Pioneers

Home Alone: Women on the Great Plains

“I had gone to bed one night, but could not sleep. My father was constantly in my mind. I seemed…

3 months ago

Willa Cather: My Ántonia and the Settlement of the Great Plains

"There was nothing but land; not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made… I…

3 months ago

Living to Tell the Homesteading Tale

Life is full of surprises, and few people would have known that better than the Americans who participated in the…

3 months ago

Blizzards: Furies of Nature

Today, the Great Plains is an area of great resources and beauty. Nevertheless, during past days and even current times,…

3 months ago

A Woman in No Man’s Land: Caroline Henderson, Homesteader

No one knows, or will ever fully understand, why Caroline Henderson, nee Boa, daughter of a prosperous Iowa farmer, graduate…

3 months ago

Matilda Jackson: Making a Home on the Last Frontier

Sometimes the best plans go awry, and for intrepid female Matilda Glover Koontz Jackson, first aspirations of pioneering could easily…

3 months ago

The Tygart Valley Homesteads: Pioneers of the Great Depression

"Two days after Thanksgiving, hospitable Anna Eleanor Roosevelt…motored in a White House car from Washington to visit the Tygart Valley…

4 months ago

Covered Wagons Heading West: Life on the Oregon Trail

Amelia Stewart Knight knew the cross-country journey west would be a rough one; it was not for the weak or…

1 year ago

Mollie Dorsey Sanford: Frontier Wife, Frontier Life

An intrepid, independent soul, Mollie Dorsey was a homesteader in her teens, a gold rusher in her twenties, worked as…

1 year ago

A Town Named Audacious and African American Homesteaders

“Learn to do common things uncommonly well; we must always keep in mind that anything that helps fill the dinner…

1 year ago

The First Homesteader: Daniel Freeman

Clearly, it was not the best day in Daniel Freeman's life. He'd been on the trail for over three weeks,…

1 year ago

Medical Folkways in America – Part Two: What’s in Your Bottle?

In Medical Folkways in America – Part One: Maggots, Hairballs, and Eels, we looked at how things used to be, way…

4 years ago