When I first became interested in North Dakota Quarterly about five years ago or so, I floated the idea that we mine the back content of NDQ to create a series of readers on various topics. I figured that this might be a way to show off the “best of the best” from NDQ’s storied history and perhaps to generate a little cash flow if we sold them online as print-on-demand volumes. Aside from a few trial balloons, including a little volume on North Dakota and the Great War which attracted a handful of downloads, there wasn’t too much real interest.

The other day, while hanging out in the NDQ offices, I decided to shelf-surf a bit and stumbled across a few paper bound volumes that were collections of past NDQ articles edited by Elizabeth Hampsten and Stephen Dilks and published in 1997.

The entire volume is re-set and re-paginated into columns. I offer the table of contents for the first of the three volumes below. It would be possible to link to each contribution because they’re now available online, but I also wonder whether folks might like a paper copy of the reader for a nominal price (i.e. <$20). There would be some production time and effort, to be sure, but it would seem worth it if folks see a volume like this as a suitable way to celebrate the legacy of NDQ.

Let me know in the comments and in the meantime, here’s the table of contents:

North Dakota is Everywhere
A North Dakota Quarterly Reader, 1910-1996

Contents

Frank Allen, “The Two-fold Function of the University” (September 1910), 1
Luther C Freeman, “The Problem of the Teacher” (September 1910), 8
Frank L. McVey, “Syndicalism and Socialism and Their Meaning” (April 1914), 11
James E. Boyle, “Notes From an Agricultural Field Trip Across North Dakota” (January 1917), 17
VeraKesey, “Free” (play, July 1917), 21
Albert Tangeman Vollweiler, “Roosevelt’s Ranch life in North Dakota” (October 1918), 24
Luther H. Lyon, “Choosing a Name for The Product” (November 1928), 34
Elwyn B. Robinson, “Lewis & Clark-the North Dakota Phase” (Winter 1956), 38
Robert P. Wilkins, “Middle Western Isolationism: A Re-examination” (Summer 1957), 46
John F. Kennedy, “The Obligation of a Society to Preserve Its Natural Endowment” (Summer 1963) 52
Wynona H. Wilkins. “The Idea of North Dakota” (Winter 1971), 56
Rodney Nelson, “Politics in North Dakota: A Short Story” (Autumn 1976), 69
Max Westbrook, “Story Telling as a Way of Thinking” (Spring 1979), 72
Peter Nabokov, “America as Holy Land” (Autumn 1980), 81
Thomas McGrath, “Journey by Sled to Midnight Mass in the 1920s” (Autuman 1980), 89
Dale Jacobson “Review of Thomas McGrath, Letter to an Imaginary Friend: Parts III & IV” (Winter 1987), 94
James H. Rogers, “Vision and Feeling: An Interview with Thomas McGrath” (Winter 1985), 96
Thomas McGrath, “North Dakota Is Everywhere” (Summer 1982), 104
Dale Jacobson, “For Thomas McGrath” (poem. Fall 1982), 105
Valentina Borremans, “Appropriate Technology and the Modernization and Feminization of Poverty” (Winter/Spring 1984), 107
Deborah Fink “‘Mom, It’s a Losing Proposition’: The Decline of Women’s Subsistence Production on Iowa Farms” (Winter/Spring 1984), 113
J. M. Coetzee, “Michael Kin the Camp” (Spring 1983), 117
James Summerville, “Rural America: An Index” (Fall 1985), 123
Kathleen Norris, “Gatsby on the Plains: The Small-Town Death Wish” (Fall 1985) 128
G. Keith Gunderson, “Letter: A Reply to ‘Gatsby on the Plains’” (Fall 1985), 134
Mark Phillips, “An Introduction: ‘Creativeness and Social Change’” (Fall 1985), 137
Derek Savage, “Creativeness and Social Change” (Fall 1985), 138
Catharine R. Stimpson, “Needling” (Summer 1987), 142
Brian Swann “‘The dusky body of IT underneath’: Some Thoughts on America and Native Americans” (Winter 1987). 146
Ron Vossler, “The Last Casualty of Shipka Pass” (Fall 1988) and “The Last Survivor of Shipka Pass,” 158 and 162
Patricia Sanborn, “An Odyssey Through Schools: Notes of a Learner and Teacher” (Winter 1988), 167
Robert W. Lewis, “Introduction: Gleanings” (Fall 1991), 175 and “Declaration of Quito” (Fall 1991), 180
Lise McCloud, “Heart of the Turtle” (Fall 1991), 182
Claude Clayton Smith, “Red Men in Red Square” (Fall 1991), 187
Susan K. Martin, “Go (Further) West Young Man: The New (True Blue) Frontier of the American Imagination” (Winter 1992), 196
Robert Sayre, “Rethinking Midwestern Regionalism” (Spring 1994-95), 205
John Tallmadge, “Moving to Minnesota” (Spring 1996), 214
Lennart Pearson, “Feeding Pork to the Pig: Swedish Proverbs and Wellerisms” (Spring 1996), 222

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Bill Caraher is the editor of North Dakota Quarterly. He is a historian and archaeologists at the University of North Dakota who specializes in the Late Roman and Early Byzantine Eastern Mediterranean and contemporary America. He blogs at Archaeology of the Mediterranean World.