Nebraska Authors

The legendary king of the late-night TV talk show, Johnny Carson, was born in Iowa and moved to Norfolk, NE with his family in the 1930s. Norfolk recognizes Carson as its 'most famous former resident' and has gone to great efforts to preserve his childhood home. Carson used his homespun, Mid-Western manner combined with a sophisticated wit and genuine hero worship in his interactions with big name stars on the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Warmed by his charm, the icons of pop culture let their guard down, told stories, and made small talk with Carson. His program made viewers feel as if they were eavesdropping on private conversations. Stand-up comic Drew Carey said of Carson, "He seemed genuinely nice to everybody and interested in everybody, what they had to say... you never saw him be rude or flippant or just not care or shut down on a guest, so he was more the Nebraska-guy than anything that I saw on TV." Carson's legacy to his home state includes the work of the John W. Carson Foundation supporting children, education and health services, focusing on the Los Angeles area and Nebraska. His papers are held by the Library of Congress.

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Wood is Emeritus Professor of Athropology at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is a prolific author of works of interest to professional scholars as well as some works of interest to the wider public. He has served on boards governing the Smithsonian Institution's and the National Park Service's archaeological work. He has honors too numerous to list here.

Wood's 2003 book Prologue to Lewis and Clark: The Mackay and Evans Expedition. is included in the Center for Great Plains Studies listing of Great Books of the Great Plains for Nebraska. It describes a 1797 expedition that attempted to establish a trading post in what is now northeast Nebraska, while the area was still part of the Spanish Empire. Lewis and Clark would borrow from the expedition's maps and reports in planning their own expedition beginning in 1804.

His 2002 book, Karl Bodmer’s America Revisited received the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum's 53rd Western Heritage Awards Wrangler Award for co-authorship of Best Book on Art in August 2014, and the High Plains Book Award for Art and Photography, from the Billings Public Library, Billings, Montana, October 26, 2014.

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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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