Local author Staci Lola Drouillard is this year’s winner of the Hamlin Garland Prize in Popular History given out by the Midwestern History Association for her book Walking the Old Road: A People’s History of Chippewa City and the Grand Marais Anishinaabe.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press, the work is an exemplary model of Midwestern history. It blends the narratives of elders of the Grand Marais Anishinaabe people recorded by Drouillard with traditional historical research.
This place-based story reflects the diverse perspectives of Native people in their interaction with Europeans and Euro-Americans. The Anishinaabe live rich and fulfilling lives despite their marginalization by European explorers, traders, and people of the United States. The photographs of elders and places drawn from private and public collections, especially the Cook County (Minnesota) Historical Society, emphasize the importance of this remarkable history.
The Hamlin Garland Prize in Popular History honors a work of popular history about the Midwest published in the previous calendar year that contributes to broader public reflection and appreciation of the region’s past. The award is named after the Midwestern writer Hamlin Garland, a product of Wisconsin, Iowa, and South Dakota, who sought to promote writing about his home region and published widely in popular outlets. His many books include Daughter of the Middle Border, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1922.
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