Mari Sandoz

American novelist

Mari Susette Sandoz (May 11, 1896 – March 10, 1966) was a Nebraska novelist, biographer, lecturer, and teacher. She became one of the West's foremost writers, and wrote extensively about pioneer life and the Plains Indians.

Marie Susette Sandoz was born on May 11, 1896 near Hay Springs, Nebraska, the eldest of six children born to Swiss immigrants, Jules and Mary Elizabeth (Fehr) Sandoz. Until the age of 9, she spoke only German. She began extensive research on his life, and documented his decision to become a pioneer, his hard work chiselling out a life on the prairie, his leadership within the pioneer community, and his friendship with the local Indians in the area. The resulting book was Old Jules, published under the name Mari Sandoz, which she had resumed using in 1929. In 1933, malnourished and in poor health, she moved back home to the Sand Hills to stay with her mother. Every major publishing house in the United States had rejected Old Jules. Before she left Lincoln, Sandoz tossed over 70 of her manuscripts into a wash tub in her backyard and burned them. Yet she continued to write, and began work on her next novel, Slogum House, a gritty and realistic tale about a ruthless Nebraska family. By January 1934, she returned to Lincoln, and got a job at the Nebraska State Historical Society, where she became associate editor of Nebraska History magazine. In 1935, she received word that her revised version of Old Jules had won a non fiction contest held by Atlantic Press, after fourteen rejections. During this time, Sandoz moved the Shurtleff Arms at 645 South 17th Street. This is the only extant Lincoln residence of Sandoz. There she wrote her second novel Capital City (1939), which brought her notoriety of a different nature: hate mail and threats. Slogum House was considered an attack on the character of rural Nebraskans, and Capital City was perceived as an assault on the city of Lincoln. In 1940, Sandoz moved to Denver, partly to escape the backlash, and also for better research facilities. Later, in 1943, she settled in New York City so she could access the research material on the West, and have proximity to her publishers. In 1942 her monumental biography of the great Lakota leader Crazy Horse was published. It is entitled Crazy Horse: The Strange Man of the Oglalas. Sandoz proved to be ahead of her time by writing the biography from within the Lakota world view, using Lakota concepts and metaphors, and even replicating Lakota patterns of speech. Some critics consider it her greatest work. As she says in her preface to Crazy Horse:
I have used the simplest words possible, hoping by idiom and figures and the under lying rhythm pattern to say some of the things of the Indian for which there are no white man words, suggest something of his innate nature, something of his relationship to the earth and the sky and all that is between. Her meticulous attention to detail, her in depth research, and her admiration of the Plains Indian culture is also noticeable in later works such as Cheyenne Autumn (1953), The Horsecatcher (1957), and The Story Catcher (1963). Three other books of her Great Plains series, The Buffalo Hunters (1954), one of her best known, and The Cattlemen (1958) and The Beaver Men (1964) each develop the history of the West in relation to an animal species. Sandoz liked to encourage other writers. She presented summer writing workshops at institutions such as the University of Wisconsin–Madison, reviewed manuscripts sent to her by aspiring authors and provided helpful comments, and taught creative writing through programming produced by Nebraska Educational Television. She advised writers to "pick a subject you know well, and write about it." Sandoz kept writing, even within a month of her death from bone cancer in 1966. Sandoz was inducted into the Nebraska Hall of Fame in 1976. An historical marker, placed by the Mari Sandoz Heritage Society is at the location where she lived while writing Old Jules. 1954 The Distinguished Achievement Award of the Native Sons and Daughters of Nebraska for her "sincere and realistic presentation of Nebraska as it was." 1958 John Newbery Honor Medal for The Horsecatcher. 1963 Spur Award for best Juvenile fiction for The Story Catcher. 1964 Saddleman Award now called the Owen Wister Award for The Story Catcher. 1969 The Mari Sandoz Award is established by the Nebraska Library Association. It is given annually to "significant, enduring contribution to the Nebraska book world through writing, film production, or related activity." 1976 Inducted into the Nebraska Hall of Fame. 1998 Inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.

Old Jules. Boston: Little, Brown, 1935; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1962. Crazy Horse: The Strange Man of the Oglalas. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1942. Cheyenne Autumn (book). New York: McGraw Hill, 1953. The Buffalo Hunters. New York: Hastings House, 1954. The Cattlemen: From the Rio Grande Across the Far Marias. New York: Hastings House, 1958. Son of the Gamblin' Man: The Youth of an Artist. New York: Clarkson Potter, 1960. These Were the Sioux. New York: Hastings House, 1961. Love Song to the Plains. Harper & Row State Series. New York: Harper & Row, 1961; Lincoln. The Beaver Men, Spearheads of Empire. New York: Hastings House, 1964. The Battle of the Little Bighorn. Lippincott Major Battle Series. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1966.

Slogum House. Boston: Little, Brown, 1937. Capital City. Boston: Little, Brown, 1939. The Tom Walker. New York: Dial Press, 1947. Winter Thunder. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1954. Miss Morissa: Doctor of the Gold Trail. New York: McGraw Hill, 1955. The Horsecatcher. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1957. The Story Catcher. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1963.

'The Kinkaider Comes and Goes: Memories of an Adventurous Childhood in the Sandhills of Nebraska.' North American Review 229 (April, May 1930):431–42, 576–83. 'The New Frontier Woman.' Country Gentleman, Sept. 1936, p. 49. 'There Were Two Sitting Bulls.' Blue Book, Nov. 1949, pp. 58–64. 'The Look of the West—1854.' Nebraska History 35 (Dec. 1954):243–54. 'Nebraska.' Holiday, May 1956, pp. 103–14. 'Outpost in New York.' Prairie Schooner 37 (Summer 1963):95–106. 'Introduction to George Bird Grinnell,' The Cheyenne Indians: Their History and Ways of Life. New York: Cooper Square, 1962. 'Introduction to Amos Bad Heart Bull and Helen Blish', A Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967.

Hostiles and Friendlies: Selected Short Writings of Mari Sandoz. Edited by Virginia Faulkner. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1959 and 1976. Sandhill Sundays and Other Recollections. Edited by Virginia Faulkner. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1970.