Grasslands Grown

Creating Place on the U.S. Northern Plains and Canadian Prairies

Molly P. Rozum

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780803285767
• eBook ISBN: 9781496227966
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

In Grasslands Grown Molly P. Rozum explores the two related concepts of regional identity and sense of place by examining a single North American ecological region: the U.S. Great Plains and the Canadian Prairie Provinces. All or parts of modern-day Alberta, Montana, Saskatchewan, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Manitoba form the center of this transnational region.

As children, the first postconquest generation of northern grasslands residents worked, played, and traveled with domestic and wild animals, which introduced them to ecology and shaped sense-of-place rhythms. As adults, members of this generation of settler society worked to adapt to the northern grasslands by practicing both agricultural diversification and environmental conservation.

Rozum argues that environmental awareness, including its ecological and cultural aspects, is key to forming a sense of place and a regional identity. The two concepts overlap and reinforce each other: place is more local, ecological, and emotional-sensual, and region is more ideational, national, and geographic in tone. This captivating study examines the growth of place and regional identities as they took shape within generations and over the life cycle.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Maps
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Parents’ Choice
• 2. Small Worlds
• 3. Sensing Prairies and Plains
• 4. “The Purple Hills That Beckoned”
• 5. “Old Woman Who Never Dies” and Old Man’s Garden
• 6. “All Is So Still—So Big, I Scarce Can Speak”
• 7. “Surely, Grass Is the Great Mother of All Plains Agriculture”
• 8. “All That Vast Region of Grass Land”
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About Molly P. Rozum