Prairie Populist:
The Life and Times of Usher L. Burdick
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Edward C. Blackorby's biography of Usher L. Burdick tells the story of this engaging, outspoken son of the plains, from his early upbringing on Graham's Island in north-central North Dakota to his role as a senior legislator in the U.S. Congress. Burdick's political life reflected a series of crushing defeats and improbable resurrections, beginning first with his election to the state legislature in 1906 and losing the gubernatorial election in 1916. His second public career began in 1934 when he was endorsed by the Nonpartisan League and elected to the United States Congress where he served ten terms, 1935-1945 and 1949-1959. Through his own successes and failures, Usher Burdick played a significant role in North Dakota's political history. While perceptively examining Burdick's political life,
Blackorby also weaves the strands of his roles as a son and brother, husband
and father, banker, lawyer, historian, collector, rare book dealer, rancher,
and horse trader throughout the book, forming a colorful tapestry of Burdick's
life and times. Known as a square-dealer and a straight-talker, Usher
Burdick never forgot his prairie populist roots. In 1953 he wrote, "While
I am not now actually engaged in roping and hog-tieing wild horses, that
profession helps a lot here in Congress where there are so many wild ones..."
His eventual break with the Republican Party led to political success
for his elder son, Quentin Burdick, who ran as a Democrat and first won
a seat in the US Congress in 1958 and was elected as a US senator in 1960,
a position he held for thirty-two years. The Burdick political dynasty
meant that either the elder or younger Burdick served in a state or federal
elective office in nearly every decade of the twentieth century. Blackorby
has written a fascinating and valuable analysis of the forces at work
in Usher Burdick's public and private history. |
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Usher Burdick pictured with survivors of the Custer fight. The man on the left is Lewis Crawford, the superintendent of the State Historical Society of North Dakota. Photo by Frank Fiske, 1931. |
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Edward
C. Blackorby was born and educated in North Dakota, earning a B.A. at Mayville
State University and the M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of North Dakota. He
also did post-graduate work at the University of Minnesota, Iowa State University
and the American University in Washington. DC. He spent fifty-one years teaching,
the last twenty years as a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Eau
Claire, where he was awarded the Excellence in Teaching Award in 1968. He also
taught at Dickinson State University and the University of North Dakota, and
was a teacher and administrator in North Dakota public schools for nineteen
years. Best known for his book Prairie Rebel: The Public Life of William
Lemke, Dr. Blackorby has also written for many publications, including North
Dakota History, Journal of American History, the Dictionary of
American Biography, and Essays on Western History. His special interests
are in the history of the West and the Agrarian and Progressive movements in
America. Dr. Blackorby retired in 1980 and presently lives in Bloomington, Minnesota.
