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Blunt, Judy, Breaking Clean, A. Knopf, 2002. A memoir by a Montana woman who grew up on a ranch near Malta, Montana during the 1960s which honestly describes the role of women in a man’s culture and how she coped with it. Made New York Times best books list.

Doig, Ivan, Bucking the Sun, Simon & Schuster, 1996. A wonderful novel by Montana writer Ivan Doig set at Fort Peck during construction of the world’s largest earth-filled dam at the time of the Great Depression. Provides an appreciation for what the dam builders and their families endured.

Howard, Joseph Kinsey, Montana: High, Wide, and Handsome, University of Nebraska Press, 1983. This book of essays by Montana’s preeminent journalist provides insight into the homesteading boom, the drought, and the Depression in Montana.

Hudson, John C. & Frank Gohlke, Measure of Emptiness: Grain Elevators in the American Landscape, John Hopkins Univ. Press, 1992. Plains Country Towns, Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1985. Good discussions of the landscape and how the economy of agriculture has affected it.

Hudson, Lois Philips, Bones of Plenty, Minnesota Historical Society, 1984: A wonderful novel based on her experiences growing up on a homestead in western North Dakota.

LaDow, Beth, The Medicine Line: Life and Death on a North American Borderland, Routledge, 2001. Three nations converge over land, wealth, and survival on the northern American frontier. She provides an excellent overview of the Canadian-U.S. border survey, conflicts with Native peoples and the Metis, and differences between settlement on either side of the border.

Larpenteur, Charles, Forty Years a Fur Trader on the Upper Missouri, Univ. of Nebraska, 1989. Larpenteur describes his life at Fort Union in the employ of the American Fur Company.

Lucey, Donna, Photographing Montana, 1894-1928: The Life and Work of Evelyn Cameron, Mountain Press, 2000: A coffee table book of images and the daily journals kept by this British immigrant homesteader of noble family who settled with her husband with hopes of establishing a polo pony ranch. This is a graphic view of life on the Montana homesteading frontier by a woman with an amazing eye for daily life near Terry, Montana.

Murphy, Mary, Hope in Hard Times: New Deal Photographs of Montana, 1936-1942, Montana Historical Society Press, 2003. A wonderful collection of the photographs made by the Farm Security Administration in Montana and held by the Library of Congress. The author provides a good overview of Depression era Montana and documents the experiences of the four photographers whose assignment was Montana during those years. Great images of eastern Montana and Butte.

Watson, Larry, Montana 1948, Milkweed Editions, 1993. A novel set in Sheridan County Montana during the 1940s. The protagonist is a twelve-year old boy whose father is the sheriff. The story provides insight into the culture of small town Montana.

Welch, James, Fool’s Crow, Viking, 1986. The setting of this riveting novel is Montana 1837, and it deals with the smallpox epidemic and its devastating impact on the Blackfeet tribe. I know of no other novel that so effectively captures the voice and world view of Native Americans during the period of conquest. Winter in the Blood, Harper & Row, 1974. The author, a Gros Ventres-Blackfeet tribal member, poignantly describes life on the Fort Belknap Reservation and the clash of cultures during the 1960s in his first novel

Another good source of information concerning eastern Montana is Montana, The Magazine of Western History, published by the Montana Historical Society. There is an index to our magazine at our website: www.montanahistoricalsociety.org but I have identified several articles of interest here.

Sugar beets and the Lower Yellowstone Valley, Autumn 1985, Vol. 35, No. 4. The entire issue deals with the Yellowstone valley and p. 78-82 covers the beet industry.

Fort Peck Dam, July 1977, Vol. 27, No. 3, Bob Saindon and Bunky Sullivan, "Taming the Missouri and Treating the Depression." Good overview of dam construction.

Homesteading, Summer 1996, Vol. 46, No. 3, Ellie Arguimbau, "Pearl Daniell: Homesteader in the Big Dry Country." A great character study of a woman homesteader whose land was buried by the Fort Peck Reservoir.

Oral Histories

Oral histories from the Fort Peck Dam reunion in 1999 can be located through the NUCMUC catalog found at our website under Archives. It can be searched by subject (ie. Fort Peck Dam), and tapes can be purchased from the Montana Historical Society for $5/tape

SIA Home: http://www.sia-web.org or http://www.siahq.org