The history, philosophy and religious studies department’s February colloquium will feature Patti Loughlin, associate professor of history at the University of Central Oklahoma. Loughlin’s talk is titled “Angie Debo's Prairie City and Regional Identity in the Great Plains” and is scheduled for Feb. 18 at 3 p.m. in the Memorial Union Room of Nations. The event is open to the public.
In Prairie City (1941), a fictional city located in the northern part of Old Oklahoma near the Cherokee Outlet, historian Angie Debo tells the story of the initial development, sudden rise and eventual decline of an American farming community from the 1890s to the 1940s. Prairie City demonstrates Debo’s versatility as a writer of subjects other than American Indian history. Debo’s life is interwoven in this rural story.
The Debo family arrived in Oklahoma Territory by covered wagon in 1899 for the chance to farm their own land. Debo began teaching in rural schools at 16. As a result, the life of the pioneer was deeply embedded in her own life experience. The presentation connects Debo’s scholarly work to her childhood days as a daughter of the prairie.
Loughlin’s current project is an Angie Debo children’s book – with the goal of connecting today’s children to what life was like for children in the region more than 100 years ago.
Loughlin specializes in 20th century U.S. history, American Indian history and the history of the American West. She is the University of Central Oklahoma’s director of the American Democracy Project, a national civic engagement initiative focused on increasing civic engagement among college students in partnership with The New York Times, and a board member of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
Loughlin’s book, “Hidden Treasures of the American West: Muriel H. Wright, Angie Debo and Alice Marriott,” offers a concise examination of Oklahoma historiography and the place of women public intellectuals in shaping regional identity. It received the Outstanding Book on Oklahoma History from the Oklahoma Historical Society and the Director's Award and Finalist in Nonfiction from the Oklahoma Center for the Book in 2006. In addition, she co-wrote “Building Traditions, Educating Generations: A History of the University of Central Oklahoma” with Bob Burke as an official Oklahoma Centennial Commission project. In consultation with Nicole Willard, director of archives and special collections at UCO, Loughlin and her students conducted more than 75 oral history interviews as a central research component for the book.
Questions may be directed to Dennis Cooley at 1-7038 or dennis.cooley@ndsu.edu.