Nebraska Authors

Jackson, Civil War veteran and a writer, photographer and painter, is considered by many to have been the most important photographer of the American West. Jackson lived and worked in Omaha from 1867 to 1879. While working out of Omaha, he photographed Pawnee and Omaha tribe members from the area, and new settlements and landscapes along the Union Pacific as far as Promontory Point, Utah. In 1870 Ferdinand Hayden recruited Jackson to accompany his Western survey, which included much of the Rocky Mountains, Yellowstone, and areas as far south as Arizona and New Mexico and lasted 11 years. Thomas Moran was the expedition's artist. The expedition photographs made Jackson's reputation.

Scottsbluff National Monument houses the largest collection anywhere of Jackson's paintings, made late in life, but reflecting real events that he saw along the Oregon Trail in its heyday. Jackson had first crossed Nebraska in 1866 working as a bullwhacker for a freighting company. His photographic survey of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago The White City (as it was) is also very famous. He also photographed the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition (World's Fair) held in Omaha in 1898.

See also: Frank A. Rinehart

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Aughey was professor of natural science at the University of Nebraska from 1871-1883/4. He helped found the Nebraska State Historical Society and the Nebraska Academy of Sciences, serving as the Academy's first President. Although he published practical work on soils, geology and various agricultural concerns, many of his publications were more concerned with promoting settlement in Nebraska than with factual accuracy. He was a strong proponent of the "rain follows the plow" doctrine that farming the land increases the rainfall on that land, a then popular but entirely false idea. He also speculated in real estate promotions and in his own ideas about the presence of coal in Nebraska. His speculations led to a scandal in 1883 that eventually forced his resignation from the University.

The on-line Encyclopedia of the Great Plains has a longer and more detailed biographical sketch of Aughey.
The on-line history of the University of Nebraska has a page titled "Aughey's Scandals."
The Nebraska State Historical Society has hosted a page describing Aughey's contribution to the control of grasshopper infestations in the 1870s.

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Pallesen came to Nebraska with his parents in 1939, grew up here, and attended school in Neligh and Ainsworth. After obtaining his JD at the University of Nebraska School of Law in 1962, and an LLM at George Washington University in 1965, at the end of his military service, Pallesen returned to Lincoln, Nebraska with his wife. He entered into a 40-year career as a partner in the law firm Cline Williams Wright Johnson and Oldfather, L.L.P., as a specialist in business and health care law. He served as counsel to many of the region's most important organizations, including the University of Nebraska, the University of Nebraska Medical Center, St. Elizabeth Regional Medical Center, Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital, The Nebraska Medical Association, The Nebraska Hospital Association, Doane College, the Governors Wind Energy Coalition, State Federal Savings and Loan, and American Charter Federal Savings and Loan.

Pallesen served on many public boards and on the boards of many civic organizations. He was very active in the state's Democratic Party, serving as Chairman, Finance Committee Chair and Counsel to the campaigns of Governor and U.S. Senator Jim Exon, and later as an adviser to both Senator Bob Kerrey and Senator Ben Nelson. He served in some capacity on the Nebraska campaigns of every Democratic Party Presidential nominee from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama.

Pallesen is the co-author, along with his friend Judge Samuel Van Pelt, of Big Jim Exon: A Political Biography (2013) an inside look at Nebraska politics and Nebraska political figures in the last half of the 20th century.

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