List Price: $32.95
Prairie Republic
The Political Culture of Dakota Territory, 1879-1889
Illustrations: 12 B&W Illus., 3 Maps
Published: 2010
Hardcover ISBN: 9780806141107
256 pages, 5.5" x 8.5"
Subject: History of the American West
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The Future of the Southern Plains
Edited by: Sherry Smith
Daschle Vs. Thune
By: Jon Lauck
A new look at how democratic values and civic republicanism shaped South Dakota political culture
“Seldom is a major aspect of a historical period researched, written, and interpreted as brilliantly as Jon Lauck has done here. This very important book not only adds much to South Dakota history but also demonstrates methods and approaches that could well be used in studying other pioneer territories in the Midwest.”—Gilbert C. Fite, author of The Farmers’ Frontier, 1865–1900
American democratic ideals, civic republicanism, public morality, and Christianity were the dominant forces at work during South Dakota’s formative decade.
What?
In our cynical age, such a claim seems either remarkably naïve or hopelessly outdated. Territorial politics in the late-nineteenth-century West is typically viewed as a closed-door game of unprincipled opportunism or is caricatured, as in the classic film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, as a drunken exercise in bombast and rascality.
Now Jon K. Lauck examines anew the values we like to think were at work during the founding of our western states. Taking Dakota Territory as a laboratory for examining a formative stage of western politics, Lauck finds that settlers from New England and the Midwest brought democratic practices and republican values to the northern plains and invoked them as guiding principles in the drive for South Dakota statehood.
Prairie Republic corrects an overemphasis on class conflict and economic determinism, factors posited decades ago by such historians as Howard R. Lamar. Instead, Lauck finds South Dakota’s political founders to be agents of Protestant Christianity and of civic republicanism—an age-old ideology that entrusted the polity to independent, landowning citizens who placed the common interest above private interest. Focusing on the political culture widely shared among settlers attracted to the Great Dakota Boom of the 1880s, Lauck shows how they embraced civic virtue, broad political participation, and agrarian ideals. Family was central in their lives, as were common-school education, work, and Christian community.
In rescuing the story of Dakota’s settlers from historical obscurity, Prairie Republic dissents from the recent darker portrayal of western history and expands our view and understanding of the American democratic tradition.
Jon K. Lauck
Historian and attorney Jon K. Lauck is Senior Advisor to U.S. Senator John Thune of South Dakota and the author of Daschle vs. Thune: Anatomy of a High-Plains Senate Race and American Agriculture and the Problem of Monopoly.
Jon K. Lauck is a recognized historian of agriculture in the Middle West and an author of many original articles on key episodes of South Dakota history. He has always been impressed by the remarkable set of able, educated, patriotic, and religious Union veterans of the Civil War who admired Lincoln and initiated and led the ten-year statehood movement that led to South Dakota’s admission to the Union in 1889.
In his very readable scholarly narrative, he finds that the great influx of South Dakota’s farm settlers consisted largely of Anglo-Protestants and people from such Middle Border states as Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana or who boasted eastern and New England antecedents linking them to the founders of the American Republic. Lauck believes that their dream of an ever-expanding America reflected Frederick Jackson Turner’s idealized version of the Old Northwest frontier. Consequently, Lauck was alienated by the approach of the “New Western” history made famous by Patricia Nelson Limerick and others.
Equally important, Lauck describes these settlers’ initial devotion to the Protestant Christian church, their conservative politics, and their distrust of the corrupt territorial system, Democrats, Irish Catholics, the gold rush Black Hills, and Northern Dakota’s obsession with bonanza farming and railroad promotion. Southeastern Dakota developed a sense of community based on small-scale farming that was truly impressive—in short, a unified political culture.
Prairie Republic is enhanced by superb individual character studies, excerpts from sermons and hymns, and delightful anecdotes, all based on exhaustive research in original sources. It is a lasting, major contribution to South Dakota historiography.
Howard R. Lamar—Yale University
Dr. Jon K. Lauck is a recognized historian of agriculture in the Middle West, and an author of many original articles on key episodes of South Dakota's history. He has always been impressed by the remarkable set of able, educated, patriotic and religious Civil War Union veterans, who admired Lincoln and initiated and led the ten year statehood movement that led to South Dakota's admission to the Union in 1889.
In his very readable scholarly narrative, he finds that the great influx of South Dakota's farm settlers were largely Anglo-Protestant and from Middle Border states like Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, or boasted eastern and New England antecedents linking them to the founders of the American republic. Lauck believes that their dream of an ever-expanding America reflected Frederick Jackson Turner's idealized version of the Old Northwest frontier. Consequently, Lauck was alienated by the approach of the "New Western" history made famous by Patricia Limerick and others.
Equally important, Lauck describes their initial devotion to their Protestant Christian Church, their conservative politics, their distrust of the corrupt territorial systems, Democrats, Irish Catholics, the gold rush Black Hills, and Northern Dakota's obsession for bonanza farming and railroad promotion. Southeastern Dakota had developed a sense of community based on small scale farming that was truly impressive, in short, a unified political culture.
Prairie Republic is enhanced by superb individual character studies, excerpts from sermons, hymns, delightful anecdotes, all based on exhaustive research in original sources. It is a lasting, major contribution to South Dakota historiography. –Howard R. Lamar, Yale University
