Sugar Creek : life on the Illinois Prairie /

In recent times, the use of local history to elaborate America's past has increased in importance and has resulted in numerous excellent studies such as this. Faragher (Mount Holyoke) frequently confirms what most historians believe about life in the rural, Middle Western US, and he does so with a certainty lacking in more general studies. Sugar Creek is a small geographical area in Sangamon County, Illinois, east of Springfield-the ``Land of Lincoln.'' The years covered here are the three-score prior to the Civil War, the period of pioneer occupation and settlement. Each chapter is filled with fact-supported generalization about everyday life among settlers building a rural civilization. The most important observations concern the role cooperation and community played in the lives of the area's first few generations. The social building blocks during this formative period were family, household, church, and neighborhood. Through these institutions, Sugar Creek maintained a conservative, traditional society in the midst of rapid population turnover, a condition common in the newer areas of the West. By 1860, the area, once described as semibarbaric, ``had developed into the `civilization and refinement' of a society divided into classes of owner-operator, tenants and hired labor.'' Faragher's research is detailed and meticulous; his writing style is superb. The brief description of Sugar Creek as it exists today creates a desire to know much more about what happened there from 1860 to 1986. A masterpiece of local history. College, university, and public libraries.-R.S. La Forte, North Texas State University

In Faragher's socioeconomic examination of pioneer life in Sangamon County in central Illinois, he views the events, attitudes, and conditions during the early settlement of the community of Sugar Creek as paradigmatic of life in the rural Midwest in the first half of the nineteenth century. Agricultural practices, social life, male-female roles and relations, and the process of making the wilderness inhabitable are all covered in this evenly flowing narrative. The dangers and rewards of such an existence come across distinctly. Notes; to be indexed. BH. 977.3'56 Sugar Creek Valley (Macoupin County and Sangamon County, Illinois) History / Frontier and pioneer life Illinois Sugar Creek Valley (Macoupin County and Sangamon County) / Sugar Creek Valley (Macoupin County and Sangamon County, Illinois) Social conditions / Sugar Creek Valley (Macoupin County and Sangamon County, Illinois) Economic conditions [OCLC] 86-5622

This is a pleasantly written study of rural life in Sangamon County, Abraham Lincoln's neck of the woods. Concentrating on the first half of the 19th century, Faragher skillfully interweaves social, economic, and cultural history into a whole that is local history at its best, but, because of multiple implications, is much more than the history of a locality. Using many sources, he covers Indian-white relations, the establishment of towns, childbearing patterns, changing family life, the move from a barter to a cash economy, the alteration of the landscape, and the vicissitudes of agriculture for farm owners, tenants, and employees. This innovative book can fit into collections on family, agriculture, frontier, social, and women's history. Recommended for most college and university libraries. Joseph G. Dawson III, History Dept., Texas A&M Univ., College Station (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.