
Purebred and Homegrown
America's County Fairs
Terrace Books (Publisher)
Published on 22. September 2008
Book
Paperback/Softback
264 pages
978-0-299-22824-8 (ISBN)
Description
Get a corn dog and meet me at the harness races!Visit America's county fairs as they are vividly evoked through the images, stories, and voices of the people who make them happen - 4-H kids, fair managers, pie judges, farmers and ranchers, rodeo queens, entertainers, food vendors, midway pitchmen, and assorted local characters. Illustrated throughout with stunning color photographs, ""Purebred and Homegrown"" is an affectionate and thoughtful look at the history of county fairs and their tradition and persistence today, despite the diminished number of Americans who earn their living from agriculture.Author-photographers Drake Hokanson and Carol Kratz traveled 40,000 miles across America from Maine to Alaska, from Georgia to California, visiting ninety county fairs in thirty-five states. By day they interviewed, observed, and photographed; at night they camped among the carnies and the teens showing sheep, under the roller coaster, and next to the chicken barn. The story they tell goes beyond the stereotype of fairs as quaint anachronisms obsessed with giant pumpkins and instead reveals the county fair as an important institution that helped define us as a nation of free-thinking, self-reliant, community-focused people. They present the nearly 200-year-old county fair as a fountainhead of American ideals and rural life, as a place of reunion, and as perhaps the most traditional of all American celebrations.
Reviews / Votes
It's dark now, but the glare of the fair blots out any stars. Bare yellow bulbs sway in the night breeze; judges bend, intent on contestants' breads, embroidered aprons, cucumbers, country crafts, blurry snapshots of the barn cat. All across the grounds are sad tattoos and hopeful faces, chance reunions; a 4-H chicken dinner in your stomach, cow pie on your shoe, the taste of dust, the squall of animals, farm kids and town kids, summer night air with a breath of endless possibility, of endless summer; everywhere rich icons of old rural ways, of country life; a sense of pride for the neglected agricultural center of things, a firm hold on tradition, a sense of what's best about us all, and a sense of coming change: the county fair. - excerpt from Purebred and HomegrownMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Madison
United States
Publishing group
University of Wisconsin Press
Illustrations
116 colour & b/w illustrations
Weight
644 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-299-22824-8 (9780299228248)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Drake Hokanson is the author of the popular book Lincoln Highway: Main Street across America. He is the director of the Center for Mississippi River Studies at Winona State University in Winona, Minnesota. Carol Kratz is a physician assistant at Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center in La Crosse, Wisconsin. They are co-editors of America from the Air: An Aviator's Story and live in La Crosse, Wisconsin.