An Engaging and Popular Primary Source: Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm during the Great Depression (2023)
I teach an Iowa history class at Iowa State University. In recent years, this course has been online, but I taught it for several years face-to-face. One of the major readings for the class is the memoir of Mildred Armstrong Kalish, Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm during the Great Depression. This is a charming and highly readable primary source that has been popular with my students since I started teaching the class. It is appealing to those who are not history majors. The book ties into important themes of the class such as the transformation of agriculture and rural life in the twentieth century. Kalish's book could easily be used for courses in agricultural history as well as US history. Little Heathens is the story of a lost rural world of small family farms, which has become part of American mythology. The book has many strengths, but even its flaws encourage student discussion and reflection.
...MoreArticle Nicole Welk-Joerger; David D. Vail (2023) Introduction: “You Probably Teach Agricultural History, Even If You Don't Know It”. Agricultural History (pp. 610-615).
Similar Citations
Article
Peter Braden;
(2023)
Crafting Rice Assignments
Article
Rebecca Kaplan;
(2023)
Teaching US History through Land-Grant Universities and Agriculture Education
Book
Meighen Katz;
(2019)
Narratives of Vulnerability in Museums: American Interpretations of the Great Depression
Article
Cody Miller;
(2023)
Soils as Archives: Cultivating an Integrative Pedagogy for Soil History and Place-Based Education in Appalachia
Article
Matthew R. Holmes;
(2023)
Hybrid Teaching: A Classroom Case Study on the History of Mendelian Genetics
Article
Nicole Welk-Joerger;
David D. Vail;
(2023)
Introduction: “You Probably Teach Agricultural History, Even If You Don't Know It”
Article
Mark D. Hersey;
(2022)
Material Stories, Old and New
Article
Kendra Smith-Howard;
(2022)
An Invitation to Dance
Article
Seth Hedquist;
(2019)
“Boost the Farm Bureau”: Agricultural Leaders, Progressive Musicians, and Social Orchestration in Iowa, 1921–1937
Book
Pamela Riney-Kehrberg;
(2022)
When a Dream Dies: Agriculture, Iowa, and the Farm Crisis of the 1980s
Article
Laurence F. Gross;
(1981)
The Importance of Research Outside the Library: Watkins Mill, A Case Study
Article
Nicholas A. Timmerman;
Abigail J. Carpenter;
(2023)
Study USA: Agriculture and History of the Mississippi Delta
Book
E. Paul Durrenberger;
(2021)
The Dawn of Industrial Agriculture in Iowa: Anthropology, Literature, and History
Article
Anderson, J. L.;
(2005)
War on Weeds: Iowa Farmers and Growth-Regulator Herbicides
Article
Marcus, Alan I.;
(2013)
The New Agricultural College and the New Agricultural History
Book
Peter J. Kuznick;
(2019)
Beyond the Laboratory: Scientists as Political Activists in 1930s America
Book
Judge Earl Glock;
(2021)
The Dead Pledge: The Origins of the Mortgage Market and Federal Bailouts, 1913–1939
Article
Albert Churella;
(Fall-Winter 2024)
From the Crew room to the Board room
Article
Schramm, Jeff;
(2010)
Holding history: Teaching with technological artifacts
Article
Felix Mauch;
Stefan Esselborn;
(2021)
In einem Semester um die Welt? Globalgeschichtliche Ansätze in der technikhistorischen Lehre. (Around the world in one semester? Global History Approaches in the Teaching of Technology History)
Be the first to comment!