Images are linked to the buy pages at our Moon City Press catalog, distributed through the University of Arkansas Press.
Confederate Girlhoods: A Women’s History of Early Springfield, Missouri (2010) – $24.95
“Confederate Girlhoods . . . is a treasure of historical significance, weaving the oft-told stories of America’s Civil War and its aftermath into a new pattern: as seen through the eyes of girls and women who lived through it. . . . I’m delighted that this record of local women’s voices has been preserved . . . and collected in this remarkable and important book.” —From the Foreword by Roseann Bentley, Associate Commissioner District 2, Greene County, Missouri
Confederate Girlhoods gathers materials from the Campbell-McCammon Collection, as preserved in The History Museum for Springfield-Greene County. One of Springfield, Missouri’s founding families, the Campbells were prodigious writers whose memoirs, correspondence, and fiction portray four generations of pioneer women. Focusing on writings from 1853 to 1902, Confederate Girlhoods presents these women’s views of Native Americans and early settling; of slavery and southern patriotism; of war and its social, political, economic aftermath; of the railroad and Westward migration; of an Ozarks community’s early efforts at conservation and civic commemoration.
Daring to Excel: The First 100 Years of Southwest Missouri State University (2004) – $29.95
More than a centennial celebration of Missouri’s second-largest public university, Daring to Excel charts the history of Missouri State University through a tumultuous century of wars and peace, economic booms and busts, and the many cultural, political, technological, and media revolutions that have impacted the Ozarks, Missouri, and the nation as a whole. Some of the book’s subjects belong to the university uniquely: its stories of influential teachers and alumni, its triumphs and challenges in pedagogy, varsity sports, public entertainments, and in community relations generally.
In the research and writing of so expansive a history, Landon has relied on numerous essayist-contributors, including Robert H. Bradley, Robert Flanders, Albert R. Gordon, John H. Keiser, Arthur Mallory, Andrea Mostyn, Jon Moran, Don Payton, Mark Stillwell, Tina Stillwell, and Tom Strong.
Recounting the many live vaudeville acts and films that graced the theatre’s stage and screen, The Gillioz “Theatre Beautiful” presents a social history of entertainment through the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, the Second World War, the Cold War, the Sixties and the Seventies. Of note is the Springfield theatre’s hosting of three movie world premieres—with future U. S. president Ronald Reagan appearing in each.
Living Ozarks: The Ecology and Culture of a Natural Place (2004) – $39.95 On Sale For $29.96!
A New Publication from the Ozarks Studies Institute, Missouri State University.
Lavishly illustrated, Living Ozarks: The Ecology and Culture of a Natural Place brings together essays, journal articles, book excerpts, and art/photo albums, all themed around the region’s heritage of nature and culture intertwined. Featured among the artwork are botanical drawings of S. Fred Prince, arguably the Ozarks’ first scientific illustrator; the “outsider art” of S. W. Mannon, one of the last “Shepherd of the Hills” pioneers (whose cabin is now an attraction at Silver Dollar City theme park); and internationally renowned photographer Jacek Fraczak. Readers familiar with the Ozarks’ tradition of nature writing will recognize many of the names anthologized, including Leonard Hall, Milton Rafferty, Robert Flanders, Werner O. Nagel, Robert K. Gilmore, and Dan Saults. Section topics include Defining the Ozarks, Eras of the Ozarks, Sustainability in the Ozarks, The Ozarks as Wilderness, and Experiencing the Ozarks.
As our national dialogue turns with increasing urgency toward issues of ecology and sustainable practices in business, land- and water-use, and lifestyle, an anthology like Living Ozarks offers important historical-cultural contexts. As MSU President Cliff Smart writes in his foreword, “the historical texts and images show where we have come from; the contemporary texts and images give suggestions as to where we’ve arrived and how we might move forward—our collective task being to ensure that the Ozarks remains a place of health, beauty, richness, and wonder for future generations.”
Living Waters: The Springs of Missouri (2020) – $19.95
In Living Waters: The Springs of Missouri, Loring Bullard explores the rich variety of Missouri springs, placing them in the state’s patterns of settlement and development. From the founding of towns to the establishment of wagon-road rest stops to largely forgotten spas and resorts, Missouri springs were, and continue to be, centerpieces of the landscape. They were once cherished sources of drinking water, their purity unquestioned. They provided power for mills, stock water for manufacturing plants, and source waters for fish hatcheries. Their numbingly cold waters filled swimming pools and trout ponds at scores of camps and resorts, where Missourians escaped the summer heat.
From the earliest times, springs were also sources of fascination. “Where does all that water come from? Why is it so cold?” Bullard gives us the science of spring hydrogeology; at the same time, he reminds us that springs were once revered symbols of renewal, purification, and everlasting life. They are no longer as central to the lives of Missourians. But are they still important to us? The answer to that question (and others) can be found in Living Waters.
The Orbit of Meter: Writings on Poems and Prosody by Robert Wallace (2023) – $21.95
Robert Wallace (1932-1999) forged a distinguished career as a poet, teacher, editor, and prosodist. Printed here for the first time, the monograph Free Verse and the Orbit of Meter mounts a rigorous defense of his original—and still controversial—theory of prosody first outlined in the essay, “Meter in English,” which begins this volume. A native Ozarker, Wallace was a prolific letter writer whose correspondents included John Updike, Dana Gioia, Donald Hall, Ted Hughes, Linda Pastan, and Mary Oliver. The volume ends with a descriptive inventory of his literary correspondence.
robert e smith: Paintings, Drawings, Poems, and Stories (2011) – $19.95
“Folk art can help you to lead a halfway decent life,” Robert E. Smith (1927-2010) was heard to say; but Springfield, Missouri’s most famous, eccentric, and beloved painter pushed his work into the realm of outsider art. Self-taught, Smith began painting while a young man: forcibly institutionalized following a nervous breakdown, he retreated into his art. Unsurprisingly, his art brut is unbounded by logic, time, and space, brilliantly colored, at once childlike and troubling.
But Smith’s art reveals more than an imagination unfettered. The work of an inveterate story-teller, his paintings present witty, savvy, complex visual narratives. Cartoon animals mingle with sidewalk preachers, movie stars, and U.S. Presidents; in busy street scenes, bicycles and trolley cars bustle below while blimps and airplanes and UFOs—and an occasional nuclear bomb—fly overhead. Smith’s painting revels in satire, revealing an eye for incongruity and an inherent love of life. Even a cursory view of his work reflects a man who led a rich, wondrous life and whose fanciful yearnings inspired the community that cherished him. Born in St. Louis, Smith moved to Springfield in 1975. Drawn mainly from local, privately-owned collections, the present anthology features thirty full-color illustrations along with cartoons, poems, and stories by the artist.
Springfield’s Urban Histories: Essays on the Queen City of the Missouri Ozarks (2012) – $24.95
The eleven essays included in this volume offer the most authoritative account yet published of the distinctively urban history of Springfield, Missouri—the largest city in the Ozarks. Essays on early history include “Quinine and Courage: The Battle of Springfield, January 8, 1863,” by William Garrett Piston and John C. Rutherford. Post-Civil War histories include “Retail Rivals: Springfield’s Commercial Street versus the Public Square, 1870–1945,” by Angela Wingo Miller, and “Memories of Walter Majors: Searching for African American History in Springfield,” by Richard L. Schur. Post–World War II histories include “From Zenith to Nadir: The Story of Springfield’s Largest Manufacturing Plant,” by Tim Knapp, and “The Demise of O’Reilly Hospital and the Beginning of Evangel College, 1946–1955,” by Lawrence J. Nelson. The volume concludes with Holly A. Baggett’s “Creation of a Community: A History of Gay and Lesbian Springfield, 1945–2010.”
Contributors: Holly A. Baggett, Tom Dicke, Tim Knapp, Stephen L. McIntyre, Edgar D. McKinney, Angela Wingo Miller, F. Thornton Miller, Lawrence J. Nelson, William Garrett Piston, John C. Rutherford, Richard L. Schur, and Erin M. Smither.
TechnOzarks: Essays in Technology, Regional Economy, and Culture (2019) – $40.00
The book’s first section, “Regional History through the Mid-Twentieth Century,” recounts the conquest of the rugged Ozarks terrain (by railroad, automobile, and hydroelectricity) and the development of “big machine” industry. The second section, “From the Later Twentieth Century to the Present,” explores communication technologies in radio and television (which made Springfield, for a time, the epicenter of country music broadcasting in America); other themes include urban Springfield’s transition from an industrial to a service economy and the transformation of the “lake country” landscape through tourism. The third section, “The Twenty-First Century and Beyond,” celebrates the region’s successful wedding of technology and entrepreneurship, ensuring the Ozarks a place in the emerging global economy; also featured is “A Forum on the Future,” in which scientists, academicians, healthcare practitioners, men and women of business, and citizens of diverse backgrounds make their predictions—and say what they are doing, now, to ensure a hopeful future for Springfield and the Ozarks.
TechnOzarks is the latest publication of the Ozarks Studies Institute, an initiative of the Missouri State University Libraries.
“We Gave Them Thunder”: Marmaduke’s Raid and the Civil War in Missouri and Arkansas (2021) – $29.95
“We Gave Them Thunder” is an authoritative study of Marmaduke’s raid into Southwest Missouri, the Battle of Springfield (January 8, 1863), and the Battle of Hartville (January 11, 1863).
