Introduction to American Studies

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Introduction to American Studies

• Settling the West

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What to do with Federal lands?

• When new states were formed, most of the land
  remained under Federal control
• Even today this is the case (Nevada)
• Pre-Civil War
• During the Civil War
• Homestead Act of 1862
• Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862

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• The federal government controls 86.1 percent of
  the land
• Of the remaining 13.9 percent, 11.5 percent is
  privately owned, 1.6 percent tribal, 0.4 percent
  local, and 0.4 percent state government owned
• Black areas indicate federal owned or controlled
  lands

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Township and Range system

• Northwest Ordinances of 1785 and 1787
• Township consists of 36 sections
• Each section is 1 square mile or 640 acres 259
  hectares
• Sections divided in quarter sections (160
  acres/65 ha)
• 1 section left for local schooling

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• 60 1524 mm
• 40 1016 mm
• 20 508 mm
• Minimum required for maize is 20
• Desert is defined as less than 500 mm annually
• Average for CR is 693 mm

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Advertising for homesteads

• This poster alerted many to inexpensive land for
  sale in Iowa and Nebraska
• CREDIT "Millions of Acres. Iowa and Nebraska.
  Land for Sale on 10 years Credit by the
  Burlington Missouri River R. R. Co. at 6 per ct
  Interest and Low Prices . . . " Burlington
  Missouri River Railroad Co., 1872. An American
  Time Capsule Three Centuries of Broadsides and
  Other Printed Ephemera, American Memory
  collections, Library of Congress.

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The High Prairie Lower Brule Indian Reservation
(South Dakota)
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The reality of homesteading
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• CREDIT McCarthy, John, photographer. "John
  Bakken Sod House, Milton, North Dakota." Circa
  1895. The Northern Great Plains, 1880-1920
  Photographs from the Fred Hultstrand and F.A.
  Pazandak Photograph Collections, American Memory
  collections, Library of Congress.

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A Nebraska homesteading family, 1880s
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A sod house (circa 1880-1900)
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Life in on the Plains
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Selling railroad lands
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A History of the Morrill Land Grant Act (1862)