Plains Folk: North Dakota's Ethnic History

Plains Folk was seven years in the making. The combined effort of scholars who specialize in North Dakota matters: three historians, an anthropologist, a political scientist, and a sociologist. Over forty different national groups are discussed: their origins, personalities, customs, successes and failures, even their festivals and their foods. Is North Dakota a melting pot? A mosaic? A patchwork quilt? Which group was the largest? The most patriotic? Prestigious? What happened during the land boom years? World War I? The Dirty Thirties? You'll find the answers in this volume. You'll find some surprises: Gypsies, Blacks, Japanese, Bulgarians, Syrians! You'll get a good look at the state's Jews, Poles, French, Ukrainians. Included are new perspectives on the German Peoples who came from both the homeland and eastern Europe; there are also new insights into the settlers of Norwegian and British Isles backgrounds. It is a basic source book, with hundreds of illustrations, dozens of maps and tables, census data and an extensive index.