Grasslands Grown: Creating Place on the U.S. Northern Plains and Canadian Prairies

by Molly P. Rozum

In Grasslands Grown Molly P. Rozum explores the two related concepts of regional identity and sense of place by examining a single North American ecological the U.S. Great Plains and the Canadian Prairie Provinces. All or parts of modern-day Alberta, Montana, Saskatchewan, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Manitoba form the center of this transnational region.

As children, the first postconquest generation of northern grasslands residents worked, played, and traveled with domestic and wild animals, which introduced them to ecology and shaped sense-of-place rhythms. As adults, members of this generation of settler society worked to adapt to the northern grasslands by practicing both agricultural diversification and environmental conservation.

Rozum argues that environmental awareness, including its ecological and cultural aspects, is key to forming a sense of place and a regional identity. The two concepts overlap and reinforce each place is more local, ecological, and emotional-sensual, and region is more ideational, national, and geographic in tone. This captivating study examines the growth of place and regional identities as they took shape within generations and over the life cycle.

500 pages, Hardcover

Published August 1, 2021

Reviews

[Thomas Isern · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new landmark in the historical literature of the Great Plains, chonicling how the second generation on the plains, the generation "grasslands grown," drew upon their personal sense of place to forge a larger regional identity. I have devoted Plains Folk radio essays to Rozum's book; interviewed her for a forthcoming feature on Prairie Public; assigned the book to all my graduate students; and organized a panel of the Northern Great Plains History Conference to discuss it. I know a work of consequence when I see one.