Farming on the Great Plains

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Farming on the Great Plains
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Due to lack of water, trees, and variable
climate, not many people settled in the Great
Plains.If you were in the Presidents Cabinet,
what would you advise him to do to get people to
move to the plains?
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Homestead Act

• Federal government gives 160 acres to citizens to
  farm
• Paid a small registration fee (10) and promised
  to live there 5 years
• Granted land to unmarried women
• Seen as a way to escape your problems in the
  east, the farming on the frontier was a chance at
  starting over.
• Most are poor farmers

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What do you notice about these Homesteaders
homes and farms?
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Soddie of Luxury - two floors and glass windows!
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Homesteaders - they get 160 acres for a 10
registration fee!
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Who Farmed the Plains?

• Exodusters
• Immigrants

• African-Americans who moved to plains to farm
• Many were escaping the sharecropping system
• Could get land from Homestead Act if they
  promised to become citizens
• Wrote letters home urging friends and family to
  come - started pockets of one nationality (Swedes
  in Minnesota)

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Exodusters on the Plains
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What Was Life Like on the Plains?

• Soddies
• Chores
• Communities

• Many homes made of mud (little wood available on
  plains)
• Small and uncomfortable
• Done by both sexes
• Washing clothes, farming, tending to animals,
  housework
• Small and very close
• One room schools
• Churches were the social centers of most towns

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How Do You Farm the Plains?

• Extreme - Hot, dry winters and frigid, blustery
  winters
• Nickname for plains farmers
• Invented by John Deere to break through the hard
  soil
• Use of crops that need little water (red wheat)
• Inventor of farm tools like a reaper and thresher
• Allowed for larger farms and fewer workers if you
  could afford the machines

• Climate
• Sodbusters
• Steel Plow
• Dry Farming
• Cyrus McCormick

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The Steel Plow - John Deere
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Before The Reaper
After the Reaper
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Cutting Sod for the House
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Entertainment in the Soddies
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Collecting Buffalo Chips for Heat
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Oklahoma Land Rush - April 22, 1889

• U.S. government decides to give the Indian
  Territory (now Oklahoma) to settlers
• Native Americans promised this land when they
  moved here (Trail of Tears)
• Settlers could stake out whatever land they
  wanted after noon on April 22, 1889
• Settlers lined up on border. Cannons fired at
  noon, and the race to claim land was on.
• Settlers found out best land was already taken by
  those who cheated and snuck in early.
• Sooners - those who went in early and grabbed the
  best land

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When the cannons sounded at noon on April 22,
1889, the race to grab the best land was on!
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Irony - Oklahoma Universitys nickname is the
Sooners. They named their athletes after
cheaters!