No chuck wagon feed is complete without its basic ingredients of beans, beef, hot biscuits, apple pie, and lots of coffee. Beth McElfresh shows you how to host the all–time chuck wagon feed with easy–to–follow recipes.

Included are original recipes for boiled apple dumplings, lima beans baked with steak, and general, everyday useful tips, all from the renowned Western cook, Hi Pockets. She describes various health remedies learned from the old–timers on the range, that are as useful today as they were then.

Also included are recipes showing you how to create actual hand lotion and soaps like those used in the rugged west; wines, tea, punch, even candy and ice cream are included.

"Extremely coherent and useful, this much needed volume is concerned with the current status of the poor in Western industrial states. Its closely linked essays allow comparisons between case studies and are often themselves cross-national comparisons....The essays also comment on the meaning of globalization for social policy." —Choice "Excellent and tightly integrated articles by a group of prominent international scholars....A timely and important book, which will surely become the basic reference point for all future research on inequality and social policy." —Contemporary Sociology The social safety net is under strain in all Western nations, as social and economic change has created problems that traditional welfare systems were not designed to handle. Poverty, Inequality, and the Future of Social Policy provides a definitive analysis of the conditions that are fraying the social fabric and the reasons why some countries have been more successful than others in addressing these trends. In the United States, where the poverty rate in the 1980s was twice that of any advanced nation in Europe, the social protection system—and public support for it—has eroded alarmingly. In Europe, the welfare system more effectively buffered the disadvantaged, but social expenditures have been indicted by many as the principal cause of high unemployment. Concluding chapters review the progress and goals of social welfare programs, assess their viability in the face of creeping economic, racial, and social fragmentation, and define the challenges that face those concerned with social cohesion and economic prosperity in the new global economy. This volume illuminates the disparate effects of government intervention on the incidence and duration of poverty in Western countries. Poverty, Inequality, and the Future of Social Policy is full of lessons for anyone who would look beyond the limitations of the welfare debate in the United States.

The mass migrations to the United States from Europe that began in the 1830s were strongly influenced by what is known today as emigration literature--travelers' writings about their experiences in the New World. Such accounts were particularly popular with German readers; over 150 examples of the genre were published in Germany between 1827 and 1856. Gottfried Duden's Report on a Journey to the Western States of North America, published in 1829, was one of the most influential of these books. The timing, format, coverage, and literary qualities of the Report, and its idyllic descriptions of pioneer farming in Missouri, combined to make it an instant success. It attracted thousands of Germans to the Midwest, and particularly to Missouri, the focus of Duden's account. This edited and annotated translation is the first complete version to be published in English. It provides for the general public and the professional historian a significant contribution to U.S. immigration history and a unique and delightful fragment of Missouri's rich German heritage.

Duden presented his account in the form of personal letters, a style that helped make the book believable. The Mississippi- Missouri valley reminded him of his native Rhineland where the rivers facilitated trade and transportation, and fertile river bottomland offers the perfect environment for agriculture. Duden farmed the land he bought during his sojourn in Missouri, and his book includes meticulous descriptions of clearing, fencing, and harvesting. His pro-emigration bias, colored by the fact that he himself had been able to hire help on his Missouri farm, made his view of the farmer's life, it turned out, more idyllic than practical. Many would-be gentlemen farmers, inspired by his book to come to Missouri, found pioneer farming more strenuous than they had expected.