“In about a week we had a cabin ready to move into. It had a dirt floor and dirt roof, but I tacked muslin overhead and put down lots of hay and spread a rag carpet on the floor. I put the tool chest, the trunks, the goods box made into a cupboard, and the beds all around the wall to hold down the carpet, as there was nothing to tack it to. The beds had curtains and there was a curtained alcove between the beds that made a good dressing room. So we were real cozy and comfortable.”
–Emma Hill
Under the Homestead Act of 1862 and its revisions, over 1 million applicants received a plot of land from the Federal government. Thousands of the homesteaders were women. They were black and they were white. Some were recent immigrants from Europe. Some were looking for husbands, others had left husbands, or lost them to death, divorce, or desertion. Quite a few had no interest at all in a husband. But they all worked hard to “prove up” their homesteads.
And most of them realized that the land they were claiming had been home to Native people for centuries.
Further Listening and Reading:
Pre-Columbian Cultures and Civilizations, The History of North America Podcast
Women of the Frontier : 16 Tales of Trailblazing Homesteaders, Entrepreneurs, And Rabble-Rousers by Brandon Marie Miller
Before Wyoming: American Indian Geography and Trails
African American Homesteaders in the Great Plains
Journals, Diaries, and Letters Written by Women on the Oregon Trail 1836-1865
Land of The Burnt Thigh: A Lively Story of Women Homesteaders on the South Dakota Frontier by Edith E. Kohl
The Journals of Lewis and Clark
Mark Soldier Wolf: Northern Arapaho Past and Present
“The worst of the explosion occurred in the No. 8 mine.” (Mine Wars, Part 1)
“We lived with constant fear.” (Encore: Freedom Summer, Part 2)
“We have to be shot down here like rabbits.” (Encore: The Great Migration, Part 1)
“His Intelligence from the Enemy’s Camp were Industriously Collected…” (James Armistead Lafayette, Mini Episode)
“The more I read, the more I fought against slavery.” (Slave Narratives and the Pursuit of Literacy, Part 3)
“It was only by trickery that I learned to read.” (Slave Narratives and the Pursuit of Literacy, Part 2)
“I would take my child and hide in the mountains.” (Slave Narratives and the Pursuit of Literacy, Part 1)
“We are afraid to speak for our rights.” (Freedom Summer ’64, Part 2)
“Mississippi is going to be hell this summer.” (Freedom Summer ’64, Part 1)
“I was awakened … by the low roar of guns.” (Hello Girls, Mini Episode)
“We fed them what we had.” (Women’s Welfare Work in WWI, Part 3)
“Don’t drop them pies!” (Women’s Welfare Work in WWI, Part 2)
“We washed the men and the floors.” (Women’s Welfare Work in WWI, Part 1)
“My wound is all healed.” (The 372nd Infantry, Mini Episode)
“I have the right not to vote.” (Women’s Suffrage, Mini Episode)
“Our child cries for you.” (Loved Ones of Black Civil War Soldiers, Mini Episode)
“Nothing here but money.” (The Great Migration, Part 3)
“We will do any kind of work.” (The Great Migration, Part 2)
“We have to be shot down here like rabbits.” (The Great Migration, Part 1)
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