Symposium of the Great Plains of North America
Collection
Identifier: UA 0177
Scope and Contents
This collection contains reel to reel tapes of presentations at the symposium.
Dates
- 1965
Conditions Governing Access
The collection is open under the rules and regulations of the NDSU Archives.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyrights to this collection is held by The North Dakota State University Archives.
Biographical / Historical
(The following is taken from the Symposium of the Great Plains of North America book Chapter 1: Introduction. This can be found in the North Dakota Institute for Regional Studies Records box 9: folder 10)
A symposium on the culture of the Northern Great Plains was conceived by the writer in the summer of 1964 as one of the events to be held on the North Dakota State University campus during the 75th Anniversary year of its founding. The original idea was to gather together outstanding sociologists of the northern plains region for the presentation of regional research reports, which would be published as a North Dakota State University 75th Anniversary document. The idea grew beyond my own time limits to do justice to it, and about then I recalled that an old friend, Professor Carle C. Zimmerman, had recently retired from Harvard. Dr. Zimmerman is a famous rural sociologist, dating from the publication of four volumes by SorokinZimmerman, the Principles of Rural-Urban Sociology and Sourcebook in Rural Sociology in 1929-33. He joined the NDSU faculty in late 1964 as distinguished professor and he assumed the work of organizing the symposium to be held in April, 1965.
Professor Zimmerman saw the symposium idea in terms of greater realism. He felt the need for an interdisciplinary colloquium that would concern itself with the natural as well as the cultural resources of the region. A symposium idea so inclusive seemed a venture so unorthodox that Dr. Zimmerman met apprehension. by some who felt their fields of specialization were threatened by interdisciplinary involvement in the proposed program. However, most of the people asked to participate did so with enthusiasm. It was a challenging venture.
A basic assumption was that regional study must combine research in both cultural and natural resources if such study is to be helpful to people in adaptation to living on the Great Plains. The papers presented in the symposium came from people with a wide variety of academic backgrounds and professional experiences. Specialists in the study of Great Plains life and resources came from Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska, Minnesota, Montana, South Dakota, Saskatchewan and North Dakota, and included many from the NDSU faculty.
A number of monographs concerning the Great Plains had been published. Notable among these are The Great Plains by Walter Prescott Webb and The Great Plains in Transition by Carl Frederick Kraenzel (see the Kraenzel bibliography). Other recent works of outstanding importance, but organized about particular segments of the activities of the Great Plains, are those by Hiram M. Drache (The Day of the Bonanza) and by Howard W. Ottoson, Eleanor M. Birch, Philip A. Henderson and A. H. Anderson (Land and People in the Northern Plains Transition Area). (This last work was only published in later 1966.) Earlier studies were made in Canada in the 1920's and 1930's by the Canadian Pioneer Belt Royal Commission, financed in considerable part by the U. S. Social Science Research Council. Professor Zimmerman served on this Commission, which concerned the Prairie Provinces. Then, in the thirties, the U.S.D.A. made a study of the American Great Plains. Carl C. Taylor and others published a notable study of the influence of the depression of the thirties upon the plains. In Mexico, a number of monographs in Spanish, such as that by Jorje A. Vivo, are available. In addition, there are at least a hundred experiment station monographs dealing with various phases, and the Proceedings of the Great Plains Council, which have been published for the past 30 years.
Last but not least are two monographs sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The first of these, The Future of Arid Lands (edited by Gilbert White) AAAS, 1956, has a major concern with the problems of North America, although some of its papers are generalized. The second, Aridity and Man (Carl E. Hodge and Peter C. Duisberg, Eds.) AAAS, 1963, deals directly with the North American conditions, and has a rather extensive bibliography. Both of these studies concern both the semi-arid plains and the more arid areas to the west where there is much less precipitation than in the prairies.
Now the question arises - why have other studies? To answer this question satisfactorily, we must understand the nature of social science and the human phenomena it considers. Social behavior is not as predictable as some occurrences in the physical sciences. Social affairs have none of the more permanent dimensions of space, such as height, length and breadth. Whatever fixed aspects social occurrences have are exceedingly temporary, as illustrated by the sod cabins which the settlers built upon the Great Plains and the 160 acre quarter section farms which were first allocated under the homestead act. Sociological events exist almost entirely in time, as contrasted with physical events which are more in space. Physical events have their time aspects also, but have more permanent spatial characteristics as well.
This paramount influence of time upon social events means that renewed study of what appear to be the same things is continuously necessary because of social change. At any point in the past, the Plains seemingly were different from what they are today, and we have to assume that the coming years will be different from today. Hence there is no end to the necessity for renewed study of the situation. The differences between physical and social sciences indicated here in part mean that social events are much more indeterminate than physical ones. Nothing is known for sure in human affairs. But, at the same time, seeking to peer further, even if only for faint forebodings, is most valuable in the social sciences because of the paucity of knowledge and the need for human understanding. Further social events change often, very rapidly, and may move in several directions. Finally, these changes are very largely out of the hands of the immediate persons involved. An apt illustration now is the recent disappearance of the wheat surplus in the area. In 1963 the farmers in the plains were asked by the government to accept mandatory production grain quotas because the surplus was costing seven billion a year to buy up and store. Now already, by 1966, fears of food shortages in the world have led to requests for increased plantings, and this has been substituted for the massive surplus problem.
In this background it was decided that our Symposium would try to put as many elements as possible into the study of the Great Plains. All available sciences were asked to rethink their relation to the plains, as far as possible, and to recount their experiences. It was hoped that by this very comprehensive process, new ideas would come to the forefront and members of the group would get a more realistic perspective on the subject of the region. This Symposium as printed is an attempt to summarize these studies. We hope it will give the reader a greater and more far reaching perspective on the Great Plains. In sponsoring the Symposium and publishing the papers presented, The North Dakota Institute for Regional Studies hopes it has contributed toward useful understanding of the problems involved in present and future adjustment to living on The Great Plains.
A symposium on the culture of the Northern Great Plains was conceived by the writer in the summer of 1964 as one of the events to be held on the North Dakota State University campus during the 75th Anniversary year of its founding. The original idea was to gather together outstanding sociologists of the northern plains region for the presentation of regional research reports, which would be published as a North Dakota State University 75th Anniversary document. The idea grew beyond my own time limits to do justice to it, and about then I recalled that an old friend, Professor Carle C. Zimmerman, had recently retired from Harvard. Dr. Zimmerman is a famous rural sociologist, dating from the publication of four volumes by SorokinZimmerman, the Principles of Rural-Urban Sociology and Sourcebook in Rural Sociology in 1929-33. He joined the NDSU faculty in late 1964 as distinguished professor and he assumed the work of organizing the symposium to be held in April, 1965.
Professor Zimmerman saw the symposium idea in terms of greater realism. He felt the need for an interdisciplinary colloquium that would concern itself with the natural as well as the cultural resources of the region. A symposium idea so inclusive seemed a venture so unorthodox that Dr. Zimmerman met apprehension. by some who felt their fields of specialization were threatened by interdisciplinary involvement in the proposed program. However, most of the people asked to participate did so with enthusiasm. It was a challenging venture.
A basic assumption was that regional study must combine research in both cultural and natural resources if such study is to be helpful to people in adaptation to living on the Great Plains. The papers presented in the symposium came from people with a wide variety of academic backgrounds and professional experiences. Specialists in the study of Great Plains life and resources came from Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska, Minnesota, Montana, South Dakota, Saskatchewan and North Dakota, and included many from the NDSU faculty.
A number of monographs concerning the Great Plains had been published. Notable among these are The Great Plains by Walter Prescott Webb and The Great Plains in Transition by Carl Frederick Kraenzel (see the Kraenzel bibliography). Other recent works of outstanding importance, but organized about particular segments of the activities of the Great Plains, are those by Hiram M. Drache (The Day of the Bonanza) and by Howard W. Ottoson, Eleanor M. Birch, Philip A. Henderson and A. H. Anderson (Land and People in the Northern Plains Transition Area). (This last work was only published in later 1966.) Earlier studies were made in Canada in the 1920's and 1930's by the Canadian Pioneer Belt Royal Commission, financed in considerable part by the U. S. Social Science Research Council. Professor Zimmerman served on this Commission, which concerned the Prairie Provinces. Then, in the thirties, the U.S.D.A. made a study of the American Great Plains. Carl C. Taylor and others published a notable study of the influence of the depression of the thirties upon the plains. In Mexico, a number of monographs in Spanish, such as that by Jorje A. Vivo, are available. In addition, there are at least a hundred experiment station monographs dealing with various phases, and the Proceedings of the Great Plains Council, which have been published for the past 30 years.
Last but not least are two monographs sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The first of these, The Future of Arid Lands (edited by Gilbert White) AAAS, 1956, has a major concern with the problems of North America, although some of its papers are generalized. The second, Aridity and Man (Carl E. Hodge and Peter C. Duisberg, Eds.) AAAS, 1963, deals directly with the North American conditions, and has a rather extensive bibliography. Both of these studies concern both the semi-arid plains and the more arid areas to the west where there is much less precipitation than in the prairies.
Now the question arises - why have other studies? To answer this question satisfactorily, we must understand the nature of social science and the human phenomena it considers. Social behavior is not as predictable as some occurrences in the physical sciences. Social affairs have none of the more permanent dimensions of space, such as height, length and breadth. Whatever fixed aspects social occurrences have are exceedingly temporary, as illustrated by the sod cabins which the settlers built upon the Great Plains and the 160 acre quarter section farms which were first allocated under the homestead act. Sociological events exist almost entirely in time, as contrasted with physical events which are more in space. Physical events have their time aspects also, but have more permanent spatial characteristics as well.
This paramount influence of time upon social events means that renewed study of what appear to be the same things is continuously necessary because of social change. At any point in the past, the Plains seemingly were different from what they are today, and we have to assume that the coming years will be different from today. Hence there is no end to the necessity for renewed study of the situation. The differences between physical and social sciences indicated here in part mean that social events are much more indeterminate than physical ones. Nothing is known for sure in human affairs. But, at the same time, seeking to peer further, even if only for faint forebodings, is most valuable in the social sciences because of the paucity of knowledge and the need for human understanding. Further social events change often, very rapidly, and may move in several directions. Finally, these changes are very largely out of the hands of the immediate persons involved. An apt illustration now is the recent disappearance of the wheat surplus in the area. In 1963 the farmers in the plains were asked by the government to accept mandatory production grain quotas because the surplus was costing seven billion a year to buy up and store. Now already, by 1966, fears of food shortages in the world have led to requests for increased plantings, and this has been substituted for the massive surplus problem.
In this background it was decided that our Symposium would try to put as many elements as possible into the study of the Great Plains. All available sciences were asked to rethink their relation to the plains, as far as possible, and to recount their experiences. It was hoped that by this very comprehensive process, new ideas would come to the forefront and members of the group would get a more realistic perspective on the subject of the region. This Symposium as printed is an attempt to summarize these studies. We hope it will give the reader a greater and more far reaching perspective on the Great Plains. In sponsoring the Symposium and publishing the papers presented, The North Dakota Institute for Regional Studies hopes it has contributed toward useful understanding of the problems involved in present and future adjustment to living on The Great Plains.
Extent
.25 Linear Feet
Language of Materials
English
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Transferred by Unknown (Unknown Acc.#).
Legal Status
The NDSU Archives owns the property rights to this collection.
- Title
- Finding Aid to the Symposium of the Great Plains of North America Records
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the University Archives Repository
Contact:
West Building
3551 7th Avenue N
Fargo North Dakota 58102 United States
ndsu.archives@ndsu.edu
West Building
3551 7th Avenue N
Fargo North Dakota 58102 United States
ndsu.archives@ndsu.edu