1. For a narrative description of the war effort in Lyon county, see Thomas W. McCausland, Rally of Resolve: The Home Front in Lyon County, Minnesota (Marshall, Minn.: Southwest State University, 1990).
2. The town historians of Taunton, Mrs. Max Kosmalski and Jerry Langsweirdt, declared at the end of the centennial account of Taunton's history, that among the town's disadvantages were "‘every one knows everything about every one else.'" Kosmalski and Langsweirdt themselves put this phrase in quotations, recognizing that this complaint has been made about small-town life at least since the first years of European settlement in America. Torgny Anderson, ed., The Centennial History of Lyon County, Minnesota (Marshall, Minn.: Henle Publishing, 1970).
3. In their classic study of Springdale, New York, Arthur J. Vidich and Joseph Bensman noted both that the preservation of individual privacy was difficult in the face of a public valuation of equalitarianism and neighborliness, and that social life was marked by pervasive but nonverbalized, even unnoticed, patterns of exclusion and preference. Small Town in Mass Society: Class, Power, and Religion in a Rural Community (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1959), 41 and 22-23.
4. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 27 January 1939: 1.
5. Karen V. Hansen, A Very Social Time: Crafting Community in Antebellum New England (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1994): 13.
6. B. W. Collins, in describing the absence of small-town consensus in the antebellum north, also examined the status of parties, ethno-cultural clashes, and business frustration with government interference. These categories all suggest fruitful realms of future research. "Community and Consensus in Ante-Bellum America," Historical Journal 19, n. 3 (1976): 662.
7. Harlan Paul Douglass, The Little Town: Especially in its Rural Relationships (New York: Macmillan, 1919), 17-18.
8. "For small town elites, the pageant was a favorite medium to link up with the Great Tradition of the American nation while boosting their own regional status." Esther Romeyn and Jack Kugelmass, "Community Festivals and the Politics of Memory: Postmodernity in the American Heartland," in The Small Town in America: A Multidisciplinary Revisit, ed. Hans Bertens and Theo D'haen (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 1995): 198.
9. Vidich and Bensman, Small Town in Mass Society, 98.
10. An undated newspaper cartoon, showing all members of rural communities--including the cows and chickens--adjusting their daily rhythms to the over-flight of the mail plane, is just one visual symbol of the utterly non-isolated existence of rural people. Figure not on-line
11. Weber's ideas about modernity are scattered across a variety of essays. For one Weberian examination of modern bureaucratic structures, see Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, trans. by A. M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons (New York: Free Press, 1947).
12. See especially Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. by Thomas Burger with Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1989).
13. Andrew Arato and Jean Cohen, "Civil Society and Social Theory," Thesis Eleven, n. 21 (1988): 41-43.
14. Hansen, A Very Social Time, 6.
15. Richard Lingeman, Small Town America: A Narrative History 1620-The Present (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1980): 275.
16. Hansen, A Very Social Time, 8.
17. Darrett B. Rutman, "Assessing the Little Communities of Early America," William and Mary Quarterly 43, n. 2 (1986): 171-178.
18. Sonya Salamon, Prairie Patrimony: Family, Farming, and Community in the Midwest, Studies in Rural Culture, ed. Jack Temple Kirby (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1992): 1-9.
19. John Fraser Hart, "Small Towns and Manufacturing," Geographical Review 78, n. 3 (1988): 272 and 286.
20. For examples, see the accounts of the origins of each of Lyon County's eleven villages in Anderson, Centennial History of Lyon County. All were platted in their ultimate locations because of decisions made by the Great Northern railroad and its competitors.
21. Merrill Starr and Mrs. Harold Hook, "Tracy," in T. Anderson, ed., Centennial History of Lyon County, 139.
22. A. P. Rose, The History of Lyon County, as quoted in 100 Years, St. Eloi's, 1883-1983, Ghent, Minnesota (N.p.: 1983), 89.
23. Vidich and Bensman found that "economically the village functions as a farm trading center." Small Town in Mass Society, 19.
24. Richard V. Francaviglia, Main Street Revisited: Time, Space, and Image Building in Small-Town America (Iowa City, Iowa: University of Iowa Press, 1996), xxiii.
25. Wayne Franklin's Foreword to Francaviglia, Main Street Revisited, xii.
26. The shops and division headquarters of the Chicago-Northwestern were established at Tracy in 1879. The town thus handled all east-bound trains to the Twin Cities and to Chicago, as well as the western lines to Watertown and the Black Hills in South Dakota. It was this headquarters which, in the words of the Tracy newspaper, "made the struggling little village on the prairies a boom town, attracting state-wide attention at the time." Tracy Headlight-Herald, 16 February 1940: Building Supplement.
27. St. Eloi's, 99 and 111.
28. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 28 April 1939.
29. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 20 January 1939: 10.
30. John and Kathyrn Ponstein, interview by Donna Ponstein, 9 February 1974, transcript, Southwest Minnesota Historical Center, Marshall, Minn.
31. Carl E. Anderson, interview by Warren Gardner and Arthur Finnell, 17 August 1973, transcript, Southwest Minnesota Historical Center, Marshall, Minn.
32. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 5 July 1940.
33. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 21 April 1939.
34. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 26 May 1939 and 2 June 1939.
35. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 16 February 1940.
36. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 4 August 1939.
37. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 2 June 1939.
38. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 30 June 1939.
39. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 11 July 1941: 10.
40. Douglass, Little Town, 18-19.
41. The column's closing line further highlighted the degree to which railroads forced home Cottonwood's sense of the world outside: "Efficient people--these Americans, doing big things in a big way." Cottonwood Current, 2 October 1942.
42. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 17 February 1939: 1.
43. Vernon and Frances Runholt, interview by David L. Nass, 4 January 1973, transcript, Southwest Minnesota Historical Center, Marshall, Minn. Keith Wrightson, describing seventeenth-century England, defined traditional community as bounded by neighborliness, minimum standards of peaceable behavior and mutual aid. He also suggested that this community came under concerted and successful attack during the new Protestant era. English Society (New Brunswick, N.J.: Unwin Hyman, 1982), 53-53 and 205, as discussed in Rutman, "Little Communities," 169.
44. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 20 January 1939: 2.
45. Tracy-Headlight Herald, 17 November 1939: 1.
46. Carl E. Anderson, 1973 interview.
47. "We used to have sales, salesmen from the Cities had big sales for us." Anna O. Anderson, interview by Arthur Finnell and Warren Gardner, 16 August 1973, transcript, Southwest Minnesota Historical Center, Marshall, Minn.
48. Cottonwood Current, 9 January 1942: 1.
49. In 1939, an extension economist spoke about "Getting Along With People," which seems more in line with the ongoing attempt of university experts to modernize small-town cultural life than any part of a program of economic advisement. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 7 April 1939: 1.
50. These included outlawing rural liquor and beer establishments and a provision for complete medical examinations before the issuance of marriage certificates. Cottonwood Current, 30 January 1942.
51. "Amateur Radio 'Hams' From Tri-Counties Form Organization," Tracy Headlight-Herald, 27 January 1939: 1 and 12.
52. John and Kathyrn Ponstein, 1974 Interview.
53. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 6 October 1939.
54. "It was mostly social meetings is really what it amounted to." Vernon and Frances Runholt, 1973 interview.
55. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 20 January 1939: 3. Later that same week Mrs. Francis Moses and Mrs. T. T. Erickson, township chairs of the Home Demonstration project, met with the other county chairs in Belview to discuss project work.
56. Dennis Bussard, The Boobydingles: Growing Up in Marshall, Minnesota (Minneapolis, Minn.: James D. Thueson, 1990): 58-59.
57. At the turn of the century, women's clubs in a dozen communities in Texas, Iowa, Kansas, and Minnesota opened rooms or small houses in town to serve as social clubs for farm wives and their children to visit on market days. In some places these gathering spots evolved into community centers for town and farm inhabitants alike. See Anne Firor Scott, Natural Allies: Women's Associations in American History (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1991), 145-146. Although the evidence of Lyon county suggests that farm wives by the 1930s had plenty to do in the shops themselves, the prominent role of community clubs in Tracy and Cottonwood are suggestive of an earlier process of boundary-transcendence in this area.
58. Mr. and Mrs. H.L. Point and James Ulvilden, "History of Russell," in Anderson, Centennial History, 107.
59. "C & C Meeting Tuesday Night," Tracy Headlight-Herald, 6 January 1939: 1.
60. "Virginia Chapter of OES Inducts Officers Tuesday," Tracy Headlight-Herald, 6 January 1939: 1.
61. Cottonwood Current, 15 May 1942: 1.
62. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 6 October 1939.
63. Cottonwood Current, 16 October 1942 and Tracy Headlight-Herald, 7 April 1939.
64. Richard Lingeman notes that the addition of street numbers to houses sometimes aroused resistance from people who opposed the passing of "an era when everyone knew where everyone else lived." Small Town America, 287.
65. Cottonwood Current, 2 October 1942.
66. Cottonwood Current, 16 January 1942.
67. Theodore C. Blegen, Minnesota: A History of the State (Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, 1963), 543.
68. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 8 November 1940: 1.
69. Citizens' Service Corp, Education Section, War Activities in Minnesota Schools (St. Paul, Minn.: Office of Civilian Defense, 1942), 43.
70. Citizens Service Corp, War Activities, 44.
71. Citizens Service Corp, War Activities, 72-73.
72. Citizens Service Corp, War Activities, 66.
73. Citizens Service Corp, War Activities, 67.
74. Citizens Service Corp, War Activities, 67.
75. Theda Skocpol, in her recent presidential address to the Social Science History Association, noted that U.S. voluntary associations often use federal government initiatives and resources to mobilize resources to start, expand, or revitalize their missions. Here, the state uses organizations which have followed this trend to reinforce the institutional aims of war mobilization. "The Tocqueville Problem: Civic Engagement in American Democracy" (New Orleans, La.: October 12, 1996), 21.
76. Citizens Service Corp, War Activities, 67, 69-70, and 72.
77. Government institutions showed a touching faith even before the war that criticism could be defined as merely based on lack of information. When in 1940 the Lyon county draft board received an anonymous letter of complaint in 1940, it published a letter in the county newspapers welcoming "any criticism that gives real information, or is constructive and is within the power of the Board to accept." The anonymous writer was, however, informed that only signed letters could be accepted for consideration. Given this early reticence to make public criticisms, one can only imagine the attitude after war had been declared. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 29 August 1941: 1.
78. Citizens Service Corps, War Activities, 66 and 73.
79. Citizens Service Corp, War Activities, 73-74.
80. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 16 February 1940: Building Supplement.
81. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 19 September 1941: 1.
82. Vernon and Frances Runholt, 1973 interview.
83. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 6 October 1939: 8.
84. A. L. Almen in the Balaton Press-Tribune, quoted in the Cottonwood Current, 25 September 1942: 1.
85. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 13 October 1939: 1.
86. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 17 March 1939.
87. Scott, Natural Allies, 150.
88. Lowry Nelson, The Minnesota Community: Country and Town in Transition (Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, 1960), 81.
89. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 19 July 1940: 10. It should be noted, however, that only a week previously the newspaper had mentioned that a new illuminated baseball field was being constructed through the private initiative of the site's owner and local businessmen. "The baseball and kittenball enthusiasts of the city are providing the labor and a substantial portion of the material." Tracy Headlight-Herald, 12 July 1940. In fact, the editorial on community involvement could be read as an endorsement not of organized government involvement but rather of grass-roots support in the 'booster' tradition.
90. "Financial Statement of the City of Tracy, Lyon County, Minnesota," Tracy Headlight-Herald, 31 March 1939: 8.
91. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 31 March 1939: 6 and 7 April 1939: 1.
92. "Lyon Committee Heads Elected," Tracy Headlight-Herald, 6 January 1939: 1.
93. Maynard F. Brass, "Lyon County and its Governing Board," in Anderson, Centennial History of Lyon County, 11-13. That the county paid for the farm foreman's "medical care and, on occasion, caskets," suggests that the position was assigned from among the indigent.
94. "Official Proceedings of the County Board," Tracy Headlight-Herald, 23 June 1939: 10.
95. Brass, "Lyon County and its Governing Board," 13.
96. Vernon and Frances Runholt, 1973 Interview.
97. One advertisement focused entirely on the promotion of porch lights, which were purported to beautify the neighborhood and impress the neighbors.
98. Vernon and Frances Runholt, 1973 interview.
99. Scott, Natural Allies, 173.
100. "Raise Objection to Welfare Board Change," Tracy Headlight-Herald, 17 February 1939.
101. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 17 November 1939: 12.
102. Tracy Headlight-Herald, 10 February 1939.
103. Scott, Women's Associations, 144. Scott's claim that midwestern communities, "intent first on economic survival, had failed to create most of the conditions that people associated with 'civilization'" accurately reflects how town boosters described physical improvements as importations of modernity and fine living. It is not so easy, however, to conclude that small towns at the turn of the century were indeed uncivilized. The longing for "tree-shaded New England villages" Scott describes is particularly misplaced in Lyon county, most of whose settlers arrived from Iceland, Belgium, Norway, and Ireland.
104. Martha E. D. White, "The Work of the Woman's Club," Atlantic Monthly 93, no. 559 (May 1904): 614-623, quoted in Scott, Natural Allies, 153.
105. Interestingly, small-town clubs may have been more visible participants in the life of the community because of the relative lack of differentiation between public and private spaces. Club campaigns for improved schools or street signs took place in a public sphere in certain ways more open to women than that existing in large industrial cities such as Chicago or New York. As Scott pointed out, "men who had had no first-hand exposure to the work of women's clubs tended to think of them as frivolous." Natural Allies, 158. First-hand contact with the work of women's clubs was more likely within the relative confines of Lyon county's small towns.
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