Autobiography of John Russell Bartlett (1805-1886) (review)

230Southwestern Historical QuarterlyOctober During this period, life on the Great Plains was backbreaking, lonely, and frequently tragic. Yet many found the landscape, the solitude, and the wide-open sky captivating. Those who made a go of it did so through "hard work, perseverance, and frugality" (p. 191). For thousands of European immigrants, the land represented a new start in life and an opportunity to acquire their own farm. Survival on the plains forced homesteaders to rely on one anotiier. Because there were so few people in the region, residents were generally friendly and helpful. Through shared work and social events, neighbors created a strong sense of community. Echoing Frederick Jackson Turner, author Steven R. Kinsella argues that this shared community and austere, disciplined lifestyle created a special type ofperson. Those who survived and setded the Great Plains embodied the true essence of the American spirit. The region serves as a "touchstone" for the nation, "a metaphor for all that Americans believe to be good about their character" (p. 16). Kinsella, the great-grandson ofGreat Plains homesteaders, is a media consultant and public affairs strategist for conservation organizations. 900 MilesfromNowheresucceeds marvelouslyin creating a rich and autfientic overview ofnon-Indian setdement of the Great Plains. Kinsella skillfully weaves historic commentary, homesteaders' poignant letters, and diaries with captivating period photographs offrontier families, farms, and dugouts to create a vibrant tapestry of plains life. The author demonstrates an intuitive feeling for the land, writing with authority on the region's environmental history and man's interaction widi Mother Nature. This book is also notable for its excellent production values, which set a high bar for other academic presses. Most notable are the attractivejacket design, stylish binding, high-quality page stock, and well-reproduced photographs. Many of the images and primary sources used in this work come from historical societies in South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado, and Minnesota. While the author provides an engrossing account ofthe 1 893 land rush in Enid, Oklahoma, he omits all discussion of the southern plains of Texas. To provide a more representative overview of the entire region, Kinsella should have included some of the excellent photographs and primary accounts available at die Soudiwest Collection in Lubbock and Panhandle Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas. That being said, 900 Milesfrom Nowhere ably captures the essence of the Great Plains, a place where even today "you are constandy tested and never in control" (p. 185). Texas Christian UniversityGlen Sample Ely Autobiography ofJohn RussellBartlett (1805-1886). Edited byJerry E. Mueller. (Providence : Thejohn Carter Brown Library, 2006. Pp. 252. Illustrations, appendices, notes, index. ISBN 0916617661. $50.00, cloth.) John Russell Bartlett enjoys a prominent place in the history of the Southwest. As an influential member ofthe Whig Party in the 1 840s, and as a widely recognized expert in ethnography and painting, he became the Taylor administration's logical choice to serve as the U.S. Boundary Commissioner for the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Bartlett, who shared the wanderlust of his manifest destiny generation, eagerly accepted the post, left his native Rhode Island, performed his professional 2oo7 Book Reviews231 dudes competently, and painted prolifically. His gripping account ofthe Southwest and its peoples, Personal Narrative ofExplorations and Incidents in Texas, New Mexico, California, Sonora, and Chihuahua (1854), made a distant land seem less foreign. Bardett's work has been explored in several useful contemporary works, including Robert V. Hine's Bardett's Wm/ and William Goetzmann's West ofthe Imagination. For all the emphasis on Bardett's experience as a naturalist, boundary commissioner , and formidable painter, however, it is easy to forget that Bardett spent only four years of a very long and productive life in the Southwest. One benefit to come from Jerry E. Mueller's decision to edit the Autobiography ofJohn Bartlett is the illumination of Bardett as an integral figure of the East Coast political and cultural establishment. Bardett's autobiographywas not much ofone. In fact, it was litde more than a briefcompilation ofanecdotes, few of them especially revealing, about his experience as a politician (governor ofRhode Island) , bibliographer, and European traveler. At times the account reads more like a daybook, a kind of"I-wasdoing -this-here-then" collection rather than...