There's some great reading coming in the next issue of Nebraska History and it could be coming your way. . .

"The Joslyns of Omaha: Opulence and Philanthropy" by Dennis N. Mihelich
By 1917 George Joslyn was Nebraska's wealthiest man, and still today his namesake monuments, the Joslyn Art Museum and his palatial home, the Joslyn "Castle," are Omaha landmarks. Although the Joslyns' opulent life style is well known, their less well-known generosity and philanthropy left a mark on Omaha and the state that endures to this day. In the second of two articles on George and Sarah Joslyn, Professor Mihelich explores this lesser-known side of a couple who "fulfilled the American Dream by attaining wealth and material abundance, but also fulfilled the promise of American democracy by sharing their good fortune, and their legacy is an amalgam of opulence and philanthropy."

"Broad Are Nebraska's Rolling Plains": The Early Writings of George Bird Grinnell by Richard Vaughan
Best known today as the renowned author of several ethnographic studies of the Plains Indians and a founding father of the American conservation movement, George Bird Grinnell was introduced to the West at age 20 through a "bone-hunting" expedition into Nebraska in 1870 with Yale professor O.C. Marsh. The influence of those early days in Nebraska continued to reverberate throughout his life and work, and are reflected in his later writings, including an account of that 1870 trip published here for the first time.

"Nebraska's Lincoln Ambrotypes" by Jill Marie Koelling
The first photograph of Abraham Lincoln was a daguerreotype taken in 1846, just seven years after two French inventors introduced photography to the world, and Lincoln was the first president to recognize the power of photography. Of the 131 photographs of Lincoln known to exist, two are in Nebraska -- one in the University of Nebraska Special Collections Library, the other at the Nebraska State Historical Society in Lincoln. In this article, Jill Marie Koelling, the Historical Society's curator of photographs and a recognized expert in using digital imaging to learn more from historic photographs, explores the history of these two Nebraska treasures.

"Spotted Tail and the Treaty of 1868" by Kingsley M. Bray
Spotted Tail, principal chief of the Upper Brulé division of the Lakota Sioux, was a diplomat, negotiator, warrior, and orator whose "contribution to the troubled treaty negotiations set a benchmark for Brulé politics during the difficult years of accommodation to the reservation system, while his moral example of wary, gradualist acceptance of change established a Brulé consensus that would hold through the war years into the twentieth century." Kingsley Bray's re-evaluation of role of Spotted Tail provides a new view of these crucial transition years as he and his people were drawn inescapably into a new world of restricted land base and radical economic change.

More fascinating stories are on their way in the four following issues:

Summer

Fact and Folklore in the Story of "John Brown's Cave" and the Underground Railroad in Nebraska by James E. Potter

Faces of War: Five Soldiers of General Crook's Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition of 1876 by Jerome A. Greene

Admitting the Nisei: Japanese American Students at the University of Nebraska, 1942-43 by Andrew B. Wertheimer

Robert W. Furnas, "Nebraska Press Recollections," and the Oldest Newspaper Controversy by Patricia Gaster

Fall

Old Cuts in New Wood: Terminal Czech Carpentry in the Central Great Plains
by David Murphy

"I Plead for Them": Alice Cunningham Fletcher's 1882 Evaluation of the Omaha Tribe edited by Valerie Sherer Mathes and Richard Lowitt

"Homo Hunting" in the Early Cold War: Senator Kenneth Wherry and the
Homophobic Side of McCarthyism by Randolph W. Baxter

Winter (a single-topic issue)

"I'm never going to be snowbound again": The Winter of 1948-1949 in Nebraska
by Harl A. Dalstrom

A Blizzard Album: Photos from the NSHS Collection

Spring (a special baseball issue)

"A Role New to the Race": A History of the Nebraska Indians by Jeffery Powers-Beck

Growing Pains in the River City: The Development of Professional Baseball in Nineteenth Century Omaha by Angelo J. Louisa and Robert P. Nash

The "Coon League": The Nebraska State League's 1892 Experiment with Integrated Baseball by Gregory Bond

The National Game at Cody: The Spade Ranch vs. the Diamond Bar Ranch from the Neligh Weekly News, November 9, 1916, with editing and annotation by John Carter

Baggy Pants and Dusty Diamonds: Early Baseball Photos from the NSHS Archives