Nebraska Authors

Elinor Brown was a teacher and an enthusiastic local historian who wrote on local buildings, the State Capitol Building, historical preservation and related topics. She founded her own press, Midwest Publishing, in order to publish teaching aids, and published over 50 books. Many of her historical efforts were compilations.

The Heritage Room holds manuscripts, an autobiographical essay (typescript photocopy dated 1976) and a spiral bound copy of her History and Preservation of a National Classic, 1988, her compilation on the preservation of Lincoln, Nebraska's Old City Hall (originally the U.S. Courthouse and Post Office) designed by Alfred B. Mullett and completed by William Appleton Potter. Brown is credited with organizing the successful campaign to preserve the building.

Brown's work has been recognized by the American Association for State and Local History, the Nebraskaland Foundation, and the Nebraska State Historical Society.

Heritage Room Archive has two large brown boxes of Elinor Brown manuscripts and research.

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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. The Dwight Kirsch website has a full-text copy of the auto-biography.

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.

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Film director, screenwriter, and producer, Payne's films have earned critical acclaim and commercial success. He returns to Nebraska frequently and was largely responsible for the re-opening of the Dundee Theater in Omaha and serves on the board of the theater's non-profit parent company, Film Streams. Films Citizen Ruth (1996), Election (1999), About Schmidt (2002), and Nebraska (2013), have been filmed in Nebraska. He was screenwriter for Jurassic Park III, (2001) and directed, produced and co-wrote the script for The Descendants, (2011).

Payne got a "Best Director" Academy Award nomination for his 2013 black and white film Nebraska, written by Bob Nelson (who lived very briefly in Hartington, NE, before growing up in Washington State). Nebraska also garnered nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Cinematography. The American Film Institute included the film in its top ten films of the year, and it won many other awards and nominations.

See Leo Adam Biga who has had special access to Payne and has written much about him.

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