Browsing by Author "Elofson, W. M."

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    Rocking P Ranch and the Second Cattle Frontier in Western Canada
    (University of Calgary Press, 2019-01) Chattaway, Clay; Elofson, W. M.
    The Rocking P Ranch was one of the most ambitious family ranches in Southern Alberta. Founded in 1900 by Roderick Riddle Macleay, the Rocking P flourished during the Second Cattle Frontier as open-range Texas System ranches failed. Beginning in 1923, Maxine and Dorothy Macleay edited, reported, and published The Rocking P Gazette, a monthly newspaper grounded in the daily life of the Rocking P Ranch. With an audience of their parents and relatives, cowpunchers, teachers, and cooks, the 12- and 14-year-old sisters set out to create a family newspaper that reflected as closely as possible the commercial publications of the time. With sections for local news, advertisements, riddles, poetry, and contributions from Macleay ranch hands, The Rocking P Gazette brings the family ranch to life. Clay Chattaway and Warren Elofson draw upon this remarkable resource to explore the Second Cattle Frontier and to tell the story of the Rocking P Ranch. Through the lens of The Rocking P Gazette, Chattaway and Elofson detail not only a system of agricultural production, but a way of life that continues to this day.
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    "Two Souls Dwell in the German Nation": British Historians and the First World War
    (2018-09-14) Wainwright, Samuel George; Ferris, John Robert; Stapleton, Timothy J.; Hiebert, Maureen; Elofson, W. M.; Timm, Annette F.
    Historical scholarship on British-German relations prior to 1914 often emphasizes mutual antagonism. This antagonism, supposedly, reached a nadir during the First World War, with ‘the Hun’ being demonized as the enemy to civilization, but was replaced with a more sympathetic narrative after 1919, rooted in a reaction against the allegedly punitive peace settlement. This conventional view is too simplistic. Pre-war British historians overwhelmingly adopted favourable attitudes towards Germany, and often used their professional writing to encourage congenial relations between the two countries. Conceptually, their arguments centred upon the ‘two Germanies’ thesis, an abstraction which enabled British admiration for German cultural and intellectual achievements to exist in tension with fears concerning Prussia militarism. This literature shaped demi-official British views on Germany before the war, which were anti-Prussian rather than anti-German in orientation. The ‘two Germanies’ thesis continued to influence how historians conceptualized Germany after hostilities erupted in 1914. Following the war, this continuity enabled Germanophile historians to retain an idealistic view of Germany. This conviction led them to embrace and disseminate revisionist interpretations which posited that the European Powers shared responsibility for the conflict. The idea that all the belligerent states were equally responsible for the war encouraged the view that the grievances which a relatively ‘guiltless’ Germany sought to redress were legitimate. Germanophile historians occupied a central role in supplying the vocabulary by which politicians could frame post-war reconciliation. Placed within this context, pro-German historians provided the intellectual and moral justification for sympathetic policies towards Weimar Germany. There can be no doubt that the appeasement policies adopted in the 1930s resulted in part from the conciliatory atmosphere that historians inculcated in the previous decades.