Recovering the Prairie

by Sayre, Robert F.

• ISBN13: 9780299164607
• ISBN10: 0299164608
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-10-01
• Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Pr

Summary

Americans in ever increasing numbers are rediscovering the prairie. This vast inland sea of grasses, buried for a hundred years beneath farms, cities, and suburbs, has endured not only in physical remnants but also in the memories of its settlers and their descendants, the books of prairie authors, and the work of prairie artists. As restoration ecologists and amateur prairie preservationists recover the land, this book recovers the prairie of the American imagination-past, present, and future. Beautifully illustrated with the work of sixteen contemporary prairie artists, Recovering the Prairiecelebrates and examines the perspectives of artists, writers, native peoples, ecologists, and landscape architects-Willa Cather, Aldo Leopold, Jens Jensen, Alexander Gardner, and many others-who recognized the unique beauty of the prairie. And, this volume brings together people from many fields to consider the connections between aesthetics and economics, landscape and culture, politics and ethics, as illustrated by the prairie in American civilization. Contributors and artists include: Robert Adams Lee Allen Roger Brown James D. Butler Pauline Drobney Fred Easker Terry Evans Ed Folsom Lance M. Foster Harold L. Gregor Robert E. Grese Walter Hatke Harold D. Holoun Stan Hurd Gary Irving Wes Jackson Keith Jacobshagen Joni L. Kinsey Stuart Klipper Aldo Leopold Tom Lutz Curt Meine Genie H. Patrick David Plowden Rebecca Roberts Robert F. Sayre Jane E. Simonson Shelton Stromquist James R. Winn

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction	3	(11)
Robert F. Sayre
Prairie Prospects: The Aesthetics of Plainness	14	(33)
Joni L. Kinsey
Rebecca Roberts
Robert F. Sayre
Walt Whitman's Prairie Paradise	47	(14)
Ed Folsom
On Level Ground: Alexander Gardner's Photographs of the Kansas Prairies	61	(25)
Jane E. Simonsen
Cosmopolitan Vistas: Willa Cather, Hamlin Garland, and the Literary Value of Regionalism	86	(21)
Tom Lutz
Prairie Politics and the Landscape of Reform	107	(17)
Shelton Stromquist
The Landscape Art of Jens Jensen	124	(20)
Robert E. Grese
Reimagining the Prairie: Aldo Leopold and the Origins of Prairie Restoration	144	(17)
Curt Meine
Prairie: The Forgotten Flora	161	(3)
Aldo Leopold
The Phoenix People of Sod Corn Country	164	(14)
Pauline Drobney
Tanji na Che: Recovering the Landscape of the Ioway	178	(13)
Lance M. Foster
Natural Systems Agriculture: The Truly Radical Alternative	191	(9)
Wes Jackson
Sizing Up the Country: Contemporary Artists' Perspectives on the Prairie	200	(17)
Robert F. Sayre
Contributors	217	(3)
Index	220