Homestead Act--150th Anniversary

choi

Fergus M Bordewich, How the West Was Really Won. The Homestead Act, which celebrates its 150th anniversary this weekend, offered free land to men and women willing to farm it. The law helped America become an economic superpower. Wall Street Journal, May 19, 2012.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 07800849985834.html
(President Lincoln signed Honestead Act on May 20, 1862)

Quote:

"The Homestead Act offered 160 acres of free public land to settlers who would build a home on it and farm it for at least five years. Anyone 21 years old who was either a citizen or declared the intention to become one could stake a claim. * * *  (The size permitted for homesteads was eventually increased to 640 acres as settlers moved into drier regions.) Although the number of claims dropped off during the Great Depression, hundreds continued to be filed annually through the 1960s. Homesteading ended in the lower 48 states in 1976 but continued in Alaska, where the last homesteader filed his claim in 1979.

"Among [then US House Speaker] Galusha Grow's 'soldiers of peace' [frontiermen] were single women, who would eventually stake about 10% of all claims. So too those newly liberated from slavery.

"Although many [frontiermen] gave up before the five-year period of 'proving up' had elapsed, nearly two million settlers prevailed against loneliness, disease, crop failure and the elements.

Note:
(a) How the West Was Won
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_West_Was_Won

(i) How the West Was Won (Bing Crosby album)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_West_Was_Won_(Bing_Crosby_album)
(1959)
(ii) How the West Was Won (film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_West_Was_Won_(film)
(1962; one of the last "old-fashioned" epic films made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to enjoy great success; Set between 1839 and 1889, it follows four generations of a family (starting as the Prescotts) as they move ever westward, from western New York state to the Pacific Ocean)

(b) clime (n; Late Latin clima; First Known Use 14th century):
"CLIMATE <traveled to warmer climes>"
www.m-w.com
(c) The article quoted Mr Uriah Oblinger as saying, "All we have to do is plow up some sod, cut it in lengths to suit, and lay up a wall & cover it up and you have a house."

(i) sod house
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sod_house
("The resulting structure was a well-insulated but damp dwelling that was very inexpensive. Sod houses required frequent maintenance and were vulnerable to rain damage")
(ii) suit (vi): "to be appropriate or satisfactory <these prices don't suit>"

(d) Nicodemus, Kansas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicodemus,_Kansas
(The community was founded in 1877 and is named for an African American who escaped enslavement)
(e) Topeka, Kansas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topeka,_Kansas
(capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas; situated along the Kansas River; Founded 1854; Incorporated [as a city] 1857; Topeka means "to dig good potatoes" in the languages of the Kansa and the Ioway [both being Native Americans]. The potato referred to is the prairie potato (Psoralea esculenta), a perennial herb which is an important food for many Native Americans)
(f) Missouri River
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_River
(Rising in the Rocky Mountains of western Montana, the Missouri flows east and south for 2,341 miles (3,767 km) before entering the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, Missouri)
(g) barbed wire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbed_wire
(The first patent in the United States for barbed wire was issued in 1867 to Lucien B. Smith of Kent, Ohio, who is regarded as the inventor; addressed livestock deterrence)

choi

Correction:

frontiersman, not frontierman--the difference is an "s."