Nebraska Authors

Ethnologist Francis La Flesche was the son of Iron Eye, the last traditionally recognized Chief of the Omaha tribe and half-brother to two accomplished sisters, the physician Suzan La Flesche Picotte and Native American activist Susette La Flesche Tibbles. He worked out of Washington, D.C. for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and later for the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of American Ethnology. He studied both his own Omaha tribe and the Osage. Aside from professional ethnological works and stories, he contributed to an opera, Da-O-Ma, based on his Omaha stories. His early book, The middle five: Indian boys at school, 1900, is an autobiographical account of five Indian boys' experiences at Presbyterian mission school in northeastern Nebraska around the time of the Civil War. As well as being an important anthropological document, the book is recommended for general readers and younger readers.

There is much information about Francis La Flesche in Joan Mark, A Stranger in her Native Land: Alice Fletcher and the American Indians, 1988. Alice Fletcher, one of 19th century America's most influential anthropologists, was a close friend of the La Flesche family, and she adopted Francis as a son after the death of his mother. Francis lived with her and her partner Jane Gay in Washington DC for many years.

Some other authors who have written about the Omaha tribe: Roger Welsch, David Wishart, Judith Boughter, Michael Tate, George Hyde, Eunice Stabler, Hollis Stabler, Dennis Hastings, Fannie Reed Giffen, Elizabeth Stabler and Mark Awakuni-Swetland.

dsc

Read More

Kirsch is an artist who profoundly influenced the history and understanding of art in Nebraska. He entered the University of Nebraska the age of 16 in 1915 and graduated in 1919. Fellow students would include Aaron Douglas (of Harlem Renaissance fame), and Leonard Thiessen. On graduation, Kirsch joined the Art Students League in New York City, where he attended lectures by fellow Nebraskan Robert Henri. He apprenticed and worked in commercial art both in New York and on the West Coast. He returned to Nebraska to accept a teaching position at the University in 1924.

A crisis in the Nebraska Art Association (NAA) in 1932 led to Kirsch becoming NAA secretary, and new exhibitions and collections policies. With considerable initial help from Mabel Langdon Eiseley, Kirsch, who became NAA curator in 1936, acquired much of the nationally acclaimed collection of art that would finally find its home in the Sheldon Art Museum in Lincoln.

Kirsch is credited with introducing Nebraska to modern art through his lectures, exhibitions and teaching. He brought a number important modern artists to the state as visiting artists, to give lectures and work in public. He visited with many important American artists and became a recognized lecturer and authority on modern art. He left the University of Nebraska in 1950 to direct the Des Moines Art Center and teach at Iowa State University. The last five years of his life, spent in a nursing home in Colorado, were among his most prolific, seeing him produce, on average, 90 works a year.

At his death, Kirsch left behind a manuscript in note form that comprises his autobiography My Life in Art. The notes found their way into private hands and have been privately published. Special Collections at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has a working copy of the published work for scholars to consult.

See also, for the Sheldon Art Museum collection, Norman Geske. See also Robert Henri, Keith Jacobshagen, Dale Nichols, artists. Also, Sheldon Art Museum author Karen Janovy.

MONA has a Kirsch collection and a good biography page for the artist.

dsc

Read More

Paul Austin Johnsgard is a Nebraska scientist, ornithologist, artist and professor emeritus at UNL. As he closed in on the publication of 75 books with his survey of the Yellowstone ecosystem (in 2012), he was already the most published ornithologist of all time, the most published author in the history of the University of Nebraska, and the most prolific of all Nebraska authors, of fiction or non-fiction.

Johnsgard is one of Nebraska's most famous scholars. He is a world authority on waterfowl behavior and on several other bird groups such as grouse and cranes. His Handbook of Waterfowl Behavior (Cornell University Press, 1965) is considered the classic reference work on the subject. His book Grouse and Quails of North America received a Wildlife Society honor and Waterfowl: Their Biology and Natural History received honorable mention from the Wildlife Society and many other awards. His publications in professional scientific journals exceed 150.

Johnsgard is also famous for his world surveys of the major bird groups, which, appearing regularly over some 40 years, have finally made him the most prolific of all ornithological writers. He has written books on regional natural history, on the Platte River, on Teton and Yellowstone wildlife, and classic natural histories of special interest to Nebraska readers, among them: This Fragile Land: A Natural History of the Nebraska Sandhills, 1995, The Nature of Nebraska: Ecology and Biodiversity, 2001, The Niobrara: A River Running Through Time, 2007, and a collection of essays, Seasons of a Tallgrass Prairie: A Nebraska Year, 2014.

He has written several books in the genre of literary appreciation of aspects of nature, including books on the Sandhill crane and the snow goose. One of these, Song of the North Wind, was translated into Russian and Latvian. With his daughter Karin, Johnsgard wrote a whimsical book on dragons and unicorns. Many of his books are illustrated with his own sketches and artwork.

Johnsgard has been awarded four national conservation awards in recognition of his ornithological writing and conservation work and has been an Ames Reader in the Heritage Room in 1985, 1996, 2004, 2007, and 2017. Videos of readings are available.

See:
Gillian Klucas, "A Beautiful Mind," Nebraska Magazine Summer 2002, Vol. 98, No. 2.
James L. Hayward, "Beguiled by Birds," Living Bird Autumn 1994 Vol. 13 No. 4.

dsc

Read More