Post by markland on Sept 16, 2010 17:03:35 GMT -6
by Marc Abrams.
Following is a review from the other board by hiplanesrnchr which I agree with 100%. My order arrived in two boxes and has helped immensely with a sub-portion of the PFH.
"Re: Newspaper Chronicle of the Indian Wars, by Marc Abrams
Three heavy boxes arrived in my post office box this week. Inside was author/publisher Marc Abrams' fifteen-volume, 4,500 page, Newspaper Chronicle of the Indian Wars, in which he reprints, chronologically, thousands of articles reporting on the Indian wars and other aspects of American frontier history, published between 1844 and 1969. Oh, and Marc's newly-revised volume, Crying For Scalps:: St. George Stanley's Sioux War Narrative, arrived as well. Weighing in at 28 pounds, the set is a huge compendium of what journalists call the "first draft of history." As Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle observed, "Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment," a sentiment with which readers of these books will no doubt agree.
Newspaper Chronicle is an impressive achievement of personal research (and stamina). Abrams delved deeply into the microfilm files of scores, if not hundreds of newspapers, large and small, rural and metropolitan, regional and national, to bring an immediacy to events on the American and the Plains Indian Wars to a wide audience. In addition to finding sufficient shelf space (nearly a foot will be required) on which to place these volumes, the reader is faced with the question of how to best approach this voluminous material. In his "brief introduction from the editor," Abrams recommends the books be read in sequence, with which I largely agree, although I have already been tempted into dipping into several volumes looking for events in which I have additional interest.
I have previously defined the Plains Indian Wars as "...a series of violent confrontations on the...Great Plains [beginning] with the 1854 'Mormon Cow Incident...and ending with the 1890 tragedy at Wounded Knee Creek." Thus, I have already looked into Volume 1, pp. 38-48, where Abrams reprints eleven articles of varying length addressing the "Grattan Massacre" (19 August 1854) that took place near Fort Laramie, in what was then Nebraska Territory. The articles were published in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the New York Times and the Salt Lake City Deseret News between 11 September and 23 November 1854. Reading these fascinating articles gives immediacy to events that is oftentimes absent in the dry record of history.
For the Custerphile, the Sioux War of 1876-1877 and its immediate aftermath (1876-1879) are covered in volumes five through eleven. Abrams also reproduces maps, woodcuts and engravings that accompanied many of the articles, and places events and personalities in context with informative source notes.. He provides a helpful "Contents" section at the front of each volume with the date and newspaper in which the article was published, as well as the page number where it may be found in the book.
These volumes will provide the interested student and researcher with a vast amount of otherwise inaccessible source material, but provide an indispensable window on how cultural attitudes were, and continue to be, shaped and re-shaped by an unfettered free press.
The revised edition of Crying For Scalps collects a ten-part series of articles recounting George Crook's Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition of 1876, by St. George Stanley who accompanied the expedition. He wrote the articles for The Colorado Miner, where they were published serially as "Recollections of the Bozeman Trail," between 11 May and 13 July 1878. Abrams explains Stanley was a freelance artist/correspondent for Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, a self-described "Bohemian of Frank Leslie's Staff." The book also includes articles on the Battle of the Rosebud, illustrated by Stanley. Also included is an article by Bvt. Brig. General Guy V. Henry, who commanded a cavalry battalion at the battle, and was grievously wounded in the fight. As with Newspaper Chronicle, this book brings the immediacy of events directly to the reader in a way histories often doesn't.
Marc Abrams can be contacted at stores.lulu.com/indianwars
Following is a review from the other board by hiplanesrnchr which I agree with 100%. My order arrived in two boxes and has helped immensely with a sub-portion of the PFH.
"Re: Newspaper Chronicle of the Indian Wars, by Marc Abrams
Three heavy boxes arrived in my post office box this week. Inside was author/publisher Marc Abrams' fifteen-volume, 4,500 page, Newspaper Chronicle of the Indian Wars, in which he reprints, chronologically, thousands of articles reporting on the Indian wars and other aspects of American frontier history, published between 1844 and 1969. Oh, and Marc's newly-revised volume, Crying For Scalps:: St. George Stanley's Sioux War Narrative, arrived as well. Weighing in at 28 pounds, the set is a huge compendium of what journalists call the "first draft of history." As Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle observed, "Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment," a sentiment with which readers of these books will no doubt agree.
Newspaper Chronicle is an impressive achievement of personal research (and stamina). Abrams delved deeply into the microfilm files of scores, if not hundreds of newspapers, large and small, rural and metropolitan, regional and national, to bring an immediacy to events on the American and the Plains Indian Wars to a wide audience. In addition to finding sufficient shelf space (nearly a foot will be required) on which to place these volumes, the reader is faced with the question of how to best approach this voluminous material. In his "brief introduction from the editor," Abrams recommends the books be read in sequence, with which I largely agree, although I have already been tempted into dipping into several volumes looking for events in which I have additional interest.
I have previously defined the Plains Indian Wars as "...a series of violent confrontations on the...Great Plains [beginning] with the 1854 'Mormon Cow Incident...and ending with the 1890 tragedy at Wounded Knee Creek." Thus, I have already looked into Volume 1, pp. 38-48, where Abrams reprints eleven articles of varying length addressing the "Grattan Massacre" (19 August 1854) that took place near Fort Laramie, in what was then Nebraska Territory. The articles were published in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the New York Times and the Salt Lake City Deseret News between 11 September and 23 November 1854. Reading these fascinating articles gives immediacy to events that is oftentimes absent in the dry record of history.
For the Custerphile, the Sioux War of 1876-1877 and its immediate aftermath (1876-1879) are covered in volumes five through eleven. Abrams also reproduces maps, woodcuts and engravings that accompanied many of the articles, and places events and personalities in context with informative source notes.. He provides a helpful "Contents" section at the front of each volume with the date and newspaper in which the article was published, as well as the page number where it may be found in the book.
These volumes will provide the interested student and researcher with a vast amount of otherwise inaccessible source material, but provide an indispensable window on how cultural attitudes were, and continue to be, shaped and re-shaped by an unfettered free press.
The revised edition of Crying For Scalps collects a ten-part series of articles recounting George Crook's Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition of 1876, by St. George Stanley who accompanied the expedition. He wrote the articles for The Colorado Miner, where they were published serially as "Recollections of the Bozeman Trail," between 11 May and 13 July 1878. Abrams explains Stanley was a freelance artist/correspondent for Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, a self-described "Bohemian of Frank Leslie's Staff." The book also includes articles on the Battle of the Rosebud, illustrated by Stanley. Also included is an article by Bvt. Brig. General Guy V. Henry, who commanded a cavalry battalion at the battle, and was grievously wounded in the fight. As with Newspaper Chronicle, this book brings the immediacy of events directly to the reader in a way histories often doesn't.
Marc Abrams can be contacted at stores.lulu.com/indianwars
