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Introduction to American Studies
Settling the West
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
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
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
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 ČR is 693 mm
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.
The High Prairie – Lower Brule Indian Reservation (South Dakota)
The reality of homesteading
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.
A Nebraska homesteading family, 1880s
A sod house (circa 1880-1900)
Life in on the Plains
Selling railroad lands
A History of the Morrill Land Grant Act (1862)