Review of Too Good a Town" : William Allen White. Community. and the Emerging Rhetoric of Middle America by Edward Gale Agran

Authors

Diane Quantic, Wichita State UniversityFollow

Date of this Version

1999

Comments

Published in Great Plains Quarterly 19:4 (Fall 1999). Copyright © 1999 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Abstract

In "Too Good a Town" Edward Gale Agran demonstrates William Allen White's influence on Americans' view of themselves, especially in the 1920s and 1930s when the "sage of Emporia" was a nationally recognized cultural arbiter. A reader interested in the history of community or middle-class culture, particularly in the Middle West, would find this study useful. but it is of less value to someone more interested in the Great Plains. Occasionally Agran focuses on White's hometown, Emporia, Kansas, as a distinct geographical location, but his primary purpose is to demonstrate White's embodiment of the town as a broader American ideal.