Nebraska Authors

Pound was raised in Lincoln in a lively intellectual environment. His father was Lincoln's most prominent lawyer and his mother was a former school teacher who had come to favor what is now called "home schooling" and who shocked her up-scale neighbors by installing a chalk board on the wall in her living room. Pound Middle School in Lincoln is named not for Roscoe, who would serve as Dean of Harvard Law School for two decades, nor for the great linguistics scholar and sportswoman, his sister Louise Pound, or for their third sibling, Olivia Pound, an influential local teacher, but for the family as a whole.

In his undergraduate years at the University of Nebraska, Pound joined the lively circle of botanists around Charles E. Bessey, and after graduating in 1888, he began graduate study in botany and became Bessey's assistant. In 1889 he left to spend a year at Harvard Law School, but returning he rejoined the Sem Bot, the extracurricular professional and social seminar of botanists that surrounded Bessey. With his close friend Frederic Clements, Pound published the second edition of their Phytogeography of Nebraska in 1900. The book showcased the transformation of the study of plant distribution from a kind of floristic tourism to a real science. Pound and Clements were now pulling Bessey, who had called ecology a "fad" in 1899, toward a realization of its possibilities. (see the book by Tobey, cited below)

Pound was now earning his living working locally as a lawyer. He took the bar exam, and by 1893 became a partner with Lionel Burr in Lincoln. He would soon be one of the state's most influential practitioners of corporate law. He would be a solo practitioner for a time, and then worked in the firm of Hall, Woods, and Pound.

Pound was elected Dean of the Nebraska College of Law in 1903. In 1906 he was asked to give the principal address at the annual meeting of the American Bar Association in St. Paul, MN. His speech "The Causes of Popular Dissatisfaction with the Administration of Justice" offered a harsh attack on outdated formalisms, failures to weigh equity, and the "yoke of commercialism" in the law. He was urging a jurisprudence that could weigh concerns of public policy in new ways. The speech offended convention in a very conventional setting. He was condemned in the discussion that followed his speech, though apparently some of his listeners privately took a much more positive view of what he had said, they did not then rise to defend him.

The reputation Pound gained at that moment, among more socially concerned lawyers, and energies of the moment, including the momentary shock of seeming to be without allies, prodded Pound to seek wider horizons. He would move from Nebraska to the law faculty at Northwestern, and then to the Harvard Law School. He would find many friends along the way, including Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. His biographer David Wigdor cites his admiration for the social justice views of Lewis Brandeis. Combining in a characteristic way a certain pragmatism about what it is that lawyers do with certain public policy considerations, Powell came to be called the founder of the American school of "sociological jurisprudence." He is much discussed in histories of American law, and he was very influential. He was sometimes also called "the Blackstone of U.S. law."

See: Ronald C. Tobey, Saving the Prairies: The Life Cycle of the Founding School of American Plant Ecology, 1895-1955, 1981.
David Wigdor, Roscoe Pound: Philosopher of Law, 1974.
A Lawyer's Books: Selections from the Roscoe Pound Library. Catalog of an exhibition at the Harvard Law School, June 1-30, 1986.

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Bill Kloefkorn was named Nebraska State Poet by the State Legislature in 1982, and this was then a lifetime appointment to be successor, after a decade long interregnum, to Nebraska Poet Laureate John Neihardt. The name of the office was altered so Neihardt would remain permanent Nebraska Poet Laureate. Koefkorn was celebrated as State Poet until his death in 2011. He would sometimes remind people that he was also a champion hog caller.

Kloefkorn grew up in a farming family in Attica, Kansas and came to Nebraska in 1962 to teach English at Wesleyan University in Lincoln after college and a stint in the Marine Corps. His accessibility and his understanding of the hard facts of rural life endeared him to Nebraskans. He had a distinguished career, publishing some thirty poetry collections, collections of short stories, and memoirs. He was as gifted a writer of autobiography as he was a poet, with four volumes of memoirs published by the University of Nebraska Press. He took his duties as a public poet seriously, and traveled all over the state to give readings, workshops and seminars. He mentored many students and younger writers. Kloefkorn Elementary school in Lincoln is named after him.

Kloefkorn files include a somewhat annotated bibliography (2009) that remains useful for library visitors. In addition to Kloefkorn files see also files on the Nebraska State Poet debate in 1982 (which came to us from Bernice Slote) and State Poet 2013 (new regime with limited terms for State Poets).

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Born in the Ozarks and raised in rural Nebraska, Mary Pipher grew up loving to read, write, swim and spend times outdoors with her friends and family. Pipher is a clinical psychologist and author of nine books, including the 1994 New York Times bestseller Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls which takes a hard look at the many societal pressures facing adolescent girls, and offers a therapist's perspective on the many issues that arise as young girls attempt to define themselves. Pipher is a community organizer and activist for many causes including the experience of refugees and the preservation of her state's environment. In The Green Boat: Reviving Ourselves in Our Capsized Culture, Pipher looks deeply into the effects of modern society and global warming. Mary Pipher currently lives in Lincoln with her family and enjoys doing the same things she loved growing up.

Pipher and her daughter, Sara Pipher Gilliam of Hamilton, Ontario, have collaborated on a 2019 update of Reviving Ophelia that takes account of new developments, such as the impact on girls of social media, and new forms of economic, social and environmental crises that influence their mental health and identities.

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