Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
Winter 2002
Citation
Great Plains Quarterly Vol. 22, No. 1, Winter 2002, pp. 67-68.
Abstract
In the early 1970s, a massive body of photographs of Native Americans by Edward S. Curtis came to light after nearly fifty years of obscurity. The work, comprising 45,000 to 50,000 negatives and 10,000 wax cylinder recordings of language and music, had been distilled down to 2,200 photographs and 4,000 Museum, geographer James Shortridge uses about 150 of Pennell's photographs to document the life and times of Junction City during a period considered by some to be the halcyon days of the small town in America.
To supplement the photographs and written descriptions, Shortridge also prepared seven original maps showing the town in proximity to other locales and revealing the distribution of such features as land use, African American households, railroad employees, and country club memberships. Shortridge also provides penetrating interpretations of various key vignettes, including a tour of the community's "Main Street" (Washington Street}-an obligatory subject for photographers of that era-and the interiors of commercial stores that lined it. Shortridge also explores the gritty, fascinating scenes of agriculture, milling, and railroading that sustained Plains communities like Junction City. Sections on general town life, civic life and personal values, and Fort Riley provide a nuanced picture of what life was like in Junction City.
Because Shortridge has written comprehensively about the Midwest for several decades, the book's particularly local focus may be somewhat surprising, as though its author had transformed a telescope into a magnifying glass. The book's dedication, "For Garnett and Bob Shortridge, owners of 'reliable and dependable' drugstores for over seventy years and full participants in the community life of small-town America," suggests the motivation behind this departure from broader regional studies. Our Town on the Plains is a tribute to all of the people who made small communities become a part of our larger collective history and mythology.
Comments
Copyright 2002 by the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln