Lawrence H. Larsen is a professor of history at the University of Missouri–Kansas City. He is the author of The Urban South: A History (1990), Federal Justice in Western Missouri: The Judges, the Cases, the Times (1994), and other books. Barbara J. Cottrell is a historian with the National Archives–Central Plains Region. Harl A. Dalstrom is a professor of history at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
“Lawrence Larsen and his wife Barbara Cottrell have written a
marvelous urban biography. They have done what other historians
often fail to do—relate local happenings to the larger regional and
national picture. And Larsen and Cottrell have skillfully used
sophisticated historical works and concepts, incorporating them in
an understandable fashion. Throughout this book the authors write
in a delightful manner; they make you want to visit Omaha!”—North
Dakota History
“[The authors] organize their splendid urban biography around a
limited number of events of national magnitude. The husband-wife
team take as their story’s major units the building of the
transcontinental railroad, the penetration of the Great Plains by
homesteaders, the establishment of the meat packing industry, and
the creation of an elaborate national defense system. They fill in
their story with intriguing descriptions of the push-and-pull
factors that brought diverse ethnic groups to Omaha in the years
since 1854—the years when town promoters first settled at the
Missouri River ferry landing in the newly established Nebraska
territory. Because their narrative is so well organized, their
treatment of political, social, and cultural affairs is clear and
cohesive, while their discussion of urban unrest, vice, and crime
remains tightly linked to the general outlines of their lively
portrait of Omaha’s history.”—Business History Review
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