Part of the 68th Willa Cather Spring Cather Conference. REGISTER HERE

"The Necessary Vision and the Necessary Skill": Willa Cather, Grasslands Space, and the Cultural Aspirations of Settler Society's First Grasslands Grown Generations

Drawn from her 2021 history, Grasslands Grown: Creating Place on the U.S. Northern Plains and Canadian Plains, published by the University of Nebraska Press and the University of Manitoba Press, Rozum’s talk examines the aesthetic, social, and cultural experiences of the first generations of settler society to grow up on the grasslands. Uniquely, these generations grew up experiencing both native grasslands habitat and settler agricultural grainlands and grazelands. Their aesthetic expressions sought to create a sense of place by restorying the northern grasslands with settler society at the center of the narrative. Rozum’s book explores the two related concepts of regional identity and sense of place from an interdisciplinary perspective. The two concepts overlap and reinforce each other: place is more local, ecological, and emotional-sensual, and region is more ideational, national, and geographic in tone.This talk explores the literature and art of Nebraskan Willa Cather, South Dakotan Robert McAlmon, Albertan Wilfried Eggleston, Manitoban Laura Goodman Salverson, North Dakota poet Clell Gannon, and the Alberta artist Annora Brown.

The historian Molly P. Rozum Is the author of Grasslands Grown: Creating Place on the U.S. Northern Plains and Canadian Plains, published in the U.S.by The University Of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, 2021) and in Canada, The University of Manitoba Press (Winnipeg,2021). Rozum is co-editor (with Lori Ann Lahlum) of Equality at the Ballot Box: Votes for Women on the Northern Great Plains, published by South Dakota Historical Society Press (2019); the collection includes Rozum’s article, “Citizenship, Civilization, and Property: The 1890 South Dakota Vote on Woman Suffrage and ‘Indian’ Suffrage.” The new collection The Greater Plains: Rethinking a Region’s Environmental Histories, edited by Brian Frehner and Kathleen A. Brosnan and published by University of Nebraska Press (2021), includes Rozum’s “‘Nature Rarely Establishes Sharp Boundaries’: Settler Society Agricultural Adaptation in the Great Plains Northwest.” Rozum won the 2021 Blair and Linda Tremere Faculty Public Service Award at the University of South Dakota for her commitment to presenting history to local audiences. She is Associate Professor and Ronald R. Nelson Chair of Great Plains and South Dakota History at The University of South Dakota. Rozum earned a B.A. in American Studies from The University of Notre Dame and the M.A.in American Folklore and Ph.D. in U.S. History from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Rozum grew up in Mitchell, South Dakota.