RELIGION, IDEALISM, AND AFRICAN AMERICAN AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN THE NORTHERN PLAINS: ERA BELL THOMPSON’S AMERICAN DAUGHTER

Authors

Kevin L. Cole, University of Sioux FallsFollow
Leah Weins, Northwestern College, Orange City, Iowa

Date of this Version

Fall 2003

Comments

Published in GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY 23 (FALL 2003), pp. 219-229

Abstract

In her introduction to American Women’s Autobiography: Fea(s)ts of Memory, Margo Culley writes, “It would be hard to point to a field of contemporary literary studies more vibrant than autobiography studies. Where else does one find a wealth of primary material still mostly unread and unranked?” “Unread and unranked” aptly describes Era Bell Thompson’s American Daughter, an autobiographical account of an African American woman who comes of age on the plains of North Dakota in the early twentieth century. It is one of those almost forgotten autobiographies that deserves to be read, ranked, and reconsidered, especially in the milieu of Great Plains studies.