Time, Place, and Culture in Nebraska History

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Full Citation: Frederick C Luebke, “Time, Place, and Culture in Nebraska History,” Nebraska History 69 (1988): 150-168

Article Summary: Complex relationships exist between people and the land they live on: people inevitably modify their environment. At the same time the physical characteristics of a place do tend to limit and condition human behavior. Nebraska’s history is unique because the state occupies a unique space and has been populated by a unique mix of different cultural groups.

Cataloging Information:

Names: Frederick Jackson Turner, Francis Burt, Thomas Cuming, Philip Armour, J F Glidden, Samuel McKelvie, George Norris, Norbert Tiemann

Nebraska Place Names: Sand Hills, Platte River, Missouri River, Bellevue, Omaha, Lincoln, Brownville, Nebraska City

Keywords: Interstate 80, Morrill Act (1862), Pawnee Indians, Sioux Indians, railroads, twine binder, “boomers,” counties, school districts, German Mennonites, prohibition, woman suffrage, anti-Greek riot (1909), lynching, Populist Party, Progressive era, Non-Partisan League, state capitol, unicameral legislature, public power, Kingsley dam

Photographs / Images: Chase County landscape, 1925; aerial view of the North Platte River near Lewellen; aerial view of Kearney; Omaha, 1868; Lincoln, 1880; plat map of Tecumseh, 1885; Ainsworth, 1885; Perkins county railroad line map, 1953; Nebraska census map showing counties with populations of less than 2,000, 1980; Blaine County Courthouse, Brewster, c. 1885; rural Custer County school, 1891; Nebraska census map showing distribution of German-born inhabitants, 1900; cartoon in favor of the prohibition amendment to the state constitution, Omaha Bee, November 4, 1916; Indian reservations in Nebraska and South Dakota, 1988; Church of the Visitation, rural Greeley County, 1958; Samuel R McKelvie, governor of Nebraska, 1919-1923; state capitol under construction in 1928; auction of farm machinery and animals near Elgin, 1932; Kingsley Dam and Lake McConaughy; Norbert Tiemann, governor of Nebraska, 1967-1971; Bruno

The intersection of land and sky in western Nebraska. Chase County, 1925. (NSHS-C488-21)

TIME, PLACE, AND CULTURE IN NEBRASKA HISTORY

By Frederick C. Luebke

More than a decade ago, as the disappointing. Few of the fifty authors the bicentennial series attempted to United States was preparing for its effectively addressed the question of explain the distinctiveness or unique­ bicentennial celebration, the federal what forces or combination of cir­ ness of her state by describing what she agency charged with that commemora­ cumstances made the history of their called "the Nebraska psyche." In her tive responsibility decided that one particular state distinctive. To put the view, Nebraska was founded by appropriate way to celebrate national matter plainly: Why should we bother "ordinary men who possessed a vision history would be to commission the with the history of Nebraska or any of freedom, independence, and the publication of histories of each of the other state? What makes its history dis­ chance to make a living for themselves fifty states. Despite efforts to impose tinctive or different, let us say, from and their families through their own certain standards of concept and that oflowa or Kansas? A skeptic might labor." Through the exercise of method, the results were on the whole well argue that while the super­ "imagination, dogged perseverance, ficialities of names and events change and continual optimism" in the frontier from Nebraska to its neighbors, truly period, Nebraskans evolved qualities Frederick C. Luebke is Charles J. Mach significant historical trends are not of determination, friendliness, gener­ Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and former encompassed by the artificial bound­ osity, stoicism, and daring to create "a director of the Center for Great Plains aries of a state. breed of forceful, energetic, free­ Studies. The author of the Nebraska entry in ranging souls." Nebraskans, she wrote, 150 are audacious, honest, creative, imaginative, frugal, practical, and so on. 1 Upon reflection one realizes that such charming statements are meaningful only if Missourians, Iowans, Dakotans, and Kansans, among others, do not possess these same characteristics, at least in the same order of magnitude. Conversely, if Kansans and South Dakotans do share these heroic qualities equally with Nebraskans, there is nothing spe­ cial about "the Nebraska psyche," and therefore that which may be distinctive about the history of the state can hardly be attributed to its influence. In the place of such an approach, I suggest that noteworthy or unique aspects of Nebraska's history may be identified and described in terms of the interplay of culture with environment over time, and that distinctiveness is revealed through appropriate comparisons in time and space. This formula emerges from a desire to coordinate two rich traditions in American historical thought - one that has concentrated on the powerful Figure 1. The North Platte River, looking northwest in the vicinity of Lewellen toward altering or disrupting influence of Scottsbluff The Nile-like character of the Platte is suggested by the lush vegetation of physical environments on cultural the valley floor and the dry, barren lands on either side. Photo by Frederick C. forms, and conversely another that has Luebke. emphasized the tenacity, the persis­ tence, or the enduring qualities of methods, political behaviors and prac­ and women have modified their cultural forms over many generations tices, plus many more- over great dis­ environment; conversely, they must and under difficult circumstances. The tances and many decades. In their also analyze the ways in which the most celebrated exponent of the first of books and articles the influence of physical characteristics of a given place these two traditions is Frederick Jack­ place or physical environment is all but tend to limit and condition human son Turner, the father of the frontier ignored; their interpretations have behavior. thesis, who described an environment tended to slight the influence of unique It is true, of course, that the land that transformed the traditions and physiographic features of given regions Nebraskans live on is not entirely behaviors of European culture and in much the same way that environmen­ unique. It is part of the Midwest, even stimulated individual strength, talists have tended to ignore the persis­ though it has a western character not ingenuity, inventiveness, practicality, tence of culture in the same place. found in Iowa, Missouri, or even Kan­ buoyancy, and exuberance- qualities It should be obvious, however, that sas. It straddles much of the Great that in his view distinguished the wide variations in culture may exist Plains with a roughly rectangular space American character and hence within one environment, just as surely of about 77,500 square miles. Stretch­ American history from the European. as physical environments impose cer­ ing westward from the Missouri River But other scholars, among them his­ tain limits on human activity. at Omaha for 430 miles, it separates torians, geographers, folklorists, and Therefore fruitful studies of a state Kansas from South Dakota by another linguists, traced the persistence of should focus on the complex 210. Patterns of rainfall, temperature, cultural forms - speech patterns, relationships that exist between people soils, and topography in the eastern architectural styles, customs of all and the land they live on, in order to dis­ third, where two-thirds of the people kinds, food preferences, agricultural cover the manifold ways in which men live, resemble those of Iowa. Although 151 Nebraska History- Winter 1988

Nebraska is naturally almost treeless and without significant mineral re­ sources, its deep, rich, and humous soil made it highly attractive to both Americans and European immigrants seeking new lands to farm. But as one travels west across the state, the physi­ cal environment changes in important ways. Rainfall decreases from thirty­ six inches per year in the southeast to fifteen in the northwest and soils begin to vary greatly in quality. They are generally rich in the eastern third and in the southern counties, but the north central portion of the state con­ sists of the grass-covered Sand Hills, an area of 20,000 square miles that is nearly equivalent in size to the state of West Virginia. Almost devoid of human inhabitants (less than one person per square mile), the Sand Hills region is ideal cattle country. It separates the eastern third of the state from the Pan­ handle, which is a lightly populated, semi-arid area with strong affinities for Figure 2. The city ofKearney from the air, showing the spatial relationship ofthe Platte Wyoming, which it resembles as much River to the city, the transcontinental railroad (Union Pacific), U.S. Highway 30, as the east resembles Iowa. Interstate 80, and secondary roads. Courtesy ofFrederick C. Luebke . .. (below) Figure Rivers are crucial to understanding 3. Omaha, the metropolis of Nebraska, looking west from Fourteenth and Douglas streets in 1868, when the capital was transferred to Lincoln. The territorial capitol is on Nebraska, which lies entirely within the the horizon at the right edge of the photo. (NSHS-054-1 0) drainage basin of the Missouri. Most secondary streams- the Niobrara, the Loup, the_ Republican, and the Platte -form a ladder of rivers that flow eastward to the Missouri, which, in the pre-railroad era, provided the trans­ portation link to well-settled, older parts of the United States. But only the Platte rises in the Rocky Mountains and has the plenteous flow such origins afford. It alone runs the length of the state from west to east - from Scottsbluff to a few miles south of Omaha - and fixes Nebraska's east­ west orientation. The Platte valley pro­ vides a ribbon of fertile, irrigated soil and a spinal cord of transportation and communication. It forms a sturdy back­ bone for the state, offering trade and services; it attracts tourist dollars, a few modest ventures in manufacturing, and people displaced from nearby farms by an agricultural economy in decline. Appropriately enough, the Platte has even provided the state with 152 ------

Figure 4. Lincoln as it appeared about 1880, looking north from the Capitol up what is today Centennial Mall (formerly Fifteenth Street). University Hall, the first building of the University of Nebraska, is in the distance at the extreme left. (NSHS-L 741-31) its name, for in the Omaha and Oto braska' s Nile. Perhaps that comparison metropolis of the state, bearing a languages Nebraska means "flat is overdrawn, but it is nonetheless relationship to the rest of Nebraska not water" [Figure 1]. instructive. unlike that of Chicago to Illinois. The Platte valley has always been The modern character of Nebraska Possessing a favorable location that central to Nebraska history. It was was partially shaped by a fierce politi­ gave access to the hinterland tapped by America's first great highway to the cal struggle in the territorial and early the Platte, Omaha became a major West; in the mid-nineteenth century it statehood periods. When Congress industrial and transportation center funneled several hundred thousand created the territory in 1854, the only with an ethnically diverse population, people along its banks across the Great place bearing any resemblance to a and like Chicago, it later came to Plains to South Pass in Wyoming and town was Bellevue, located a few miles specialize in meat-packing [Figure 3]. on to new homes in Oregon, California, north of the mouth of the Platte. The The second product of Coming's and Utah. It was the natural route for first territorial governor, a political intrigue was unintended. Once the first transcontinental railroad. hack from South Carolina named Fran­ statehood was achieved, the long­ Later, with the advent of the cis Burt, apparently intended that suffering anti-Omaha factions automobile, the first band of concrete Bellevue should become the capital. coalesced sufficiently to remove the to stretch across America paralleled its But he died suddenly, just two days capital from Omaha to someplace - course, as does much ofinterstate 80 in after he had taken his oath of office. any place- south of the Platte. Unable our own times. Even the airlines seem Into his place as acting governor strode to unite on an existing town as an alter­ to trace this natural highway as they the territorial secretary, Thomas Cum­ native to Omaha, the founding fathers leave contrails high in the sky, six miles ing, a young, aggressive Iowan who was of the state agreed on an undis­ above its shallow and interwoven chan­ determined to make Omaha the capi­ tinguished rural site south of the Platte nels [Figure 2]. Kansas has nothing tal. Located across the river from that was to be named Lincoln. Rather quite like it; the Arkansas River, similar Council Bluffs, Omaha was the direct than distributing the institutional though it is in many ways, only led beneficiary of this man's schemes. functions of state government among pioneers to the impenetrability of the Cuming drew legislative districts to various cities of the now-dominant Colorado Rockies; and instead of flow­ overrepresent grossly the country anti-Omaha coalition (as was cus­ ing to the metropolitan northeastern north of the Platte, and he appointed to tomary in the practice of nineteenth quadrant, it veers off to Oklahoma. the territorial council men who shared century state politics), they put them South Dakota is divided rather than his views of development in Ne­ all - capitol, state university, peniten­ united by the Missouri, which leads braska. tiary, and the asylum for the insane - only to North Dakota; no great There were two main consequences on neutral ground, a place where in highways follow its course through the of his connivance. The first is that 1867 there was no town [Figure 4]. northern plains. But the Platte is Ne- Omaha was destined to become the Thus today Nebraska has two large 153 Nebraska History- Winter 1988

cities - Omaha and a capital like what boat on the Missouri River; others sonal behavior in the post-Civil War Madison is to Wisconsin or, for that came by ox-drawn wagons across Iowa. decades. Kansas thereby acquired an matter, what Washington is to the They huddled in hastily constructed early reputation for political moralism nation. This precedent further villages strung along the west bank of that attracted pietists of all kinds, encouraged Nebraska, again like Wis­ the river. Omaha, Nebraska City, and including Swedes and Germans of such consin, to focus its land-grant re­ Brownville, among others, were all tendencies. But this identity also sources available under the Morrill Act founded within days or weeks of each deflected to Nebraska more numerous of 1862 in one state university, rather other in the summer of 1854, following immigrants who preferred a place than to diffuse limited strength between the enactment by Congress of the law where there was less interference with two institutions, as did neighboring Iowa, establishing the territorial govern­ European traditions, customs, and Kansas, South Dakota, and Colorado. ments of Kansas and Nebraska. Here manners.2 For countless numbers of persons in as elsewhere, towns were the Nebraska, like other Great Plains both the nineteenth and twentieth cen­ spearheads of the frontier. In 1860, states, was clearly shaped by its turies, Nebraska was merely a transit when the population nudged 30,000, railroads. The territory itself was area- a place to be crossed. Yet many more than sixty percent of the gainfully organized to provide the essentials of people came to stay, especially in the employed were engaged in urban-type government for the area through which 1870s and 1880s when the number of occupations - speculators, entre­ the projected transcontinental railroad inhabitants increased by nearly a thou­ preneurs, lawyers, merchants, clerks, was to be laid. But a decade passed sand percent. But all population construction workers, teamsters, before serious construction work groups came to this place from some­ unskilled laborers. Almost everyone began in 1864, extending west from where else. hoped to get rich fast and with minimal Omaha. During the 1850s and 1860s Even the Indians are relative new­ regard for the niceties of law. Farmers many of the towns of eastern Nebraska, comers. None of the tribes that are were in a minority and many in that especially the county seats, were traditionally identified with Nebraska, category were not seriously engaged in founded before the network of with the possible exception of the Paw­ agricultural pursuits. Most came from railroads was built. Consequently, in nee, inhabited the area before Chris­ states directly east - Iowa, Illinois, their spatial relationships they resem­ topher Columbus set foot on the West Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Some ble scores of other midwestern county Indies in 1492. Others, such as the came from slave states such as Mis­ seats. The courthouse is placed in a Teton Sioux, had scarcely begun to souri, Kentucky, and Arkansas, but square surrounded on all sides by a cross the Missouri when Washington relatively few came from New England variety of business enterprises; the crossed the Delaware in 1776. As for and upstate New York. railroad and its depot is located as other Nebraskans, virtually none pre­ In all ofthis Nebraska was not much close to the heart of the town as its late date 1854, the year in which the area different from Kansas. But because it arrival permitted [Figure 5]. was opened to settlement. This is not to was farther upstream and hence more But farther west in Nebraska, in say that there were no white men in distant, Nebraska was settled more areas penetrated by the railroad before Nebraska before that auspicious date, slowly. Because Kansas began a mere substantial settlement occurred, the but rather that their numbers were fifty miles west of a major concentra­ transportation system dictated the exceedingly small and their imprint tion of slave-based, hemp-producing location and physical layout of the upon the landscape was insignificant. plantations in Missouri, it attracted a towns. Instead of coming to the people, The people of Nebraska must band of abolitionists from New the railroad caused the people to come therefore be thought of as immigrants England and elsewhere, small in num­ to it. The depot, normally placed on who brought their culture here from ber but powerful in influence, who bit­ land granted to the railroad by the somewhere else in the United States or terly fought the extension of slavery federal government, thus displaced the Europe. In any case, the first groups into the territories and who, victorious courthouse square as the center of that effectively settle an area will mark in the battle for statehood, remained in activity. If grain elevators were on one it with their culture more strongly than Kansas to flavor its politics with side of the tracks, then stores, hotels, later, possibly more numerous, groups. puritanical values. But Nebraska had saloons, livery stables, and the like Early patterns of settlement therefore no experience that was the equivalent would line the other side of a street run­ must be examined carefully because of "Bleeding Kansas." It did not inherit ning parallel to the tracks. Other com­ they establish the essential form and a comparable cadre of politicians mercial ventures would be placed on a structure of culture, which later groups whose Yankee moralism and commit­ thoroughfare stretching away from the can only modify. ment to commonwealth principles led depot and leading to the courthouse. In Most of Nebraska's inhabitants of to the enactment of prohibition and this arrangement of urban space, the the 1850s and 1860s arrived by steam- other forms of state regulation of per- courthouse was usually located, not on 154 Time, Place, and Culture

63

Scak 600Ft. lin-.

i I L----~--~~~'----1..--L-'----=---'--1 ...... 111 Z1 ------~.M::_ _ _,______~---

/,.,._/" ./ Figure 5. Tecumseh, the seat of Johnson County, illustrates the spatial relationships typical of midwestern towns, with the courthouse square at the center of the business district. Located in the southeastern corner of the state, Tecumseh was first platted in 1856 and designated as county seat a year later, well before the arrival of the railroad. From Official State Atlas of Nebraska (1885).

155 Nebraska History- Winter 1988

r---~ farming population was to be served I ] ilourt Housel, effectively, no more than twenty miles could separate one railroad line from Sqno.rt' I I I -= another. To be closer than that meant that there would not be enough busi­ ness to support a line [Figure 7]. Railroad companies even decided the names of towns. Sometimes, in order to keep these nondescript places straight in their minds, railroad officials named them alphabetically. For example, stations on the Burlington route west of Lincoln were named Asylum, Berks, Crete, Dorches­ ter, Exeter, Fairmont, Grafton, and so on to Kenesaw, Lowell, and Newark before coming to Kearney and the Union Pacific. Long since rendered obsolete by a new transportation technology, some of these places have disappeared without a trace. Others barely hang on, but are doomed in the long run unless rescued by some new combination of economic and techno­ logical forces. In any case, however, there are today no Nebraska towns or villages exceeding 250 inhabitants that are not now nor formerly were located on a railroad. The railroad was not the only technological advance that made the rapid deyelopment of Nebraska pos­ sible. Its settlement period coincided exactly with a series of dramatic AINSWORTH technological developments in eastern BR OJVN CO. NEB. states. Railroad expansion itself was possible because of other basic ad­ Figure 6. Ainsworth, incorporated in 1883 as the seat of Brown County, illustrates the vances, such as the expanding capacity spatial pattern common to towns in the central and western parts ofNebraska, almost of American industry to mass-produce all of which were created or dominated by the railroads. The courthouse square is steel by means of the Bessemer pro­ typically located beyond the business district on the edge of town. Ainsworth is named cess (1856) and the open-hearth system after the chief civil engineer ofthe railroad during its construction. From Official State (1866). At the same time railroads were Atlas of Nebraska (1885). central to the development ofthe range cattle business on the Great Plains, a square in the middle of the business said for their placement. Sidings with which emerged in the late 1860s. district, but at the edge of town on stations (the nuclei of small towns plat­ Simultaneously, Philip Armour cheap land donated by the railroad for ted by the railroads) were placed every developed mass-production tech­ this purpose [Figure 6]. 3 six to ten miles, a distance governed by niques for processing the huge numbers The internal spatial relationships of the number of miles a farmer could of cattle and hogs transported by rail to towns in central and western Nebraska drive his horse-drawn wagon to town, Chicago. ·. Refrigerator cars also (like much of Kansas and the Dakotas) loaded with grain or hogs, and return appeared in 1868 to carry dressed beef were thus influenced by technological home on the same day, which meant a to markets in the East. Five years later, culture as it existed in the late maximum round trip of fifteen to in 1873, J.F. Glidden perfected barbed nineteenth century. The same must be twenty miles. It also meant that, if the wire, about the same time that 156 Time, Place, and Culture

windmills made of steel became avail­ able to homesteaders on the plains. Farm machinery was also evolving at a rapid pace in that decade. To cite only one example, the twine binder used in wheat harvesting was patented in 187 4. All these technological advances, plus others too numerous to describe here, combined to stimulate the settlement and early growth of Nebraska in a way that was impossible for midwestern states located farther east. WICK At the same time that railroads were creating strings of towns across the plains, the state legislature responded to local pressures and began to pro­ liferate counties in central and western Nebraska. Upon the completion of their handiwork, the politicians had created ninety-three counties in a place where less than half that number would have sufficed. But they did most of their work in the 1870s and 1880s, a time when the plains experienced a drought followed by a period of ample Figure 7. Perkins County, located on the Colorado boundary south of Ogallala, illus­ rainfall. Speculators called "boomers" trates how the placement of towns in western Nebraska was entirely determined by the endlessly and perhaps mindlessly railroad. The small numbers near the railroad lines indicate the number of miles be­ repeated the slogan that "rain follows tween stations or depots. Detail from Nebraska map issued by the Nebraska State the plow," in the naive belief that the Railway Commission, 1953. (NSHS-M782-1953-R13) introduction of agriculture in a sub­ humid environment would alter the neighboring counties in the same ing school districts until they num­ climate favorably for such enterprise. capacity.4 Loathe to part with the bered 5,664 in 1888. This prompted the Counties were thus organized on such county as a symbol of identity, Nebras­ state superintendent of public instruc­ ill-founded optimism about future kans prefer to retain institutional inef­ tion to complain that "there are too growth. Even the Sand Hills region was ficiency rather than to consolidate or many small school districts, with the divided into the standard grid of square reorganize these relics of frontier inevitable result of small schools, low or rectangular counties based on the optimism [Figure 9]. standards, low wages and poor congressional survey system; some The school system presents a similar teachers, with poor local supervision or even consisted of the standard sixteen problem. Before the advent of the none at all." Corruption was another townships embracing thirty-six square automobile and its virtual annihilation byproduct. The superintendent re­ miles each - and very few people. of rural space, the one-room country ported that, left to the direction of per­ Today exactly one-third of Nebraska's school was a necessity. Such sons with little or no interest in public counties have fewer than 5,000 institutions certainly were improve­ education, some "school districts were inhabitants; nine fall below 1,000 ments over no school at all. Like most formed for no other reason than to [Figure 8]. McPherson County, with a states, Nebraska had a compulsory defeat the levying of taxes and the population of 593 persons, is served by school attendance law and had adopted maintaining of a school."5 an elected official who, much like Pooh­ a system of school districts intended to But such complaints and warnings Bah in Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado, serve the needs of rural children who went unheeded, and the number of combines the functions of county clerk, usually walked to school. By 1883 the school districts continued to increase election commissioner, register of law specified that a school district until 1920, when more than 7,000 had deeds, assessor, and clerk of the dis­ could not be smaller than four square come into existence [Figure 10]. Then trict court - all for an annual salary of miles in size or have less than fifteen the automobile began to have its effect $13,000. Another county official, the children of school age. Permitting such and the consolidation movement highway superintendent, serves two a small size had the effect of proliferat- began. The number is now reduced to 157 Nebraska History- Winter 1988

Figure 8. Counties in Nebraska with populations of less than 2,000 according to the U.S. Census of 1980. Map by NSHS.

Figure 9. Blaine County Courthouse in Brewster, Nebraska, shortly after its construction. Blaine County was organized in 1885. According to U.S. Census data, its population in 1890 was 1,146; in 1980 it was 867. (NSHS-M281-923) 158 Time, Place, and Culture

Figure 10. A rural one-room elementary school in Custer County in 1891. The young female teacher appears with her pupils in front ofa sod-house school. (NSHS-B983-5121)

955, but that still is more than any other Plains states, was due to a confluence agricultural day-laborers to emigrate to state has, save heavily populated of temporal, environmental (i.e. ample the United States. Some of these per­ Texas, California, and Illinois. When rainfall), and technological forces. The sons found new homes and farms in the data are expressed in terms of a settlement of the plains occurred at the Nebraska, at that moment in its period ratio of school districts to population, same time that (a) steam-powered of most dramatic growth. Nebraska is solidly in first place. Why trains and transatlantic ships were But the influx of European Nebraska should so tenaciously retain transforming spatial relationships immigrants was by no means uniform in its inefficient rural schools, in contrast around the world and (b) agricultural the plains states. From the time of to the neighboring states of Kansas, expansion in the Midwest, stimulated earliest settlement in the 1850s, Ne­ Iowa, South Dakota, and Colorado, by improvements in farm machinery, braska regularly had twice as high a remains a mystery. helped the United States to capture a proportion of foreign-born persons in The rapid growth of Nebraska's large share of the world grain market. comparison with Kansas. At the same counties and towns was most pro­ This development, in turn, had the time, Dakota Territory doubled Ne­ nounced in the 1880s. During that effect of disrupting agricultural braska's percentage. By 1900, first and decade the population grew from about economies in Europe, especially in second-generation immigrants con­ 450,000 to more than a million persons. Sweden, Denmark, and northern Ger­ stituted forty-five percent of the total This profound increase, which was many, and causing hundreds of population in Nebraska, compared to similarly experienced by other Great thousands of displaced farmers and twenty-six percent in Kansas, fifty- 159 Nebraska History- Winter 1988

NEBRASKA

c=J 0-1.9 ~ 6-7.9

~ 2-3.9 .. 8-9.9

ITIJIIII] 4-5.9 ~Over 10

Figure 11. Distribution of German-born inhabitants in Nebraska according to the U.S. Census of 1900. Cuming County recorded the highest percentage (1 7.6 percent). Reprinted from Immigrants and Politics by Frederick C. Luebke. Copyright 1969 by the University of Nebraska Press. eight percent in South Dakota, and population had important political (usually defined in terms of morality, seventy-one percent in North Dakota, ramifications. During the late nine­ progress, and reform) had to be the highest proportion of any state in teenth century, prohibition became a opposed as intolerable efforts to inject the Union. potent symbol of the cultural clash be­ governmental authority into personal Germans were by far the largest tween a substantial part of the native­ and spiritual affairs and to impose single group of foreign-born immi­ born pOpulation and many of the Anglo-American Protestant values on a grants in Nebraska, where in 1900 they newcomers, for whom the use of reluctant immigrant population. and their children accounted for eight­ alcoholic beverages was an integral Because of the political strength of een percent of the total population part of their culture. Throughout the these ethnocultural groups, the com­ [Figure 11]. The Swedes were a distant Midwest and much of the Northeast, plex of issues symbolized by prohibi­ second at five percent; the Irish third at prohibition and attendant issues of tion did not fare well in Nebraska, four percent. Czechs and Danes also woman suffrage, public school educa­ compared to Kansas, which was the formed important colonies in Ne­ tion, and Sabbatarian regulations first state to write prohibition into its braska; numerically they equalled the dominated state and local politics. constitution. Drawing upon its _New totals for these two groups in the entire Nebraska's immigrants included many England traditions, Kansas achieved tier of states from Texas to North Catholics of German, Irish, Czech, and that dubious distinction already in 1880 Dakota. Germans from Russia were Polish origins, plus numerous German with a four percent margin in a popular also important, but both Kansas and Lutherans, all of whom were attracted vote. Enforcement was difficult, South Dakota doubled Nebraska's to the Democratic party as the cham­ however, even under the best of cir­ contingent. Today the descendants of pion of the fullest measure of personal cumstances, and since the amendment German-speaking immigrants con­ liberty consistent with law and order. permitted the sale of liquor for stitute more than forty percent of the For them, typical Republican tenden­ medicinal purposes, the proportion of state's population. cies to support prohibition and the sickly Kansans increased dramatically. The ethnic composition of the state's other coerciVe cultural measures Even so, Kansas went on to enact in 160 Time, Place, and Culture

1909 what was considered to be the Indian titles and remove the Pawnee to occur and the variety of institutions most stringent prohibitory law in the Oklahoma and the Sioux agencies to that can be maintained efficiently are nation. Iowa behaved much like Kan­ Dakota Territory. By the time the directly related to population density. sas, but with less success. In 1882 its states of North and South Dakota were Concentrations of large numbers of electorate approved a prohibition organized in 1889, the Indian policy of people in relatively small spaces (i.e., amendment fifty-five to forty-five per­ the federal government had long since cities) obviously permit activities and cent, only to have the Iowa Supreme created the huge Rosebud, Pine Ridge, institutions that are virtually impos­ Court declare it unconstitutional on a and Standing Rock reservations, where sible to sustain in sparsely populated technicality. the environment effectively limits the areas. If ethnocultural forms are to be But it was a different story in Ne­ possibilities for successful farming sustained over time, they must have the braska, where in 1881 the prohibition [Figure 13]. support of institutions such as forces could not even get their measure The study of ethnic groups in Ne­ churches, schools, immigrant-language through the legislature, presumably braska returns us again to the fact that newspapers and periodicals, social and because of the political clout of its the state's physical environment dic­ cultural associations of all kinds, and ethnoreligious groups. Instead, the so­ tates that small numbers of people be businesses that cater to the ethnic called advocates of temperance had thinly spread over vast spaces. The trade. In the sparsely populated plains to be satisfied with the enactment of a kinds of personal interactions that of Nebraska, churches were the easiest high-license law. The next year they sought to strengthen their hand by means of a woman suffrage amend­ Figure 12. Newspaper cartoon in favor of the prohibition amendment to the Nebraska State Constitution, Omaha Bee, November 4, 1916. ment, which was generally thought of as a half-way house to prohibition. The Nebraska electorate responded by rejecting that measure by a two to one THI.S POOR margin; in strongly German precincts rtLLOW Will the rejection rate spiraled to ten to one. J.OJl HIS J08 A prohibition amendment finally IF YOV VOTl appeared on the Nebraska ballot in PROHIBITION 1890; it failed, fifty-eight to forty-two percent. Not until 1916, when the possibility of war with Germany altered the shape of state politics, did prohibi­ l~l GIVE 1111'1 A tion succeed in Nebraska [Figure 12]. JOB SE.LUN6 None of this is to suggest that Ne­ ~ROUIUlS IN- braskans were liberal in their attitudes S TlAO Or BoOZ~ Wlfl.IV PEtJrPl£ 9(/IT toward racial and ethnic minorities. A SPE#PIVv TllifR national map showing Indian reser­ !'IONE Y WITII YtJ(I vations provides a clue: Nebraska, like Iowa and Kansas, has almost none, whereas South Dakota has one of the largest areas set aside for this purpose in the entire nation. Time relationships provide the explanation: Even as Con­ gress was debating (and finally approv­ ing) the admission of Nebraska as a state in 1867, the territorial legislature memorialized Congress to remove the Oto and Missouria Indians so that their lands could be made available to white Nebraskans, who, unlike the Indians, would effectively cultivate the fertile soil. During the next decade, the state legislature repeatedly and successfully / demanded that Congress extinguish 161 Nebraska History- Winter 1988

of immigrant institutions to create; often they were the only ones to survive the disappearance of the immigrant SISSETON languages [Figure 14]. Because the churches frequently functioned as sub­ stitutes for the array of social and cultural societies that were available in large cities, they assumed special importance in Nebraska for the forma­ tion of personal identity. The level of population density is also related to the internal cohesion of an ethnic group and its homogeneity, or sense of peoplehood. In Nebraska, the clusters of German Mennonites who originally emigrated from Russia have a keen sense of identity. Even though Swedes far outnumber Czechs in Ne­ braska, they have a weaker sense of cohesion and hence their assimilation has been more rapid. The Germans, by far the largest ethnic group in the state, have today what may be the weakest sense of peoplehood, possibly because of the legacy of two world wars in which Germany was the prime enemy and in which German language and culture were denigrated. Nebraska has not been without I I incidents of racial and ethnic conflict. L___ Such disturbances are usually iden­ tified with teeming, heterogeneous Figure 13. Indian reservations in Nebraska and South Dakota at the present time. Map cities. So it has also been in Nebraska, by NSHS .... (below)Figure 14. Church of the Visitation, rural Greeley County, which where Omaha experienced a violent was settled extensively by Irish Catholics. Such rural clusters ofchurch, school, and rec­ anti-Greek riot in 1909 and, worse, an tory or parsonage were also common among various Protestant groups, especially Ger­ anti-black disorder that resulted in the man Lutherans. Photo map, 1958, Belleville, Kansas. lynching and mutilation of an innocent black victim, destruction of property in the black neighborhood, and the burn­ ing of Omaha's new county courthouse in 1919. Even smaller cities had occasional problems. For example, in 1929 a racial incident occurred inNorth Platte in which, following the murder of a white policeman and the subse­ quent death of his black assailant, the small black community of the town, which numbered about thirty-five per­ sons, fled from the city for fear of their lives. In many Nebraska communities, large and small, fears and suspicions engendered by war with Germany in 1917 and 1918 led to numerous minor acts of prejudice and oppression Time, Place, and Culture

against German-American fellow citizens. Although Americans have often suggested that all such outbreaks are manifestations of our heritage of frontier violence, that relationship is tenuous in these cases, unlike the prej­ udice Nebraskans sometimes have displayed against the state's small Indian minority. Despite these occasional manifes­ tations of tension, racial and ethnic dis­ cord is not a deep-seated characteristic of Nebraska history. Agricultural dis­ content is. From the earliest times, when railroads received huge subsidies and grants of some of the best land in the state, farmers have tended to see themselves as victims of distant and oppressive economic forces. They naturally turned to politics as a means to relieve their distress. At first they perceived the Greenback party as con­ genial to their interests. In 1880 and 1882, the Anti-Monopoly party exer­ cised a brief flash of power in some counties. By 1890 agricultural discon­ tent mushroomed into what soon became known as the Populist party. Figure 15. Samuel R. McKelvie, governor of Nebraska, 1919-23. (NSHS-M134) Like the earlier 1870s and the later 1930s, the 1890s were years in which severe drought combined with unidimensional, symbolic system best [Figure 15]. Preoccupied with ef­ economic depression to produce much understood in terms of ethnocultural ficiency through centralized adminis­ misery in rural areas. Like voters in the conflict to a multiple-issue system in tration, McKelvie sought to strengthen other states of the Great Plains but which political loyalties were weakened gubernatorial authority through the unlike those farther east, many Ne­ but professional leadership was drafting of a new, "modern" state con­ braska farmers and their sympathizers strengthened. stitution and the enactment of an in the towns turned to Populism as a Agrarian discontent rooted in Pop­ "administrative code." Although he vehicle for radical reform, including ulism emerged again in the early 1920s, technically failed to achieve the first government ownership of the banking, especially under the banner of theN on­ goal, he got much of what he wanted in transportation, and communication Partisan League, an organization the form of forty-one constitutional systems. They elected governors, con­ founded on socialistic principles in amendments and a series oflaws. They gressmen, judges, and state legislators, North Dakota. Roundly denounced as a remain in force today, though in a much but they never gathered enough power subversive organization, it found its altered form. to enact their program. Instead the greatest strength in the northeastern McKelvie also realized a second, impulse for reform languished until the quarter of Nebraska, where German more monumental, goal - the con­ Progressive era, when, starting in 1907, farmers, still chafing from the injus­ struction of a new state capitol it had a brief life under the guber­ tices of World War I, were especially to house his modernized government. natorial stewardship of Republican numerous. Erected on a pay-as-you-build plan, George Sheldon, followed by Democrat But the NPL was unable to dislodge Nebraska's new capitol, often charac­ Ashton Shallenberger. Even though public attention from the progressive terized as an extraordinary architec­ the reform of the Populist and Pro­ reforms of Republican Governor tural achievement, was finally com­ gressive eras did little for the farmers, Samuel McKelvie, who was eager to pleted in 1932 [Figure 16]. It quickly the character of politics as practiced in streamline state government in the became the preeminent symbol of the Nebraska was transformed from a image of the modern businessman state to its citizens. Now more than a 163 Nebraska History- Winter 1988

half century old, this magnificent struc­ ture is perceived by Nebraskans as a symbolic link between the state's pioneer history, a progressive present, and a hopeful future. That the symbol belies an ultraconservative reality is beside the point. The completion of the capitol was only one of a series of momentous events in the 1930s that fix upon Ne­ braska certain unique qualities. As in other states of the Midwest, Nebraska suffered severely from the Great De­ pression and from the Great Drought. The rural exodus, already under way, accelerated as farmers moved to town, if not in Nebraska, then in California, Oregon, or elsewhere. Agricultural dis­ content flared again and even threatened to burst into violence in some communities, as farm strikes, penny auctions of farms and farm equipment, and a moratorium on mortgages were undertaken. But when real help arrived, it came from the federal government, not the statehouse Figure 16. The Nebraska State Capitol under construction in 1928. Ground was broken in 19 22, the last year of Governor McKelvie's two terms. The structure was completed in [Figure 17]. 1932. (NSHS-C244-229) .... (below) Figure 17. The auction of farm machinery and More important for the state's his­ animals on the Von Bonn farm near Elgin, Nebraska, in 1932. The crowd forced the tory was the adoption of the nonpar­ auctioneer to accept bids of five cents on all items, thereby producing $5.35 for a tisan, one-house legislature by mortgage debt of $449 owed the Elgin State Bank. This was the first of many ''penny constitutional amendment in 19:34. auctions" held in Nebraska under the leadership of the Farm Holiday Association. (NSHS-F232-6) Usually called the Unicameral by Ne­ braskans, this unique body, which is a major departure from American politi­ cal tradition, was approved in the depths of the Depression as a way of reducing the "baneful influence" of lobbyists and the special interests they represent. The idea of a one-house legislature was not new to Nebraskans in 1934; it had been proposed frequent­ ly since 1913 but had failed just as often to be placed before the voters of the state. Although it has frequently been described as a liberal or pro­ gressive innovation designed to inject a new measure of responsibility and accountability in state government, it was also a conservative device to reduce state expenditures. The pro­ posed amendment to create the Unicameral was linked with two others, one to repeal prohibition in the state and another to legalize 164 parimutuel betting; both were ex­ pected ultimately to revitalize the state's treasury. Regardless of its merits, the amendment probably would not have been adopted without the herculean efforts of its chief spon­ sor, Senator George Norris, a man of great personal prestige who cam­ paigned tirelessly for it for more than a decade. In its half-century of operation, the Unicameral has generally proved its worth, even though it has failed utterly to curb the power of lobbies. Its non­ partisan character has weakened, rather than strengthened, popular democracy. Partisanship continues, but in a disguised and enervated form, just as party responsibility in the legislature has disappeared. Yet most informed Nebraskans regard the Unicameral highly; they are proud of the fact that their state is the only one to recognize the obvious virtues of Figure 18. Kingsley Dam, the largest such structure in Nebraska, and the reservoir it such a legislative system. Frequent creates, Lake McConaughy. Constructed in the 1930s, the dam has been essential for attempts have been made to remove the development of both electric power and irrigation in Nebraska. Courtesy of Ne­ the nonpartisan feature, but all have braska Game and Parks Commission. failed. The Unicameral has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to reflect the law passed in 1932 permitting the from conservative, nonideological con­ strong conservatism of the people. Reconstruction Finance Corporation cerns about economic relationships Nebraskans like it and intend to keep to make loans to public organizations that date back to the Populist and Pro­ it. for hydroelectric and irrigation proj­ gressive struggles against the railroads, The hard times of the 1930s ects. The legislature thereupon banks, and monopolistic tendencies of introduced a second unique feature allowed for the organization of public private enterprise at the turn of the about Nebraska: It is the only state in power districts with certain govern­ century. They reflect what Daniel the Union with public ownership of its mental powers, but not including the Elazar has characterized as the entire capacity to produce electricity authority to levy taxes. The project was "marketplace orientation" that commercially. Like the Unicameral, it subsequently approved by the Public strongly marks Nebraska's political is part of the legacy of George Norris, Works Administration in 1935 and con­ culture, in contrast to the "common­ its chief sponsor. Although public struction of Kingsley Dam proceeded wealth" conception that is dominant in power is often denounced by its [Figure 18]. It began the production of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North opponents as socialism, Nebraska electric power in 1941. Meanwhile, four Dakota. The former, according to acquired the ownership of its power public power districts were created, Elazar, views public policy as emerging plants through a confluence of many the last in 1945, which led to the from bargaining among political groups economic and political factors, most purchase of the final remammg and leaders acting in terms of self­ ofthem pragmatic if not conservative in investor-owned utility a year later. interest; the latter conception refers to character. Ideological questions were Since then the system has been expand­ the belief that all citizens should never part of the de bate; farmers were ed and developed and now includes cooperate to create and maintain the at the heart of it. Eager to increase their two major nuclear power plants. best possible government on the basis income in the drought-stricken 1930s, The adoption of the Unicameral and of moral principles. Moreover, the for­ farm leaders pushed for the construc­ the state-wide system of public power mer orientation provides the founda­ tion of a major irrigation dam to be built reflect the workings of Nebraska's tion for "individualistic" politics and on the North Platte River north of political culture. Although they appear calls for efficient government action to Ogallala, in accordance with a federal to be radical innovations, they spring enhance economic opportunity and the 165 Nebraska History- Winter 1988

pursuit of private goals; the latter holds Great Depression have not been dis­ that government is the means to tinctive. Nebraska is basically a achieve "the good society" through Republican state, though Democrats social and economic programs that are are strong enough to win important in the public interest generally.6 offices occasionally, provided their When analyzed in these terms, the candidates are appropriately conserva­ western tier of midwestern states tive. Party identification generally does reveals a pattern in which North not inhibit cross-over voting. Although Dakota is clearly the most radical, the constitutional grant of guber­ South Dakota somewhat less so, Ne­ natorial powers is substantial com­ braska generally conservative but pro­ pared to that in many other states, ductive of progressive reforms when Nebraska's governors have tended to consonant with private interests, and view themselves primarily as adminis­ Kansas like Nebraska but even more trators rather than as political leaders conservative. In Elazar's view, the with powers to shape public debate and marketplace orientation is the to influence the legislature in the enact­ strongest in Nebraska; similarly, it is ment of their policies. The nonpartisan the only midwestern state west of the character of the Unicameral makes it Mississippi that mixes individualistic Figure 19. Norbert Tiemann, governor difficult for the governor to provide and moralistic tendencies, but with of Nebraska, 1967-71. Norbert effective, positive leadership, but the individualistic elements dominant. Tiemann Papers, State Archives, example of Republican Norbert How are these differences to be NSHS. Tiemann, who served from 1967 to explained? The answer lies in the pat­ 1971, demonstrated the possibilities terns of migration. Whereas North [Figure 19]. Tiemann repeatedly exer­ Dakota, like Minnesota and Wisconsin, behavior. Where German, Swedish, or cised the powers of his office to restruc­ was settled by persons with cultural Czech farmers broke the sod a century ture the state's tax base, to improve roots in New England and upstate New ago, there their descendants continue higher education, to introduce state aid York, supplemented strongly by to farm today. Where Democratic to local school districts, and to push streams of pietistic Scandinavians, voters motivated by ethnoreligious economic development. As one observ­ Nebraska received a large flow of issues were concentrated in the late er put it, "Tiemann pulled Nebraska Americans from the "Midlands," as nineteenth century, there Democratic kicking and screaming into the twen­ geographer John Hudson has de­ majorities are still to be found. The tieth century." He was also dismissed scribed it,7 plus substantial rein­ most recent voter registration lists by the voters after one term in favor of a forcements of Germans, Irish, Czechs, reveal that counties largely settled by Democratic candidate, J. James Exon, and other Europeans whose preference Catholic immigrant groups continue to who denounced him as a "blank­ for individualistic politics was clear. record Democratic pluralities, if not check spender."9 Highly dependent in its frontier period majorities, as they did in the nineteenth In any case, political leadership is on its Missouri River connection with century. In 1986 only twelve of Nebras­ always difficult in times of retrench­ the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys, ka's ninety-three counties registered ment resulting from structural changes Nebraska received a more hetero­ more Democrats than Republicans. in the economy, such as Nebraska and geneous population than its immediate Each Democratic county is presently other midwestern states have ex­ neighbors north and south. Thus, while inhabited largely by the descendants of perienced in recent years. Agriculture Nebraska's political history has not ethnic or religious groups with historic continues as the foundation of the been without a moralistic flavor, it has attachments to the Democratic party of state's economy; and agriculture, long been more individualistic, more orient­ the nineteenth century. They include addicted to support programs of the ed to the marketplace, than either disproportionate numbers of voters of federal government, is suffering severe Kansas or the Dakotas, the states with Irish, Polish, Czech, and Italian origins, stress as aid is reduced or withdrawn. which it shares a similar physical many of them Catholic in religion, plus Only nine percent of the work force in environment. Danes and American Indians. Only the this agricultural state is still directly Because Nebraska has received little German Lutherans have abandoned employed in agriculture, compared to in-migration during the past century, their nineteenth century ties to the about two percent nationally. The the original pattern of ethnic and Democratic party as the champion of number of farms in the state has de­ religious group settlement continues to personal liberty. 8 creased by half in forty years; during help explain contemporary political Politics on the state level since the the same period the average farm has 166 Time, and Culture

nearly doubled in size to more than 700 1961, President John Kennedy's chief miserable" but loved verdant fields acres. 10 The contemporary history of aide, Ted Sorensen, made a bitterly along "sluggish steams exuberant with this state is thus influenced profoundly resented speech in McCook that his harvests."12 Such an environment, by the federal government and its ever­ home state of Nebraska was "a place to beauteous or not, decrees that N e bras­ changing policies. State governments come from or a place to die," he was ka's economy rest squarely on agricul­ are forced to adapt to such variables reflecting demographic realities. 11 ture - this in an era when fewer farmers just as much as to exigencies imposed It has been my purpose in this essay can produce more food than an explod­ by the physical environment. to demonstrate that distinctive ing world population can consume. Inevitably such drastic economic features of Nebraska's history emerge How a people responds to stress is changes have far-reaching demo­ from the interaction of time, place, and the stuff of history. Environmental graphic consequences. Internal migra­ culture. Nebraska is a place that is warm­ variables merely set the limits for the tion is redistributing the population of er than the Dakotas, colder than Kan­ history that is transacted in a given the state. Seventy percent of the coun­ sas, drier than Iowa, and wetter than place; how a society orders its affairs ties lost population in the 1970s; the Wyoming. It is a grassland, not forested over time is governed more by the cul­ rate has accelerated in the 1980s, when naturally like Michigan or Wisconsin. ture its members have brought to the out-migration has exceeded ten per­ Its topography is more varied than land they inhabit. To this place came cent in sixteen counties [Figure 20]. that of Illinois, but like Kansas, it has Americans mostly from states directly The median age exceeded forty years in nothing like the Black Hills of South east. They were accompanied by six counties (compared to the state Dakota. Like Iowa and Kansas, Ne­ immigrants mostly from northern and figure of 29.7 in 1980) as young people braska has great beauty, but little ofthe central Europe - Irish, English, fled the farm. Meanwhile, rural poverty kind that appeals to the modern Swedes, Danes, Germans, Czechs, and has increased dramatically, especially romanticism that idealizes mountains Poles, plus Germans from Russia, but in Sand Hills counties. Almost all pop­ and seashores. One of the state's illus­ fewer blacks than any midwestern ulation growth inNe braska is occurring trious sons, Alvin Johnson, wrote that states save the Dakotas (the place in counties located along Nebraska's Nebraska's "magnificent plains" would where Nebraska sent its Indians) and Nile, its Interstate 80, or its railroads have delighted the classical Romans, still fewer Asians. Religious beliefs carrying coal from Wyoming. When, in who detested the Alps as "horrid and have conditioned their political Figure 20. Bruno, Nebraska, 1980, one ofhundreds ofsmall towns in Nebraska that have experienced severe population losses, resulting in vacant buildings and empty streets. (NSHS-8008/40:10) Nebraska History- Winter 1988

attitudes and behaviors, even though NOTES 4 [Lincoln, Nebraska] Sunday Journal-Star, July 6, 1986, lD. Nebraska, like every other state, has a 5The School Laws of Nebraska, As revised and large minority of persons who admit no This article is reprinted from James H. amended in 1881 ... (Lincoln, 1881), 15; Twentieth church affiliation. Nebraskans are Madison, ed., Heartland: Comparative Histories Annual Report of the [Nebraska State] Superin­ of the Midwestern States (Bloomington: Indiana tendent of Public Instruction, 1888 (Lincoln, individualistic, self-reliant, and conser­ University Press, 1988), 226-45. Repnnted w1th 1888), 71, 74. vative, but they have been willing to the permission of the publisher. 6Daniel J. Elazar, "Political Culture on the Plains," Western Historical Quarterly 11 (July consider the use of radical means to 1 Dorothy Weyer Creigh, Nebraska: A Bicenten­ 1980); 267-68, 277-79. See also Elazar, American achieve their conservative goals. They nial History (New York: Norton, 1977), 6, but see Federalism: A View from the States (2nd ed., New also pp. 5-13. cherish their non-partisan, unicameral 2 York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1972), 89-90. This relationship was first impressed upon me 'John C. Hudson, "Who Was 'Forest Man?' legislature; they do not hesitate to elect by a quotation from that distinguished Kansas Sources of Migration to the Plains," Great Plains to high political office women, Jews, journalist and Progressive, William Allan White, Quarterly 6 (Spring 1986): 74. . who observed that Kansans "still have in [their] and members of ethnic minorities. And KThe counties, in orderofDemocrat1c strength, veins the blood of the New England settlers who are as follows: Sherman (Polish), Greeley (Irish), their football heroes at the University came in with the immigrant societies in the fifties Butler (Czech), Saline (Czech), Thurston of Nebraska are usually black. and filled the first eastern tiers of counties. (American Indian), Nance (Polish), Cedar (Ger­ Following the first settlers in the fifties came the man Catholic), Howard (Poles and Danes), Saun­ Because Nebraska occupies a unique young soldiers of the Civil War and their wives ders (Czech), Colfax (Czech), Douglas space and because it has been pop­ seeking free homesteads. They were Umon (metropolitan Omaha with large numbers .of ulated by a unique mixture of different soldiers. They came from the North. They Italians Czechs, blacks, and other mmonty pushed the Yankee blood westward in one great groups): and Dakota (Sioux City metropolitan cultural groups, its history is also unique. impulse, three hundred miles from the Missouri area). Data supplied by the office ofthe Nebraska This history inevitably bears many border. Then being puritanical, Kansas in 1880 Secretary of State. similarities to that of its neighbors; adopted prohibition. More than that, Kansas YNeal R. Peirce, The Great Plains States of advertised its prohibition, and in advertising its North America (New York: Norton, 1973), 205-9. Nebraskans naturally have conducted prohibitory law erected a barrier against the beer I"Much of the data in this and the following their affairs in ways much like those of drinking, liberty loving immigrants from paragraph is from various issues of Business in northern Europe which Kansas needed so badly other midwesterners. But the distinc­ Nebraska, a publication of the College of Busi­ to enrich her blood as these people have enriched ness Administration, University of Nebraska­ tive qualities of Nebraska's history the blood of the population of Minnesota, Wis­ Lincoln. See the issues for January 1982, March consin Iowa Nebraska, and the Dakotas." 1982, November 1982, and February 1986. . emerge from the interaction over time Quoted inN R. Peirce, The Great Plains States e~l I1The relevant portion of Sorensen's speech !S between the environment and the cul­ of America (New York: Norton, 1973), 223-24. quoted in Peirce, The Great Plains States, 198. ture brought to this place by its people. 3This analysis is developed by John C. Hudson I2Alvin Johnson, Pioneer's Progress; An in his article, "The Plains Country Town," m These differences are most readily dis­ Autobiography (1952, rpt., Lincoln, University of Brian W. Blouet and Frederick C. Luebke, eds., Nebraska Press, 1960), 169. cerned through appropriate com­ The Great Plains: Environment and Culture (Lin­ parisons with the histories of other coln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979), 103- 5. states in America's heartland.

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