Review of The Checkered Years: A Bonanza Farm Diary, 1884-88.

Authors

H. Elaine Lindgren, North Dakota State University

Date of this Version

1991

Document Type

Article

Comments

Published in Great Plains Quarterly 11:2 (Spring 1991). Copyright © 1991 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Abstract

Mary Dodge Woodward's keen observations, written in her diaries, serve to recreate days of bonanza farming in the Red River Valley of the North in the 1880s. Mary Dodge Woodward came to the Fargo area to live on a bonanza farm managed by her son Walter. A telescope extended Mary Dodge Woodward's view of the land stretching beyond the farmyard. "I stand at the east chamber-which is my observatory- with the spy glass everyday" (82).