In 1980, the University of Oklahoma Press published a ten-book series titled Newcomers to a New Land that described and analyzed the role of the major ethnic groups that have contributed to the history of Oklahoma. The series was part of Oklahoma Image, a project sponsored by the Oklahoma Department of Libraries and the Oklahoma Library Association and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.In response to numerous requests, the University of Oklahoma Press has reissued all ten volumes in the series. Published unaltered from the original editions, these books continue to have both historical and cultural value for reasons the series editorial committee stated as well.“Though not large in number as compared to those in some states, immigrants from various European nations left a marked impact on Oklahoma’s history. As in the larger United States, they worked in many economic and social roles that enriched the state’s life. Indians have played a crucial part in Oklahoma’s history, even to giving the state her name. Blacks and Mexicans have also fulfilled a special set of roles, and will continue to affect Oklahoma’s future. The history of each of these groups is unique, well worth remembering to both their heirs and to other people in the state and nation. Their stories come from the past, but continue on the future.”
Angie Debo was reared in a pioneer community, at Marshall, Oklahoma, where it has been her privilege to know from childhood the folkways of the Indians and the traditions of the western settlers. A member of her community high school's first graduating class, she later attended the University of Oklahoma, where she was a Phi Beta Kappa, and took her B.A. and later her Ph.D. degree; she received her master's degree from the University of Chicago. Her education was combined with intervals of teaching in country schools, starting at the age of sixteen.
Miss Debo's distinguished reputation as a regional scholar has been enhanced by her book, The Rise and. Fall of the Choctaw Republic, which won the John H. Dunning prize of the American Historical Society for the best book submitted in the field of United States history in 1934, and for her later, book, And Still the Waters Run. She has been a teacher in schools and colleges both in Oklahoma and Texas and was curator of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas. More recently she has been state director of the Federal Writers' Project in Oklahoma, in which capacity she edited Oklahoma: A Guide to the Sooner State for the American Guide Series.