900 Miles from Nowhere: Voices from the Homestead Frontier (review)

2oo7 Book Reviews229 their participation in the Runaway Scrape and the batdes of the Alamo and San Jacinto. Chapter Twelve then consists of a speculative essay in which Sutherland argues that participants in the Texas Revolution acquired a unique identity that included a sense of Texas as a place, as well as a loyalty to the idea of a sovereign Texas. That identity arose, she asserts, because the revolutionaries and their families derived from the revolution a "meaning [that] is analogous to the emotional and structural experience of a rite of passage" (p. 106). In subsequent chapters, the author covers her family's activities from the revolution through the early 1 900s. As she does for the earlier period, she stresses the strength her family found in their religion and kinship ties. Her chronological coverage ends with the marriage of her paternal grandparents, a great-granddaughter of Sterling Robertson and a great-grandson of George Sutherland. She then concludes with a chapter that describes how storytelling and Sutherland family reunions assisted in intergenerational transfers of a distinctive, collective self-perception. Sutherland's extensive primary sources, as well as secondary sources that include early histories ofTexas and local histories oftwo Texas counties, enable her to make several aspects of her work particularly interesting. In particular, her summary of fascinating details about both familiar and lesser known individuals entertainingly confirms the human-tradition premise that history is a mosaic of many lives. By extensively quoting many of those people, in effect allowing them to speak for themselves, she also substantially adds to her narrative's apparent realism and authenticity . In addition, she includes a number ofwell-placed, humorous anecdotes that increase her writing's appeal. Scholars may find Sutherland's primary sources ofsome interest and see in her emphasis on families and religion points of departure for further study. Nevertheless , her work seems intended primarily for a general audience, and anyone who is curious about the self-perceptions ofAnglo Texans or the lives ofAnglo Texans during the nineteenth century will find the book informative and enjoyable. Austin Community CollegeOwen L. Roberts 900 Milesfrom Nowhere: Voicesfrom theHomesteadFrontier. By Steven R. Kinsella. (Saint Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2006. Pp. 2 1 6. Illustrations, map, notes. ISBN 0873515722. $29.95, cloth.) For those moving to America's Great Plains in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it often seemed that they were living 900 miles from nowhere. No matterwhere they looked, the entire horizon often seemed a treeless sea ofgrass. From the Canadian border to the Rio Grande, the Great Plains included one million square miles. Life in the region was marked by extremes. During the severe, frigid winters, the mercury plummeted to thirty below zero. In the blazing hot summers, it topped 100 degrees. Rainfall varied from thirty inches a year in the east to less than fifteen in the west. Out on the western plains and prior to the introduction of widespread irrigated agriculture, the unpredictable, semiarid environment forced many farmers to call it quits and move back East. 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...