It is hard not to think of Nebraska without thinking of its greatest writer. Here is a marvelous piece by Capote, Remembering Willa Cather . I remember seeing a stage production of O Pioneers! and being deeply moved by its raw emotions. I had read My Antonia before, and soon found myself hooked, like Capote was by the simple elegance of her prose and the way she was able to evoke so many feelings through her characters. Much of it came from the fact that she had lived those experiences herself. Her father dragged the family from Virginia to Nebraska in 1883, when it was still a young state, settling in the town of Red Cloud. named after one of the great Oglala chiefs. Red Cloud was still alive at the time, living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, in the aftermath of the "Great Sioux Wars" of 1876-77. I don't know whether Cather took any interest in the famous chief, although it is hard to imagine not. Upon his death in 1909, he was eulogi
Those are great links. I think I'm a secret Ted Head when it comes right down to it....
ReplyDeleteI'm quite partial to TR myself, but if I hear "autodidact" one more time I think I'm going to throw up. He didn't exactly grow up in a log cabin.
ReplyDeleteI was looking for TR's first state of the union speech, since Brinkley gushes over it, and found this site which is great:
ReplyDeletehttp://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?subcategory=22
I've added it to your other site list.
Thanks av.
ReplyDelete