The Sod-house Frontier, 1854-1890: A Social History of The Northern Plains

"A hundred years ago the great prairie region now comprising the states of Kansas, Nebraska, and North and South Dakota was regarded as unfit for human habitation. As late as the middle of the last century the maps of the United States included it within 'The Great American Desert,' and successive waves of migration passed it by for what seemed more hospitable lands farther west. But now these prairie states, so completely ignored at first, have become one of the richest sections of the land, the agricultural heart of the country, and the seat, moreover, of a distinctive culture within the general American frame. The background of this culture, the conditions, problems, and struggles of pioneer life on the Sod-House Frontier from 1854 to 1890, is the theme of this important and fascinating book. In vivid detail, enriched with the fruit of exhaustive research, the author tells where the settlers came from, how they traveled, how they located themselves and built new homes, how they founded towns and industries, what hardships and calamities they endured, how they lived and worked and amused themselves, how democracy functioned among them, how they provided for education and developed social and political institutions. Here also are picturesque accounts of builders and outlaws, homesteaders and claim-jumpers, bankers and horse thieves, preachers and teachers, doctors and medicine men, lawyers and politicians - in short, the whole motley throng that made up frontier society. Here, too, is the epic story of the famers' triumph over hostile Indians, of how they withstood the menace of prairie fires, droughts, blizzards, and grasshoppers. Every page reveals some new and interesting aspect of frontier life, and the whole book bears the stamp of authenticity and sympathy in recreating the arduous days of a vanished era." Illustrated with 31 period drawings and photographs.