4, no. 3 (1981): 24-33. See 1973),303; Yi-fu Tuan, "Language and the Making page 29. of Place: A Narrative-Descriptive Approach," 64. Mark Boekelman, "The Letters of Jane Annals of the Association of American Geographers Aberson, Everyday Life on the Prairies during the 81, no. 4 (1991): 684-96. Depression: How Immigration Turns Conservatives 48. Donald Griffin, "Topographical Orientation," into Social Democrats," in Dutch Immigration in Image and Environment: Cognitive Mapping and to North America, ed. H. Ganzevoort and M. Spatial Behavior, ed. R. M. Downs and D. Stea, 296-99 Boekelman, 111-29 (Toronto: Multicultural History (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1973),296. Society of Ontario, 1983). See page 113. 49. Ann S. Devlin, "The 'Small Town' Cognitive 65. Jeffrey '''There Is Some Splendid Scenery,'" Map: Adjusting to a New Environment," in 70; Crang, "Picturing Practices," 361. CONSTRUCTING A HOME ON THE RANGE 133

66. Bradley H. Baltensperger, "Newspaper Images 78. Divya Tolia-Kelly, "Locating Processes of of the Central Great Plains in the Late Nineteenth Identification: Studying the Precipitates of Re­ Century," Journal of the West 19, no. 2 (April 1980): memory through Artefacts in the British Asian 64-70, see page 64; John E. Miller, "The Way They Home," Transactions of the Institute of British Saw Us: Dakota Territory in the Illustrated News," Geographers 29, no. 3 (2004): 314-29. South Dakota History 18, no. 4 (1988): 214-44. 79. Langford, Suspended Conversations, 92. 67. Jan Blodgett, Land of Bright Promise: Adver­ 80. Motz, "Visual Autobiography," n. tising the Texas Panhandle and South Plains, 1870- 81. Tuan, "Language and the Making of Place." 1917 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1988); 82. Motz, introduction to Making the American David L. Caffey, "We Have the Land; Now for the Home, 5-6; Marwyn S. Samuels, "The Biography People: Boosterism in Frontier West Texas," Permian of Landscape: Cause and Culpability," in The Historical Annual 21 (1981): 49-57; John R. Gold, Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes, ed. D. W. "Locating the Message: Place Promotion as Image Meinig (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979). Communication" in Place Promotion: The Use of 83. Lindgren, Land in Her Own Name, 139. Publicity and Marketing to Sell Towns and Regions, ed. 84. Motz, "Visual Autobiography," n; Angel J. R. Gold and S. V. Ward (Chichester: John Wiley Kwolek-Folland, "The Elegant Dugout: Domesticity and Sons, 1994), see pages 30-31. Not all immigrants and Moveable Culture in the United States, 1870- found the Plains as the booster literature promised. 1900," Women's Studies 25, no. 2 (1984): 21-37. See A Dutch immigrant commented: "People from all page 25. over Europe had been cheated" (201), quoted in Rob 85. Motz, "Visual Autobiography"; Rose, "Family Kroes, "Migrating Images: The Role of Photography Photographs and Domestic Spacings"; and Tolia­ in Immigrant Writing," European Contributions to Kelly, "Locating Processes of Identification" 2004. American Studies 29 (1994): 189-204. Kroes goes on to 86. Wise, "Home: Territory and Identity," 299. acknowledge the immigrants also "produced and cho­ 87. Motz, "Visual Autobiography," 83. reographed" their own images for their own use and to 88. Chalfen, Turning Leaves, 198. send to distant relatives, grumbling about American 89. Loomis "Kodak Women," 77. cons while carrying out their own fictions. 90. Ibid., 150-51; Motz, introduction to Making 68. David Wrobel, Promised Lands: Promotion, the American Home, 1988,5-6; Samuels, "Biography Memory, and the Creation of the American West of Landscape." (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2002), 3. 91. Chalfen, Turning Leaves, In. 69. Elihu M. Gerson and M. Sue Gerson, "The 92. Riessman, Narrative Analysis, 18. Social Framework of Place Perspectives," in Environ­ 93. Mallett "Understanding Home," 79. mental Knowing: Theories, Research, and Methods, ed. 94. Chalfen, Turning Leaves, 198. G. T. Moore and R. G. Golledge (Stroudsburg, PA: 95. Chambers, "Family as Place," 105. Dowden, Hutchinson and Ross, Inc., 1976). 96. Orla Cronin, "Psychology and Photographic 70. Brown and Perkins, "Disruptions in Place Theory," in Image-Based Research: A Sourcebook Attachment," 288. for Qualitative Researchers, ed. J. Prosser, 69-83 71. James E. Paster, "Advertising Immortality by (London: Falmer Press, 1998). Kodak," History of Photography 16, no. 2 (1992): 135- 97. Lindgren, Land in Her Own Name, 119, 235- 39, see page 138; and Loomis, "Kodak Women," 1. 36, 239; Sheila Robinson, The Crowleys of Knife n. Loomis, "Kodak Women," 40-42. River Ranch and Elm Creek Ranch (Garrison, NO: 73. For example, before-and-after images appear BHG, Inc., 1997). in Wm. H. Brown Company, Out They Go: Pros­ 98. Cathy Luchetti, Home on the Range: A perous North Dakota (Chicago: Wm. H. Brown Culinary History of the American West (New York: Company, 1909). Villard Books, 1993). 74. Chambers, "Family as Place," 100. 99. Marie Peterson Macdonald, After Barbed Wire 75. Robert Taft, Photography and the American (Glendive, MT: Frontier Gateway Museum, 1963); Slope Scene: A Social History, 1839-1889 (New York: Saga (Amidon, NO: Slope Saga Committee, 1976). Macmillan, 1942), 138; Shirley T. Wajda, "The 100. Nelson, After the West Was Won, 25. Artistic Portrait Photograph," in The Arts and the 101. Barbara Allen, "Landscape, Memory, and the American Home, 1890-1930, ed. J. H. Foy and K. A. Western Past," Montana, the Magazine of Western Marling (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, History 39, no. 4 (1989): 71-75. 1994), 168. 102. Ibid., 74. 76. Evan J. Jenkins, The Northern Tier: or, 103. Nelson, After the West Was Won, 34. See Life among the Homestead Settlers (Topeka: G. W. Edith Eudora Kohl, Land of the Burnt Thigh (St. Martin, 1880). Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1986). 77. Langford, Suspended Conversations, 24. First published in 1938.