At Howard Rock's birth, a shaman predicted that he would become a great man. Born in 1911 in a sod igloo in Point Hope, an ancient Eskimo village, Howard became an accomplished artist and crusading newspaper editor who helped to defend his people from a controversial Atomic Energy Commission proposal to excavate a harbor near his native village with an atomic blast. Art and Eskimo Power chronicles the life of this influential and artist, editor, and founder of the Tundra Times—under whose leadership the newspaper helped to organize Alaska’s native people to press their aboriginal land claims before Congress, which ultimately led to their being awarded over $1 billion and 40 million acres.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
A talented though moderately successful Eskimo painter, Rock (1911-1976) gained real prominence as founding editor of the Tundra Times and for his instrumental role in the legislation of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971. Rock's intriguing story merits telling, as it charts the awakening not only of a gifted, sensitive and resilient individual but of his people, while offering a "portrait of the artist" that is suggestively universal. Morgan ( The Aleutians ) weaves an impressive body of research into an effective novelistic format. We follow with interest the progress of a promising but assimilative art career at the University of Washington; Rock's conflict-ridden, alcohol-dependent years in Seattle and, finally, his instinctive return to Alaska in 1961. As Rock's despondency gives way to renewed ethnic pride, Morgan, without editorializing, makes clear the just irony of Rock using his Western education as a weapon in the battle to save aboriginal Alaskans threatened by economic collapse and loss of their land. Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
“By working with Howard Rock, through excellent research and conversations with those who knew him intimately, Lael Morgan brings to life the Inupiaq hero who provided a voice for Native Alaskans when there was none."—William L. Iggiagruk Hensley, author of Fifty Miles from Tomorrow
(William L. Iggiagruk Hensley )"As editor of the first statewide Native newspaper, Howard Rock was critical to Alaska Natives’ fight for their rights and fair settlement for their land claims. Lael Morgan can write a story well. Alaska historians have selected Art and Eskimo Power for inclusion in The Alaska 67: A Guide to Alaska’s Best History Books (2006)."—Joan M. Antonson, Alaska State Historian
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More About the Author
Lael Morgan, was born in rural Maine and has lived more than half her life in the wilds. She started her writing career as a reporter for the Malden Press in Massachusetts. Later she became a photojournalist at the Juneau Empire in Alaska's capitol city, and then covered crime, politics and the old red light district for the Fairbanks News Miner just south of the Arctic Circle.
In 1968, Morgan began a five year stint at the Los Angeles Times, and then returned to the Far North for assignments with National Geographic, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor and Alaska Magazine.
In 1988 she joined the Department of Journalism and Broadcasting, University of Alaska Fairbanks, where she taught writing, photography and multimedia for 12 years. In 1999 she became managing editor and later publisher of the Casco Bay Weekly, an alternative newspaper in Portland, Maine. Then, motivated by a low threshold of boredom, she moved south to Arlington, Texas, where she went to work for the Department of Communication, University of Texas Arlington.
Morgan has authored more than a dozen books, including Good Time Girls of the Alaska Yukon Gold Rush which in 1998 won her the title of Historian of the Year from the Alaska Historical Society. Art and Eskimo Power: The Life and Times of Alaskan Howard Rock, a book she wrote in 1988, was recently included in a listing state's best nonfiction books, and has been republished by University of Alaska Press.
Morgan is currently at work on a Montana-based book titled Madeleine and Her Sisters in Sin for Chicago Review Press.
In 1968, Morgan began a five year stint at the Los Angeles Times, and then returned to the Far North for assignments with National Geographic, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor and Alaska Magazine.
In 1988 she joined the Department of Journalism and Broadcasting, University of Alaska Fairbanks, where she taught writing, photography and multimedia for 12 years. In 1999 she became managing editor and later publisher of the Casco Bay Weekly, an alternative newspaper in Portland, Maine. Then, motivated by a low threshold of boredom, she moved south to Arlington, Texas, where she went to work for the Department of Communication, University of Texas Arlington.
Morgan has authored more than a dozen books, including Good Time Girls of the Alaska Yukon Gold Rush which in 1998 won her the title of Historian of the Year from the Alaska Historical Society. Art and Eskimo Power: The Life and Times of Alaskan Howard Rock, a book she wrote in 1988, was recently included in a listing state's best nonfiction books, and has been republished by University of Alaska Press.
Morgan is currently at work on a Montana-based book titled Madeleine and Her Sisters in Sin for Chicago Review Press.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A courageous Eskimo journalist,
By A Customer
This review is from: Art and Eskimo Power: The Life and Times of Alaskan Howard Rock (Paperback)
The shaman predicted that Howard Rock would become a great man. He was born in 1911 in a sod igloo in Point Hope, an ancient Eskimo village in northwest Alaska where the people had hunted whales and lived off the land for centuries. Instead of becoming a hunter, Howard became an accomplished artist and crusading newspaper editor. He helped defend his people from a controversial Atomic Energy Commission proposal to excavate a harbor near the village with an above-ground atomic blast. Then Rock founded the Tundra Times and helped Alaska's Native people press their aboriginal land claims before Congress, ultimately winning a settlement. Deeply moving.
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