Take Three More Recent Books
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Take Three more recenT books Minnesota’s Geologist: The Life of Newton Horace Winchell How Could You Do This? 50 Years by Sue Leaf (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2020, of Property- Tax- base Sharing in 280 p., Cloth, $29.95). Newton Horace Winchell (1839–1914) ven- Minnesota by Paul Gilje (St. Paul, tured with his crew throughout the state as head of the Minnesota MN: Center for Policy Design, 2021, Geological and Natural History Survey, charting the prehistory 192 p., Paper, $9.99). Policy wonks of the region, its era of inland seas, its volcanic activity, and will concur with the word “drama” its several ice ages, laying the foundation for the monumental used by the publisher to describe the five-volume Geology of Minnesota. Winchell grew up in North half- century history of Minnesota’s East, New York, near Winchell Mountain, named for the family property tax- base sharing law (more who lived in the area for almost a century. Maturing from a 15-year-old schoolteacher popularly known as the metropolitan who knew nothing about rocks to a 17-year-old who moved himself to Ann Arbor, fiscal disparities law) that began in Michigan, for higher education, Winchell at age 25 dedicated himself to geological 1968 with extensive controversy and scientific inquiry. His passionate and adventurous life story, told for the first time extends to the present day. A group of by environmental historian Sue Leaf, guides readers through the geologic history of bipartisan legislators created a more the state. Winchell strove for his work to be accessible to the nonprofessional and equitable way for municipalities of expanded his efforts to include mentoring young geologists, founding the American varying levels of wealth to compete Geological Society, and being the founding editor of American Geologist, the first jour- for tax revenues. nal for professional geologists. Minnesota: The Revival State: Hazel Belvo: A Matriarch of Art by Julie L’Enfant (Edina, MN: Moves of God 1860–1960 by Dale Afton Press, 2020, 256 p., Cloth, $49.95). Adorned with beautiful Gilmore (Lulu.com, 2020, 502 p., artwork on nearly every page, this book details Hazel Belvo’s life Paper, $27.98). Told from an explicitly of art, relationships, and feminist teachings. Through more than evangelical/Pentecostal perspective, 35 interviews with Belvo (b. 1934), art historian Julie L’Enfant this annotated history contains valu- recounts the contributions of an iconic woman in American able information and photographs cultural history. Belvo’s vast oeuvre explores spirituality, nature, of the people and places associated and the feminine psyche. She is best known for her probing with Christian spiritual awakenings studies of Spirit Little Cedar Tree, the sacred Ojibwe site in north- in Minnesota in the century following ern Minnesota, and has created over 400 works of this spiritual place. Readers will be the Civil War. transported across the United States and Europe through Belvo’s stories, teachings, and art. The book’s striking red cover teases the vast body of artwork found inside— Wolf Island: Discovering the including many unpublished colorful illustrations, black-and-white drawings, and Secrets of a Mythic Animal by captivating photographs. David Mech with Greg Breining (Min- neapolis: University of Minnesota The Sower and the Seer: Perspectives on the Intellectual Press, 2020, 200 p., Cloth, $24.95). In History of the Midwest edited by Joseph Hogan, Jon K. Lauck, the late 1940s, a small pack of wolves Paul Murphy, Andrew Seal, and Gleaves Whitney (Madison: Wis- crossed the ice of Lake Superior to consin Historical Society Press, 2021, 416 p., Cloth, $24.95). The 22 the island wilderness of Isle Royale essays gathered for this valuable collection examine individual National Park, creating a perfect thinkers, writers, and leaders as well as movements and ideas that laboratory for a long- term study shaped the intellectual history of the Midwest. Selected from top of predators and prey. Wolf Island papers presented at the annual Midwestern History Conference, recounts three extraordinary sum- these essays explore movements and ideas such as Progressive mers that David Mech spent while Era urban planning, rural school consolidation, women’s literary societies, Evan- a graduate student on the isolated gelical thought, and radical liberalism. Each contribution offers insight into and outpost of Isle Royale, tracking and understanding of the way the Midwest has shaped much of the American identity. observing wolves and moose on foot Readers can expect a close look at many interpretations of the region—be it as a and by airplane, and upending the frontier, a colonized space, a breadbasket, a crossroads, or a heartland—and see how common misperception of wolves as these stories work together in creating today’s Midwest. destructive killers. —Molly Landaeta, MNHS Press intern 242 MINNESOTA HISTORY The Journal of Otto Peltonen: A Finn- producing seasonal lists of well- reviewed exhibits at the Minnesota History Center. ish Immigrant Story by William Durbin books and started a reprint series and “Extraordinary Women” opened March (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota a memoir series. As MNHS member- 6, part of the celebration of women who Press, 2020, 176 p., Paper, $9.95). Young- ship and readership skyrocketed in the fought for equal rights before and after adult fictional portrait of the Finnish 1990s, Brookins oversaw the expansion the 1920 ratification of the Nineteenth immigrant experience in Minnesota of Minnesota History into a longer, more Amendment through political activism, during the early twentieth century—now beautifully designed magazine. She also education, and social justice work. It in paperback. Includes historical notes supervised a strong research department was developed in partnership with the and authentic photographs. that administered up to $60,000 in League of Women Voters. state- funded grants per year, supporting “Sinclair Lewis: 100 Years of Main Minnesota’s Natural Heritage: Second work that sometimes became articles Street” opens April 10, 2021, featuring Edition by John R. Tester, Susan M. or books. She continued in activities more than 300 items from the MNHS Galatowitsch, Rebecca A. Montgomery, related to her interests in music, history, collections, the Sinclair Lewis Founda- and John J. Moriarty (Minneapolis: Uni- and women’s issues after her retirement, tion, and other lenders. Lewis took on versity of Minnesota Press, 2021, 496 p., including coediting Kathleen Ridder’s many issues of his day employing his Cloth, $49.95). The definitive work on 2005 book Stories by Minnesota Women trademark style of realism, satire, and Minnesota’s natural history and ecology, in Sports: Leveling the Playing Field (North wit. His social critiques of American life updated and expanded to account for Star Press of St. Cloud). ring true today. Lewis is arguably the profound changes to the state’s natural most famous person to come out of Min- landscape over the past 25 years. MNHS transferred approximately nesota. His novels and short stories sold 115 acres of land, about half of the cur- millions, many were made into Holly- rent site, from the Lower Sioux Agency wood films, and in 1930 he was the first news and noTes historic site back to the ownership of the American to win the Nobel Prize in Liter- Lower Sioux Indian Community (LSIC) ature. The exhibit presents Lewis’s life in Jean Brookins, director of the Minne- on February 12, 2021. Minnesota and how he shaped— and was sota Historical Society Press from 1981 In 2017 the Minnesota Legislature shaped by— the state he loved. to 1997, died on January 17, 2021. Her approved the transfer of the land, which 32- year career at MNHS began in the late is adjacent to the LSIC’s tribal lands 1950s. With June Drenning Holmquist along the Minnesota River. MNHS will Letters she traveled the state to research and continue to own and manage the historic Curling lesson coauthor Minnesota’s Major Historic Sites: warehouse, interpretive trails, archaeo- A Guide (1963), a book that helped propel logical sites, and the visitor center. Since Readers and devoted curlers Rebecca Otten the creation of MNHS’s historic sites 2009 the LSIC has partnered with MNHS and Eric Bakken let us know that the photo network. She moved away for several to provide interpretive programming caption in the ad for MNopedia (Winter years, then returned to MNHS in 1967 and to manage the site. 2020–21, p. 208) was inaccurate. The cap- and became the Press’s managing editor. The Lower Sioux Agency is a place of tion, “Curler striking defensive position,” In 1981 she became director. great historic significance. It is located doesn’t ring true in any scenario, Otten writes. The man in front is a “skip” (team Brookins brought the Press’s pub- on both historical and contemporary leader). He is indicating with his broom lishing practices into the modern world, Dakota homeland along the Minnesota where he wants his teammate to aim the hiring its first marketing person and River Valley known as Cansa’yapi (where next rock. With his raised arm he is indicat- first editor from a university press, send- they marked the trees red) and is a site of ing which direction (“turn”) he wants his ing staff to academic conferences, and key events related to the US–Dakota War teammate to deliver the rock. Bakken notes revamping the order fulfillment process. of 1862. that the man in the rear is the skip for the The Press had been publishing books other team. He will watch the path of the occasionally, whenever they were ready. After a pause due to the pandemic, stone coming down the ice so he can get a Under her leadership, the Press began Spring 2021 brings resumption of new better feel for the conditions of the ice.