Prairie Republic: The Political Culture of Dakota Territory, 1879-1889

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Synopsis
AMERICAN DEMOCRATIC IDEALS, civic republicanism, and Christianity were the dominant forces at work during South Dakota's formative decade. Territorial politics in the late nineteenth-century West is typically viewed as a game of unprincipled opportunism or 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 portrayals of western history and expands our view and understanding of the American democratic tradition.
Copyright:
2010

Book Details

Book Quality:
Excellent
Book Size:
266 Pages
ISBN-13:
9780806141107
Publisher:
University of Oklahoma Press
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
University of Oklahoma Press
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
History, Nonfiction, Religion and Spirituality, Social Studies, Philosophy, Politics and Government
Submitted By:
Kari G
Proofread By:
Sue Roberts
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

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