Willa Cather: My Ántonia and the Settlement of the Great Plains
"There was nothing but land; not a country at all, but the…
The View from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House: A True Pioneer Woman
“The days of wilderness adventure are not past! The pioneer spirit is…
Dearfield: A Dream Lost to Drought and Depression
It’s a story with a simple, but remarkable, beginning. In 1910 a…
The Blair Colony: Freed Slaves Homesteading in the Dakota Territory
In the space of a few short months, two momentous and highly…
The Exodusters: The Roots of African American Homesteading
History’s ironies never cease to amaze me. The same day that Abraham…
Homesteaders from Across the Waves: Immigrant Homesteaders
While the question of immigration is on the boil in America, and…
How Sears Roebuck Helped Homesteading Happen
The year was 1886. Sears Roebuck helped homesteading happen quite by accident,…
Mollie Dorsey Sanford: Frontier Wife, Frontier Life
An intrepid, independent soul, Mollie Dorsey was a homesteader in her teens,…
A Town Named Audacious and African American Homesteaders
“Learn to do common things uncommonly well; we must always keep in…