Hayseeds, Moralizers, and Methodists: The Twentieth-Century Image of Kansas

Bader, Robert Smith

ISBN 10: 0700603611 / ISBN 13: 9780700603619

Published by University Press of Kansas, 1988

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Hayseeds, Moralizers, and Methodists: The Twentieth-Century Image of Kansas
• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Publication Date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0700603611
• ISBN 13: 9780700603619
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

The tattered image of modern-day Kansas and how it got that way is the subject of this pioneering and wonderfully entertaining book. Robert Smith Bader traces the rise and fall of the state's reputation from the turn of the century--when it was a national leader in the two most prominent sociopolitical movements of the era, Progressivism and prohibition--through the Jazz Age--when Kansas came to epitomize strait-laced, fundamentalist values (H.L. Mencken proclaimed it the quintessential "cow state," chock-full of hayseeds, moralizers, and Methodists)--to today's consensus view of Kansas as drab and boring. The book concludes with a marvelous survey of recent popular culture and with a call for a reexamination of the state's historic strengths.

Review

"A major contribution for all students of the Kansas heritage, professional and amateur. The research is impressive, and many quotations are used effectively to communicate the images. Because Kansans have special concerns about the image of their state, this book should attract a wide audience."--Leo E. Oliva, author of Soldiers on the Santa Fe Trail

"This book is an excellent, scholarly study about Kansas and Kansans, although the author expresses insightful comments, which may apply equally well to most of the other forty-nine states."Midwest Quarterly

"Virtually every author from Kansas, or still in Kansas, has struggled to deal with the states poor media image. This volume is Baders attempt, and it is the first book-length offering to embark on these troubled waters. Not only does the work provide an overview of Kansas's past and present heritage, it also provides the authors summary of popular culture and the conclusions he draws from it."Journal of the West

"This book is at once entertaining, informative, irritating, discouraging, embarrassing, and stimulating. More state and regional studies of this sortand qualityought to be forthcoming."Locus