All eyes are on Barack Obama today (or at least on HBO) as the nation’s most famous community organizer prepares to take office. In keeping with his community organizer roots, Obama declared yesterday – Martin Luther King Jr. Day — a day of service. Listening to the news last night, I found the interviews with people who spent the holiday cleaning up parks, volunteering at shelters and even giving haircuts to those in need pretty inspiring. No doubt former Lincoln Mayor Helen Boosalis would find such service inspiring, too. Before she was mayor, Boosalis was a volunteer and community organizer herself. … Continue reading Community organizers in the White House and in Lincoln, too

New this month from the University of Nebraska Press: Southern Ute Women: Autonomy and Assimilation on the Reservation, 1887-1934, by Katherine M. B. Osburn.

After the passage of the Dawes Severalty Act in 1887, the Southern Ute Agency was the scene of an intense federal effort to assimilate the Ute Indians. The Southern Utes were to break up their common land holdings and transform themselves into middle-class patriarchal farm and pastoral families. In this assimilationist scheme, women were to surrender the considerable autonomy they enjoyed in traditional Ute society and become housebound homemakers, the “civilizers” of their fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons. Southern Ute Women shows that these women accommodated Anglo ways that benefited them but refused to give up indigenous culture and ways that gave their lives meaning and bolstered personal autonomy.

This week’s Tuesday Trivia will test your knowledge of Ute history and culture. Ready?

1. Which state derived its name from the word “Ute”?

2. Most Utes today live in two states. Which ones?

Continue reading “Tuesday Trivia: January 20, 2009”

Abraham Lincoln’s birthday is still more than a month away, but we’re already celebrating. Why? Well, for a couple of reasons. Honest Abe turns 200 this February 12, which is certainly a milestone worth celebrating. In addition, Lincoln, Nebraska, is the home of the University of Nebraska Press, and we thought it would be nice to honor our community's namesake. Today through February 28, all Abraham Lincoln titles are on 25 percent off – including The Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln: Six Months at the White House. Author F. B. Carpenter was a painter who struck up a friendship with … Continue reading Happy (early) birthday, Abraham Lincoln!

New this month from the University of Nebraska Press: West Virginia Politics and Government, second edition. West Virginia Politics and Government offers the only recent study of politics in the Mountain State. Combining new empirical information about political behavior with a close examination of the capacity of the state’s government, this second edition is a comprehensive and pointed study of the ability of the state’s government to respond to the needs of a largely rural and relatively low-income population. The book also examines the nature of the state’s constitution and the role of governmental institutions, including the state legislature, the … Continue reading Linking in Lincoln: January 15, 2009

During his lifetime, Wyatt Earp wore many hats: buffalo hunter, bodyguard, detective, bounty hunter, gambler, boxing referee, prospector, saloon keeper, Dodge City lawman, and, most notably, participant in the famed 1881 shootout at O.K. Corral. Inventing Wyatt Earp: His Life and Many Legends, new this month from the University of Nebraska Press, explains how Earp lived a life (at times embellished) that became the stuff movies are made of.  And in fact, a movie was made about Earp in 1994. And Earp had a link to Hollywood long before that movie was made. In his later years, Earp lived in Los … Continue reading Tuesday Trivia: January 13, 2009

Today’s Lincoln Journal Star features a story about Paul Swan, a dancer known for as much for his physical beauty as for his talent. Swan was also the subject of a 2006 biography, The Most Beautiful Man in the World: Paul Swan, from Wilde to Warhol, written by Janis and Richard Londraville and published by the University of Nebraska Press. In addition to being a dancer, Swan was a gifted artist who painted portraits of Willa Cather, Charles Lindbergh and Benito Mussolini, among others. In 1922, he painted a portrait of a woman believed to have been his lover. But the … Continue reading The Most Beautiful Man in the World