During this program, Chere Jiusto, Christine W. Brown, and Tom Ferris share stories from their book Hand Raised: The Barns of Montana, a gorgeous coffee-table-style book of photographs and stories about nearly 140 of Montana's historic barns.

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Explore the hayloft, stalls, and hardware of a Montana barn and you will learn much about the state’s farm and ranch traditions. Crib barns, with walls of timber stacked like Lincoln logs, show the influence of French-Canadian and Scandinavian immigrants. Gambrel-roofed barns, which shed heavy snowfall and provide roomy haylofts, tell of the long Montana winters that necessitated ample hay storage. Tack rooms, once filled with harnesses and gear, tell of workhorses given shelter in heavy-duty stalls nearby.

Beyond their utilitarian functions, barns are simply beautiful. Some stand proudly, their freshly painted red lines contrasting sharply with the golden wheat in surrounding fields. But some, less fortunate, are falling into disrepair. Marked by rotting timbers and broken windowpanes, these crumbling buildings still have much to teach us. Historic Barns of Montana presents the best, most unique, most significant, and most beautiful of these barns. Photographer Tom Ferris explored barns inside and out across Montana, snapping the hundreds of photographs in the book. Authors and architectural historians Chere Jiusto and Christine Brown help readers understand the significance of what they are looking at and tell the stories of individual barns.

Hand Raised: The Barns of Montana recognizes these buildings as both useful and beautiful, encourages their preservation, and honors the ranch and farm families that built them.

Chere Jiusto has worked in the fields of Montana history and culture for over twenty years, most recently as the director of Montana Preservation Alliance. She is the author of Montana Mainstreets: A Guide to Historic Hamilton (Montana Historical Society Press).

Christine Brown is an architectural historian with over ten years of experience documenting and evaluating rural properties. As outreach and education director at Montana Preservation Alliance, she promotes the preservation of Montana’s historic buildings and places.

Tom Ferris maintains his own studio in Helena, Montana, but since 1995 has also worked as an archival photographer for the Montana Historical Society. Tom’s work is in many private collections in the United States and overseas and has been collected by the Ministry of Culture in France and the Shimada Museum in Japan.

Visit the Montana Historical Society Web site.

You'll find Hand Raised: The Barns of Montana at Fact & Fiction in Missoula or at your local independent bookseller.

The Write Question is produced by Chérie Newman.

Read an interview with TWQ producer Chérie Newman on the Humanities Montana Web site.

Executive producer, Michael Marsolek.

Special thanks to Lisa Simon, David Moore, Barbara Theroux, and Kim Anderson.

This program is supported in part by Humanities Montana, connecting kids to community, supporting vital cultural institutions, and encouraging community conversations. And by Montana's Cultural Trust, Fact & Fiction book stores, and Public Radio Listeners.

The Write Question: a program that explores the world of writing and publishing in the western United States.

The music in this program was written and performed by John Floridis.

Send comments to Chérie Newman.


Guests on the The Write Question are writers, publishers, and illustrators living, or working for an extended period of time, in the western United States. The Write Question is a production of Montana Public Radio.