The Nebraska Federal Writers’ Project: Remembering Writers of the 1930s, Part 3B - Notes and Bibliography

Reference Notes

Rudolph Umland

German Immigrants

Nebraska Farm Boy

Broader Horizons

From Student to Hobo

Rudolph Umland, Scrapbook, Vol. 1, Rudolph Umland Papers and Archives, The Jane Pope Geske Heritage Room of Nebraska Authors, Lincoln City Libraries. Rudolph Umland, “Born in Nebraska,” Prairie Schooner, 16:3, Fall, 1942. “I was an imaginative introvert with an appetite for books and adventure.” Rudolph Umland to Lawrence Vendel, April 17, 1968, Umland Papers and Archives.

Meeting Lowry Wimberly

Rudolph Umland, “Lowry Wimberly and Others: Recollections of a Beerdrinker,” Prairie Schooner, 51:1, Spring, 1977, 17-50. On Mari Sandoz’s recollections Rudolph Umland, “Looking back at the Wimberly years,” 32-33. Unpublished MS in Umland vertical files, Heritage Room. Eiseley quoted in “Looking Back,” 33. The rest is in “Lowry Wimberly and Others,” except for the description of the Depression on the farm in Rudolph Umland, Scrapbooks, Vol. 1, 66.

Wimberly’s Ghost

Jerre Mangione, The Dream and the Deal: The Federal Writers’ Project 1935-1943, (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1972), 109ff, on Wimberly’s influence on the Nebraska Project. Wimberly compared with Thomas Hart Benton and others, Rudolph Umland, “L.C. Wimberly: A Book and a Memory,” Prairie Schooner, 40:4, Winter, 1966, 327. On the Schooner‘s program, Paul R. Stewart, The Prairie Schooner Story. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1955). “Nebraska, Oh yes…” Umland, “A Book” 326-7. Fascination with death, old beliefs, cynical, impact on students, all in Umland, “A Book,” 325-6. Umland’s friendship with Wimberly, Rudolph Umland, “Lowry Wimberly and Others: Recollections of a Beerdrinker,” Prairie Schooner, 51:1, Spring, 1977, 17-50, and Rudolph Umland, “The Ghost of Lowry Wimberly,” Prairie Schooner, 41:3, Fall, 1967, 325-338. Umland wrote “I never knew a man as well as I came to know Lowry Charles Wimberly and I doubt he ever knew anyone as well as he knew me.” in Rudolph Umland, “More Beerdrinking with Wimberly,” unpublished MS, Umland vertical file, The Jane Pope Geske Heritage Room of Nebraska Authors, Lincoln City Libraries. On Wimberly’s view of science and Dorothy Cook’s experience with him, Umland, “More,” 7-8. See Cook’s letter (her later married name was Meade), Dorothy Meade to Rudolph Umland, April 21, 1977 in Wimberly Letters file, Rudolph Umland Papers and Archives, The Jane Pope Geske Heritage Room of Nebraska Authors, Lincoln City Libraries. Cook/Meade wrote “I found baffling his characterization of scientists and humanists as mortal enemies…. How disappointed he was that Loren Eiseley decided to major in a science–anthropology. A gifted writer like that! Loren, of course, was just looking for a way to make a living.” Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, (London: Routledge, 1992), 124. Eiseley’s long drive with Wimberly, Loren Eiseley to Rudolph Umland, January 26, 1967, in Eiseley file, Umland Papers, Heritage Room. Eiseley’s surprise at the time, when Wimberly published his essay, Umland, “More,” 31. “Fear of dehumanized man…” in Rudolph Umland, “Looking Back at the Wimberly Years,” unpublished MS in Umland vertical file, Heritage Room, 10. Coincidences and ghosts, etc. Umland, “Looking Back,” 3ff. “Belief in Sin…” in Umland, “Ghost,” 329. Mari Sandoz’s “nemisis,” and Sandoz drawn to Crazy Horse story Helen Winter Stauffer, Mari Sandoz: Story Catcher of the Plains. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982), 47. On Sandoz telling Umland’s fortune, Umland, “Looking Back,” 31. Wimberly and the Eiseley’s Ouija board experiments, “Looking Back,” 5. Ghostly wanderings in Wimberly’s last years, Umland, “Ghost,” 334ff.

The Federal Writers’ Project

Jerre Mangione, The Dream and the Deal: The Federal Writers’ Project 1935-1943, (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1972). Jerrold Hirsch, Portrait of America: A Cultural History of the Federal Writers’ Project. (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003). Bill Stott, “Introduction,” Archie Hobson ed. Remembering America: A Sampler of the WPA American Guide Series, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985) 3-11. Mangione, The Dream and the Deal, 29-50, on the origins and early development of the Project. Hirsch, Portrait, on New Deal progressives' desire to reshape American identity and on the Projects departure from previous views of American folk culture, 1-24. Also Mangione on their concept of a “composite America,” 269-283. Mangione quoting various critics and Mumford, 351ff. John Steinbeck quoted in Stott, “Introduction,” 10.

Nebraska Beginnings

Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920’s (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997: Reprint of the 1931 Harper and Row edition). Allen wrote Only Yesterday early enough to observe trends that in a short time were obscured by radicalism. These were trends that shaped much of the most creative work done in the following decade. Jerre Mangione The Dream and the Deal on the surprising influence of regionalism, p. 49. Jerrold Hirsch, Portrait of America: A Cultural History of the Federal Writers’ Project. (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003) is a recent cultural and intellectual history of the Federal Project. Hirsch acknowledges the encouragement of, among others, the late Warren Susman. Susman’s striking intuitions about the period appear in “The Culture of the Thirties,” in Warren I. Susman, Culture as History. (New York: Pantheon, 1984). The discussion here follows Hirsch’s assessment of the crucial role of regionalism in the conception and execution of the Federal Writers’ Project. As Hirsch shows, regionalism’s origin was in a kind of disciplined cosmopolitanism. Hirsch brings to light Benjamin Botkin’s decisive role (Botkin’s Nebraska connections are discussed below) in shaping the idea into a guiding vision for the Federal Project. Christine Bold, The WPA Guides: Mapping America. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999, is more doubtful about regionalism’s value. Paul R. Stewart, The Prairie Schooner Story. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1955), titles his chapter 4 “Editorial Policy: Regionalism.” On the disillusionment of the 1920s and The Smart Set, as well as the change of spirit, Allen, Only Yesterday, chapter 4, “The Revolt of the Highbrows.” On Cather’s historical moment see Robert W. Cherney, “Nebraska 1883-1925: Cather’s Version and History’s,” in John J. Murphy et al, ed. Willa Cather: Family, Community and History, (Provo: Brigham Young University, 1990). On Louise Pound, Roger Welch, “Introduction,” in Roger Welsch, ed. A Treasury of Nebraska Folklore. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966), x-xiii. H.L. Mencken, The American Language. (New York: A.A. Knopf, 1936), vi. and H.L Mencken, The American Language. Supplement I, (New York: A.A. Knopf, 1936), vi. For a survey of regionalism, Hirsch, Portrait, 4-37, 82ff. Botkin quoted in Wikipedia article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_A._Botkin (accessed January 10, 2007). “Striking anomaly…” Mangione, The Dream and the Deal, 49, and on Botkin, and Botkin and Royce’s “composite America,” 269-283.

Circumventing A Crisis

Jerre Mangione, The Dream and the Deal: The Federal Writers’ Project 1935-1943, (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1972). Richard C. Witt, The WPA Federal Writers’ Project in Nebraska (Masters Thesis, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 1980). Witt and Mangione both treat the Sheehan case in detail. Witt, Thesis cites Umland as believing Sandoz was best suited for the job, and summarizes her experience, 27-8. On FERA, Witt, Thesis, 18-25. Rudolph Umland to Monte Penkower, May 28, 1968 in Nebraska Writers’ Project file, Rudolph Umland Papers and Archives, The Jane Pope Geske Heritage Room of Nebraska Authors, Lincoln City Libraries. Umland and Elizabeth Sheehan in Mangione, The Dream and the Deal, 111. Lawrence Morris to Rudolph Umland, March 10, 1936 in Nebraska Writers’ Project file, Umland Papers. On Sheehan as “allegedly” the former mistress, Mangione, The Dream and the Deal, 76; Witt, Thesis just calls her “a personal acquaintance,” 29. “Miss Sheehan discovered that my brother and I” in Umland to Penkower. Felton’s attempt to get rid of the whole problem in Witt, Thesis, 37-38. On Gable and Umland as a team, Mangione, The Dream and the Deal, 111-12.

Writers at Work

Jerre Mangione, The Dream and the Deal: The Federal Writers’ Project 1935-1943, (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1972). Richard C. Witt, The WPA Federal Writers’ Project in Nebraska (Masters Thesis, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 1980). Witt’s thesis is the most through investigation of the Nebraska Federal Writers’ Project. Witt interviewed Rudolph Umland and examined the records of the Nebraska Project in both the National Archives and at the Nebraska State Historical Society. Witt, page 42-44 describes employment at the Project and reductions in staffing. Umland described his experiences and work on the Lincoln Guidebook in Rudolph Umland, “On Editing WPA Guide Books,” Prairie Schooner 23:3 Summer, 1939, 160-169. On local reception of the Lincoln Guide, Rudolph Umland Scrapbook, Vol. 2, 32ff. in Rudolph Umland Papers and Archives, The Jane Pope Geske Heritage Room of Nebraska Authors, Lincoln City Libraries.

Nebraska Lore

Rudolph Umland, “On Editing WPA Guide Books,” Prairie Schooner 23:3 Summer, 1939, 160-169. Jerre Mangione, The Dream and the Deal: The Federal Writers’ Project 1935-1943, (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1972), 266 notes the lack of interest in folklore and derision in some states and the contrasting enthusiasm and success in Nebraska. Richard C. Witt, The WPA Federal Writers’ Project in Nebraska (Masters Thesis, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 1980), describes the decision to focus on folklore and pioneer days. On the “composite America” idea and see Mangione’s discussion of the views of Benjamin Botkin and Morton Royce in The Dream and the Deal 276, 278. On the informal community of Lincoln writers see Rudolph Umland, “Lowry Wimberly and others: Recollections of a Beerdrinker,” Prairie Schooner Vol. 51, No. 1, Spring, 1977. On Mari Sandoz’s recollections Rudolph Umland, “Looking back at the Wimberly years,” Unpublished MS in Umland vertical files, Heritage Room. Wimberly quoted and on Wimberly’s interest in and hopes for the project Umland, “Lowry Wimberly and others,” 29-31, and “As common as an old shoe,” 19. “I believe Mari must have read each issue of Prairie Schooner as soon as it appeared.” Rudolph Umland to Helen Stauffer, August 26, 1976 in Stauffer file, Umland Papers and Archives, The Jane Pope Geske Heritage Room of Nebraska Authors, Lincoln City Libraries. On “talk fests” at Sandoz apartment and how she could “chatter endlessly…” Umland, “Lowry Wimberly and others,” 41-2. The crisis at the Schooner and the letters sent by the Writers Project, 37. Mari Sandoz comments looking back at the Wimberly years and the 1930s, in Umland, “Looking Back,” 31 and in Rudolph Umland to Helen Stauffer, Oct. 28, 1982, in Stauffer file, Umland Papers. Morris quoted in Mangione, The Dream and the Deal, 61. Actually two different women employees of the Nebraska Project said virtually the same thing about the prospect of suicide. Interviews with Mrs. Robert Carlson and Ethel Schiable cited in Richard Witt’s Thesis, 100. J.H. Norris to Rudolph Umland, October 13, 1939 in Nebraska Writers’ Project file, Umland Papers and Archives. Second half of the depression, see Bill Stott, “Introduction,” 2 in Archie Hobson, ed. Remembering America: A Sampler of the WPA Guide Series, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985). The poetess, Rudolph Umland, “On Editing,” 162. Rudolph Umland, “Henry Richmond: Politician of the Old School,” Prairie Schooner, 25:3, Fall, 1941, 176-185. On Jake Gable, Rudolph Umland, “More Beerdrinking with Wimberly,” Unpublished MS in Heritage Room Vertical File, 20-25.

Weldon Kees and the Writers’ Project

Dana Gioia, “The Achievement of Weldon Kees,” Sequoia 23:2 Spring, 1979, 25-46. On Weldon Kees in Lincoln see Weldon Kees, Weldon Kees and the Midcentury Generation: Letters 1935-1955, edited and with commentary by Robert E. Knoll, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986), 19-33 and James Reidel, Vanished Act: The life and art of Weldon Kees, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003), 27-54. Reidell follows Kees wanderings from Chicago to Hollywood. Wimberly thought Kees needed to understand his heritage and that the work would be good “therapy” for the rootless Kees, Reidel, 50. On Kees’s dependence on his parents, Rudolph Umland to James Reidel, October 16, 1984, Rudolph Umland Papers and Archives, Archive, Kees file, The Jane Pope Geske Heritage Room of Nebraska Authors, Lincoln City Libraries. Umland’s first meeting Kees and Kees’s blindness to history, Rudolph Umland to James Reidel, Sept. 19, 1984. Kees file, Umland Papers. On putting Kees under Gable’s supervision, Umland to Robert Knoll, August 4, 1981. Kees file, Umland Papers. On Mari Sandoz’s observation, “He had exchanged his Communist philosophy for one almost fascist in nature.” Umland to Barbara C. Weber, Oct. 24, 1974. Kees file, Umland Papers. On what Wimberly, Eiseley and Kees had in common, Rudolph Umland, “Looking back at the Wimberly Years,” unpublished MS in Umland vertical file, copy of MS in NSHS Umland Collection. On the biography of Hart Crane and Art Bukin’s visit to the Kees house, Umland to Reidel, Sept. 19, 1984. On Kees as an aesthete and his suicide, Umland to Barbara C. Weber, Oct. 24, 1974. Kees file, Umland Papers.

Loren Eiseley and the Federal Writers’ Project in Nebraska

This account draws heavily on Gale E. Christianson, Fox at the wood’s edge: A biography of Loren Eiseley. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990, and Rudolph Umland’s letters to Christianson. On Eiseley’s lack of work experience and as a hobo: Umland to Gale Christianson, Dec. 11, 1984, March 4, 1985, April 29, 1985 and June 6, 1985 in The Gale Christianson Collection of Eiseley Research Materials, The Jane Pope Geske Heritage Room of Nebraska Authors, Bennett Martin Public Library, Lincoln, Nebraska. On how stunned Eiseley was at Wimberly’s response to the suggestion that he might marry Mabel Langdon, Christianson, p. 167. As Christianson recounts, (p. 388) Eiseley’s nephew called him an “escape artist,” but the term nicely sums up things he said about himself and what others, including Wimberly, knew about him. “I have given a record” Eiseley quoted in Christianson, p. 310. The long passage on the Firmament of Time is from Rudolph Umland, “Looking Back at the Wimberly Years,” unpublished MS, Heritage Room Vertical Files. Christianson on poetic truth and the “concealed essay” page 427. The summary of Eiseley’s outlook follows Andrew Angyal, “Loren Eiseley as an American Romantic Thinker,” Friends of Loren Eiseley Symposium paper, September 13, 1984, and, on redemption Robert Franke, “Loren Eiseley: Religious Scientist,” Zygon 19:1, March 1984 29-41. For the suggestion that the Plains environment mocks human efforts to make a permanent mark, see Ted Kooser, “Foreword,” in Roger Bruhn Dreams in Dry Places, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990). The closing quotation from Umland is once again from “Looking Back.”

Publications and Impact

On the struggle to get the guide published, and the poem “…only God can end the Guide,” Rudolph Umland, “On Editing WPA Guide Books,” Prairie Schooner 23:3 Summer, 1939, 160-169. Alan Boye, “Introduction to the new Bison Books Edition,” Nebraska: A Guide to the Cornhusker State Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979. See Douglas Brinkley, “Unmasking writers of the WPA,” New York Times, August 2, 2003, on William Least-Heat Moon and the Nebraska Guide. “Exceeded...” in Jerre Mangione, The Dream and the Deal: The Federal Writers’ Project 1935-1943, (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1972), 112. Mangione, 284 calls The Italians of Omaha “a grossly superficial account.” Also Richard C. Witt, The WPA Federal Writers’ Project in Nebraska (Masters Thesis, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 1980), 137ff on this and other failures. On the suppression of the Omaha Guide, Rudolph Umland to Monty Penkower, May 28, 1968 in Rudolph Umland Papers and Archives, The Jane Pope Geske Heritage Room of Nebraska Authors, Lincoln City Libraries, Nebraska Writers’ Project file. More on the the Nebraska Guide, the Omaha Guide and reception of the Nebraska Guide’s description of Omaha in Umland, “On Editing,” where Umland quotes the World Telegram reviewer Harry Hanson. On sponsorship as a problem, Umland in Editing and Richard Witt’s Thesis, 137-8. On “second vice-presidents” Umland’s letter to Penkower cited above. On the Dies committe and its attacks on the Writers’ Project and specifically on the Nebraska Guide, Umland, “On Editing,” Mangione, The Dream 3-26. “Most valuable contribution” also in Umland’s letter to Penkower. Welsch’s comments are from the introductions to the first two books mentioned. Witt, Thesis, 137, calls The Negroes of Omaha “paternalistic.” On Shucks and its influence, see Mangione, The Dream, 243. On the decade of writers, Rudolph Umland, “Tribute to ‘word-slingers’ of 1927-1936” Lincoln Journal Star, September 22, 1980.

Looking Back at the Federal Writers’ Project in Nebraska

Bernard A. Weisberger, “Reading, Writing, and History,” American Heritage 25:2, February, 1974, 98-100. (Review of Jerre Mangione, The Dream and the Deal: The Federal Writers’ Project 1935-1943). See “Nebraska Beginnings” above for references on regionalism. On Mari Sandoz in Lincoln, see Helen Winter Stauffer, Mari Sandoz: Story Catcher of the Plains (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982), 50-131. Paul R. Stewart, The Prairie Schooner story: A little magazine’s first 25 years. (Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 1955) describes Wimberly’s evolving view of regionalism in detail, 57-78. I used Stewart’s date of 1930, but the quotations are from Lowry Wimberly, “The New Regionalism,” Prairie Schooner, 6:3, Summer, 1932, 214-221. John Lukacs, Outgrowing Democracy: A History of the United States in the Twentieth Century. (Garden City: Doubleday, 1984), republished in a revised and enlarged edition as A New Republic, 2004, where Lukacs quotes Cluett on p. 393. All the quotations from Ted Kooser here are from his Journey to a Place of Work: A Poet in the World of Business (Fargo: Institute for Regional Studies, 1998). See Gioia’s essay on Kooser, “The Anonymity of the Regional Poet,” in Dana Gioia, Can Poetry Matter? (St. Paul: Greywolf Press, 1992). Perhaps Kooser has been touched by the magic of the Wimberly circle. Although Kooser spent only “one disastrous year,” (his published description) in graduate school at the University of Nebraska, he found a literary mentor in Wilbur Gaffney. Gaffney, one of “Wimberly’s boys” and a close friend of Rudolph Umland, too, taught in the English Department. Without a Ph.D., and refusing to pursue one, Gaffney himself was often an odd man out. He shared some of Wimberly’s quirks, including his bright editorial eye and intuition for literary talents. Kooser and Gaffney remained close, with Kooser serving as Gaffney’s literary executor at the older man’s death–Ted Kooser and Morrie Tuttle personal communications to Stephen Cloyd. Ted Kooser, “Lying for the Sake of Making Poems,” Prairie Schooner, 72:1 Spring, 1998, 5-8. “Life in a decentralized society…” is a quote from Claes Ryn, America the Virtuous: The Crisis of Democracy and the Quest for Empire (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2003), 55. “Good social order..” is a quote from Claes Ryn, A Common Human Ground: Universality and Particularity in a Multicultural World, Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2003, 6. The compressed description of contemporary American elites’ hatred of historical particularity and the consequences that flow from that hatred follows Ryn’s broader expositions.

Archives and Unpublished Papers

Rudolph Umland Papers and Archives. The Jane Pope Geske Heritage Room of Nebraska Authors. Lincoln City Libraries.

Rudolph Umland Papers. Nebraska State Historical Society.

Weldon Kees Papers and Archives. The Jane Pope Geske Heritage Room of Nebraska Authors. Lincoln City Libraries.

The Gale E. Christianson Collection of Eiseley Research Materials. The Jane Pope Geske Heritage Room of Nebraska Authors. Lincoln City Libraries.

Publications by Rudolph Umland:

Umland, Rudolph. “On Editing WPA Guide Books,” Prairie Schooner Summer, 1939.

________. “Born in Nebraska,” Prairie Schooner, (Fall, 1942).

________. “The Drouth of ’34,” Prairie Schooner, Vol. 9 (Spring, 1935), 101-107.

________. “L.C. Wimberly: A Book and a Memory,” Prairie Schooner, Vol. 40 (Winter, 1966), 325-328.

________. “Lowry Wimberly and Others: Recollections of a Beerdrinker,” Prairie Schooner, Vol. 31 (Spring, 1977), 17-50.

________. “Phantom Airships of the Nineties,” Prairie Schooner, Vol. 12(Winter, 1938), 302-316.

________. “Spring of the Black Blizzards,” Prairie Schooner, Vol. 9 (Fall, 1935), 243-249.

________. “The Ghost of Lowry Wimberly,” Prairie Schooner, Vol. 41, No. 3, (Fall, 1967), 325-338.

________. “What Makes an Imaginative Mind?” Prairie Schooner Vol. 30 (Spring, 1956), 15-24.

Nebraska Writers’ Project Publications

Only Project publications that were referred to or consulted are listed here.

The Italians of Omaha. Omaha: Independent Printing Co., 1941.

Lincoln City Guide. Lincoln: Woodruff Printing, 1937.

Military History of Nebraska. Lincoln: Nebraska Adjutant General’s Office, 1939.

Nebraska: A Guide to the Cornhusker State. (American Guide Series) New York: Hastings House, 1947 (1st edition, 1939).

Nebraska Folklore Pamphlets (Mimeographed Series: Titles and dates as listed.)

No. 1 Cowboy Songs. May 15,1937.

No. 2 Indian Place Legends. May 29, 1937

No. 3 Children’s Singing Games. June 1, 1937.

No. 4 Historical Legends. June 15, 1937.

No. 5 Legends of Febold Feboldson. July 1, 1937.

No. 6 Indian Legends. August 1, 1937.

No. 7 Children’s Games. Sept. 1, 1937.

No. 8 Febold Feboldson and Antoine Barada. Sept. 15, 1937.

No. 9 Proverbs, Prophecies, Signs and Sayings. Oct. 1, 1937.

No. 10 Proverbs, Prophecies, Signs and Sayings. (Part II) Oct. 15, 1937.

No. 11 Cowboy Songs. (Part II) Nov. 1, 1937.

No. 12 Indian Ghost Legends. Nov. 15, 1937.

No. 13 Tall Tales. July, 1938.

No. 14 Place Name Stories. August, 1938.

No. 15 Songs about Nebraska. Sept., 1938.

No. 16 Ballads. Oct., 1938.

No. 17 Nebraska Cattle Brands. Nov., 1938.

No. 18 Farmer’s Alliance Songs of the 1890s. Dec., 1938.

No. 19 Reminiscences of Dad Streeter. Feb., 1939.

No. 20 More Farmer’s Alliance Songs of the 1890s. May, 1939.

No. 21 Santee Sioux Indian Legends. Oct. 1939.

No. 22 Pioneer Dance Calls. June, 1939.

No. 23 More Santee Sioux Legends. Oct., 1939.

No. 24 Dance Calls (Series II). Nov., 1939.

No. 25 Pioneer Recollections. Jan., 1940.

No. 26 Pioneer Religion. Feb., 1940.

No. 27 Dance Calls (Series III). April, 1940.

No. 28 Early Nebraska Cooking. May, 1940.

No. 29 Pioneer Tales. July, 1940.

No. 30 Pioneer Schools. Dec., 1940.

Negroes of Nebraska. Lincoln: Woodruff Printing, 1940.

Old Bellevue. Papillion: Papillion Times, 1937.

Printing Comes to Lincoln. Lincoln: Woodruff Printing, 1940.

Shucks. Lincoln: Nebraska Writers’ Project, 1936.

Wausa Pagent. Wausa: Wausa Gazette, 1940.

Other Works:

Allen, Frederick Lewis. Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920’s. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1997 (Reprint of the 1931 edition.)

Angyal, Andrew. “Loren Eiseley as an American Romantic Thinker,” Friends of Loren Eiseley Symposium paper, September 13, 1984

Bold, Christine. The WPA Guides: Mapping America. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999.

Boye, Alan “Introduction to the new Bison Books Edition,” Nebraska: A Guide to the Cornhusker State. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979.

Brinkley, Douglas “Unmasking writers of the WPA,” New York Times, August 2, 2003.

Cherney, Robert W. “Nebraska 1883-1925: Cather’s Version and History’s,” in John J. Murphy et al, ed. Willa Cather: Family, Community and History. Provo: Brigham Young University, 1990. 229-251.

Christianson, Gale E. Fox at the wood’s edge: A biography of Loren Eiseley. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990.

Current-Garcia, E. “American Panorama (The Federal Writers’ Project),” Prairie Schooner, Vol. 12 (Summer, 1938), 79-90.

Current-Garcia, E. “Writers in the ‘Sticks’,” Prairie Schooner, Vol. 12 (Winter, 1938), 294-309.

Franke, Robert. “Loren Eiseley: Religious Scientist,” Zygon 19:1, March 1984 29-41.

Gioia, Dana. “The Achievement of Weldon Kees,” Sequoia 23:2 Spring, 1979, 25-46.

Gioia, Dana. “The Anonymity of the Regional Poet,” in Dana Gioia, Can Poetry Matter? St. Paul: Greywolf Press, 1992.

Hirsch, Jerrold. Portrait of America: A Cultural History of the Federal Writers’ Project. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

Kees, Weldon. Weldon Kees and the Midcentury Generation: Letters 1935-1955., edited and with commentary by Robert E. Knoll. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986.

Kooser, Ted “Foreword,” in Roger Bruhn Dreams in Dry Places, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990.

Kooser, Ted. Journey to a Place of Work: A Poet in the World of Business. Fargo: Institute for Regional Studies, 1998.

Kooser, Ted. “Lying for the Sake of Making Poems,” Prairie Schooner, 72:1 Spring, 1998, 5-8.

Lukacs, John Outgrowing Democracy: A History of the United States in the Twentieth Century. Garden City: Doubleday, 1984.

Mangione, Jerre. The Dream and the Deal: The Federal Writers’ Project 1935-1943. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1972

James Reidel, Vanished Act: The life and art of Weldon Kees. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003.

Ryn, Claes. America the Virtuous: The Crisis of Democracy and the Quest for Empire. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2003.

Ryn, Claes. A Common Human Ground: Universality and Particularity in a Multicultural World, Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2003.

Stauffer, Helen Winter. Mari Sandoz: Story Catcher of the Plains. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982.

Stewart, Paul R. The Prairie Schooner story: A little magazine’s first 25 years. Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 1955.

Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, London: Routledge, 1992.

Roger Welsch, “Introduction,” in Roger Welsch, ed. A Treasury of Nebraska Folklore. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966.

Weisberger, Bernard A. “Reading, Writing, and History,” American Heritage 25:2, February, 1974, 98-100. (Review of Mangione’s The Dream and the Deal)

Wimberly, Lowry. “The New Regionalism,” Prairie Schooner, 6:3, Summer, 1932, 214-221.

Witt, Richard C. The WPA Federal Writers’ Project in Nebraska. Masters Thesis, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 1980.

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