THE SITES
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Willa Cather's childhood home|
Willa Cather spent her early life in Red Cloud,
a former railroad town six miles north of the Kansas border.
These were important and formative years for Cather: six of her
twelve novels are at least partly set in Red Cloud and
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St. Stephanie Scandanavian Evangelical Lutheran Chruch, near Red Cloud|
Webster County, including One of Ours, which won the Pulitzer Prize
in 1923. The town remained an important part of her life after
graduation from the University of Nebraska in Lincoln;
during her later life in Pittsburgh and New York she regularly visited
family and friends in Red Cloud. The Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial
& Educational Foundation has spent many years restoring
sites in the town and Webster County, forming an extensive
and unique living museum. During the seminar, we will see
her childhood home, the stage where she gave her graduation
speech, the homes of friends and neighbors that appear in the
stories, and many other places that shape her work.
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Nebraska State Capitol building|
Lincoln, a university town 150 miles northeast of Red Cloud,
is the site of the seminar’s second half. Lincoln, population
250,000, is Nebraska’s capital city and is the cultural
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Temple Building, UNL Campus|
center for a large swathe of the Great Plains region. It is home to excellent
music, art, museums, restaurants, sports, and the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln. Cather’s years in Lincoln (1890–95) were
spent attending the University, working as a critic for the local
and university papers, and taking her first steps as a writer. During
the seminar, we will stay on the campus and explore sites
that were important to her and which feature in her fiction.
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