Montana The Magazine of Western History

Montana The Magazine of Western History
Title	Montana The Magazine of Western History
Category	History
Frequency	Quarterly
Publisher	Montana Historical Society
Firstdate	1950
Country	United States
Based	Helena, Montana
Language	English

Contents

Montana The Magazine of Western History is a quarterly journal published by the Montana Historical Society devoted to the history of Montana and the broader American West. The journal presents peer-reviewed scholarship, interpretive essays, primary documents, and book reviews that address topics ranging from Indigenous nations and frontier conflict to environmental change and cultural life. It serves readers among scholars at institutions such as the University of Montana, the Montana State University, and the Smithsonian Institution, as well as professionals affiliated with the National Park Service, the Library of Congress, and the American Historical Association.

History

Founded in 1950 under the auspices of the Montana Historical Society, the journal emerged amid postwar expansion of regional studies associated with scholars at the University of Chicago, Columbia University, and the University of California, Berkeley. Early editors drew upon archives housed at the State Historical Society of North Dakota, the Idaho State Historical Society, and the collections of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Content reflected mid‑20th century interests in settlement narratives and frontier conflict involving figures like George Armstrong Custer, Chief Joseph, and Crazy Horse, while later decades broadened to address topics linked to the New Deal, the Homestead Act, and federal projects such as the Bureau of Reclamation dams. Contributors increasingly engaged with research traditions represented by scholars from the Harvard University, Yale University, and the University of New Mexico, and with regional archives including the Nevada Historical Society and the Arizona State Archives.

The magazine’s editorial mission emphasizes rigorous historical inquiry into subjects including Indigenous histories of the Crow Tribe, the Blackfeet Nation, and the Assiniboine; Euroamerican settlement involving families tied to the Anaconda Copper Company, the Northern Pacific Railway, and the Great Northern Railway; and environmental histories of the Yellowstone National Park, the Glacier National Park, and the Bitterroot Range. Features often analyze legal and political milestones such as the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868), litigation like Worcester v. Georgia contexts, and policy episodes tied to the General Mining Act of 1872 and the Taylor Grazing Act. Interdisciplinary essays connect archaeology at sites like Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump to material culture studies of Lewis and Clark Expedition artifacts and to oral histories recorded by institutions including the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.

Published quarterly by the Montana Historical Society Press and distributed through regional and academic channels, the journal reaches subscribers at libraries such as the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, and the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley. Institutional subscriptions include university presses such as the University of Oklahoma Press and the University of Nebraska Press for carriage in collections alongside titles from the Western Historical Quarterly and the Journal of American History. Distribution networks engage book dealers like the American Antiquarian Society and trade shows organized by the American Library Association and the Western History Association.

Over decades the journal has published work by historians associated with landmarks in scholarship: writers affiliated with the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Rutgers University, Princeton University, and the University of Texas at Austin; public historians from the National Park Service and curators from the Montana Historical Society; and Indigenous scholars connected to the American Indian Movement and tribal colleges such as Little Big Horn College. Articles have examined the legacies of figures like Marcus Daly, Henry Plummer, Geraldine Custer, and discussed events including the Great Northern Depot developments, the Sheepeater Indian War, and the Nevada gold rush. Essays on environmental change have explored flooding events tied to the Clark Fork River and reclamation controversies involving the Tongue River Dam, while cultural pieces have traced music and art movements linked to Will James, Earl W. Bascom, and photographers such as Carleton Watkins.

The publication and its authors have received awards from organizations including the Western Writers of America, the Organization of American Historians, and the Western History Association. Individual articles and authors have been finalists for prizes administered by the American Historical Association, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and state humanities councils such as the Montana Committee for the Humanities. Recognition has also come from museum and archival institutions including the Smithsonian Institution and the American Antiquarian Society for contributions to public history and archival scholarship.

The journal is indexed in bibliographic databases and library catalogs maintained by the American Antiquarian Society, the OCLC WorldCat, the Historical Abstracts database, and the JSTOR archive, and appears in periodical listings used by the Association of Research Libraries and the Council on Library and Information Resources. Back issues and finding aids are available from repositories such as the Montana Historical Society Research Center, university special collections at the University of Montana Mansfield Library and the Montana State University Library, and digital collections curated by the Digital Public Library of America.

Category:History magazines of the United States Category:Magazines established in 1950 Category:Quarterly magazines published in the United States