Friday, August 25, 2017

Farm and Garden Picks: Red 4WD Tractors


In this book, the story of the four-wheel-drive tractors built by Steiger, International Harvester, Case and Case IH is told in dramatic fashion. Starting with the development of early four-wheel-drive systems at International Harvester, it traces the evolution and design some of the most powerful and capable tractors of the 20th century.

The book includes the complete story of Steiger tractors, which were originally built and designed in the barn of John, Douglas and Maurice Steiger located near Red Lake Falls, Minnesota. With interviews with more than 50 of the people who built Steiger from a barn to a world leader, Red 4WD Tractors traces the evolution of the lime green Steigers in engrossing detail. .

by Lee Klancher
Octane Press, 2017

Outrider Reading Group
The Book Stall
Tractor Books

Sunday, August 6, 2017

Reading the History: Talking Machine West.


This book brings together for the first time the variety of cowboy, cowgirl, and Indian music recorded and sold for mass consumption between 1902 and 1918.

In the book’s introductory chapters, Michael A. Amundson explains how this music reflected the nostalgic passing of the Indian and the frontier while incorporating modern ragtime music and the racial attitudes of Jim Crow America. Hardly Old West ditties, the songs gave voice to changing ideas about Indians and assimilation, cowboys, the frontier, the rise of the New Woman, and ethnic and racial equality.

In the book’s second part, a chronological catalogue of fifty-four western recordings provides the full lyrics and history of each song and reproduces in full color the cover art of extant period sheet music. Each entry also describes the song’s composer(s), lyricist(s), and sheet music illustrator and directs readers to online digitized recordings of each song.

A History and Catalogue of Tin Pan Alley's Western Recordings, 1902–1918
by Michael A. Amundson
University of Oklahoma Press, 2017

Out of the Past
Book List
History and American West Titles