Pulitzer Book Club Inclusion Guide
"One of Ours"
by Willa Cather
INCLUSION MILESTONES
1923
• Time magazine founded
• Immigrant Zworykin files electronic TV patent
• First successful heart value surgery
AUTHOR INSPIRATIONS
Cather lived on a Nebraska homesteader farm as a child, had many relationships with immigrant neighbors, and was U of Nebraska grad. Her cousin’s WWI experience inspired storyline. Cather is buried with partner Edith Lewis; was pals with violinists David Hochstein and Yehudi Menuhin.
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Featured Reader
– Share your key take-away about inclusion in this book in a sentence or two.
– Write a paragraph or two (up to 250 words) to describe your thoughts on exclusion/inclusion in the book, why you related or did not connect with the book, and why you think reading, inclusion and dialog about inclusion matter.
– Identify the name and website address of a cause you support with an inclusive mission.
Heartbreaking backstory of WWI solider from Nebraska prairie.
Bride claims rich wedding salad sauce made her sick; tells new hubby to get his own berth on honeymoon train.
Independent turn-of-the-century woman who is not controlled by husband, won’t consummate marriage, drives car, vegetarian, prohibition activist, travels to China on own terms.
Goes quickly: 337 pages, 14 hours
Meanness and greed cause war.
Midwestern prairie caste: rich established landholders, businessmen, farmhands, servants, struggling sharecroppers; children mirror parents.
Willingness to help struggling immigrant community members and American soldiers.
Gender stereotyping. Rampant gossip and fear of it.
Providing prioritized over acceptance and love.
Education/the educated not viewed as useful.
Cultural and geographic ignorance.
Germans vilified; French glorified.
Treat your people to your stash of pickled peaches, preserves and other farm favs like pancakes or fried donuts with lots of syrup or meat and potatoes and home-grown veggies. Have lots of extra since there’s always a chance of drop-ins like a hungry preacher.
“Human love was a wonderful thing, he told himself, and it was most wonderful where it had least to gain.”
Meet in a new house with loving attention to details inside and out, including violin music and lots of flowers. Regardless, people will feel free to leave and go to China or France without a real discussion.
What does the “One of Ours” title mean and not mean in terms of exclusion?
Talk about what happened in Nebraska to Native Americans so the Homestead Act could give land to immigrant settlers.
How did prairie parents control children? How did gossip and fear of doing the wrong thing inhibit interactions? What are mental liberty and emotional freedom?
Discuss why the couple never talked about the reason the wife not want to have sex with her husband.
How are women, wives, people in service, the educated, land-hogs, and military officers viewed and treated?
Compare views toward & relationships with German Nebraska neighbors pre & during WWI as well as the range in German soldiers’ views toward Americans. How do Americans relate to German citizens and people from war-torn countries and of different religions today?
Discuss the interactions between German, French and American soldiers and civilians.
When and how did religion, music, food, and alcohol connect or separate?
Discuss attitudes toward innovations as they relate to the lives of people.
Do you believe life meaningful only if reinforced by something that endures?
Head to Red Cloud, near the Nebraska/Kansas border. Visit the National Willa Cather Center and Willa Cather Childhood Home. Drive a couple hours to Lincoln (horse and train travel not likely options). See U of Nebraska and, ideally, go to football game and WWI display at Gate 20. The International Quilt Museum and Pioneers Park Nature Center are also in Lincoln.
It’s an 8-hour train ride from Lincoln to Denver, so why not stay in Lincoln and see if there’s a circus in town?
Cather not a fan of film version of A Lost Lady (1934) and forbade other adaptions during her lifetime. TV movies eventually made of O Pioneers! (1992) and My Ántonia (1995).
Alexander’s Bridge (1912), O Pioneers! (1913), Song of the Lark (1915), My Ántonia (1918), A Lost Lady (1923), The Professor’s House (1925), My Mortal Enemy (1926), Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927), Shadows on the Rock (1931), Lucy Gayheart (1935), Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940).