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Activities How Did Homesteaders Settle on the Great Plains?

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Activities How Did Homesteaders Settle on the Great Plains? The American West c1840–c1895 1.3: Farming on the Plains Source A: The railroad companies began a massive Source A: The sod house of the Cram family in Loup County, Nebraska, 1886. advertising campaign in America and Europe. This For discussion poster was produced in 1875. How is the poster (Source A) encouraging people to settle on the Plains? What kinds of people would be likely to respond to posters such as this? 36 37 How did the homesteaders build homes for themselves? Once a claim was staked and registered, all families faced the same problem: how to build a house that was solid, safe and secure and that would withstand the extremes of weather experienced on the Plains. They had to build with the raw materials that they had on their own land, and for most families this came down to the bare earth beneath their feet. First by hand, and later with specially built ploughs, they cut blocks of earth (sods) to use as building bricks. Because of this, the homesteaders were nicknamed sod-busters. Sod houses were solid and strong. They had to withstand gales and storms, drought and blistering Source B: From C.G. Barns The Sod House, published heat, grasshoppers and prairie fi res. They also had in 1970. to house men, women and children, and keep them This burned well, but quickly. Charley O’Kieffe warm enough and well enough so that they could Contagious diseases were common. The common remembers watching his mother bake biscuits (see work hard to make a living from the prairies outside. drinking cup, the open well, the outdoor toilet (or Source C). no toilet at all) shared the blame with the lack of It took about an acre (0.4 hectares) of land to ventilation and crowded quarters of the sod house. The Source C: From C. O’Kieffe Western Story: The provide enough sods to build an average-sized sod fl oor was commonly of clay dirt. It was not possible Recollections of C. O’Kieffe, published in 1960. house on the Great Plains. The walls were about a to scrub or disinfect it of the millions of germs that metre thick, and the house was roofed with grass Activities found a breeding place in the dirt trodden underfoot. Stoke the stove, get out the fl our sack, stoke the and more sods. Once a house was built, it would be Spitting was common. No wonder the death rate from stove, wash your hands, mix the dough, stoke the plastered with wet, clay-like mud, which set hard 1 Draw a spider diagram to show how government diphtheria was so great among children. While the stove, wash your hands, cut out the biscuits with the and made the house more or less watertight. action helped settlement on the Plains. houses were, as a rule, warm in winter and cool in top of the baking powder can, stoke the stove, wash your hands, put the pan of biscuits in the oven, keep 2 How far do you think government action was Sod houses may have seemed warm and cosy, but in summer for the human occupants, they favoured fl eas on stoking the stove until the biscuits are done. helping to bring about manifest destiny? reality they had many drawbacks. and bed bugs by the million. Added to the lowering of vitality by lack of a balanced ration of food, lack of What work did women do on the clothing, and changes of temperature, the wonder is Great Plains? not so much that disease and infection took a heavy Activities How did homesteaders settle on the It was an achievement to build a house out of sods toll. The wonder is that so many survived. 1 What were (a) the advantages and (b) the Great Plains? for yourself and your family. It was even more of an disadvantages of sod houses? achievement to live in a sod house successfully and to The fi rst people to decide to try to settle on the Plains 2 Both Indians and homesteaders lived on the faced enormous problems: how to live on the Plains manage day-to-day living so that your family was kept Fuel and food Every homesteader needed fuel. Without fuel the Great Plains. In order to do so, they had to solve and how to farm them. They solved these problems warm, fed, clothed, clean and healthy. This, inevitably, homesteader family would be cold, hungry and the problems of building a home there. The in different ways and with different degrees of was the work of the women. The contribution made by dirty. There were hardly any trees on the Plains, Indian solution was the tipi; the homesteaders’ success. Some stayed and became prosperous women to the successful settlement of the Plains did and so no wood to burn. The sod-buster’s wife solution was the sod house. Explain how and farmers; others quit altogether. In between came not go unrecognised by offi cialdom: in 1869, women in therefore collected barrow loads of dried cow why these solutions were so different. the thousands who struggled on, always convincing Wyoming Territory were given the vote, nearly 50 years and buffalo dung, of which there was plenty. themselves that tomorrow would be better. before women in Britain..
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