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Religious freedom is a right guaranteed to Americans by the United States Constitution. However, some groups in history have been denied this right. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints (Mormons) were one of these groups. Mormon leader Brigham Young and his followers were forced to leave Nauvoo, Illinois. Young led the first migration of Mormons up the Platte River Valley in 1847 to what is now the state of Utah. They followed the Platte River on the ... Read more
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Settlers on the Great Plains had to contend, both physically and psychologically, with what to them was a wilderness. They faced a featureless land that many described as "a sea of grass."
Europeans and Americans brought their own way of thinking about land with them, based on a system of longitude and latitude developed in the 18th century. Property lines were drawn on pieces of paper — maps — dividing one ... Read more
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Getting free land from the government was amazingly simple. The first thing you had to do was fill out an application form that stated several facts:
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Because of the Civil War, two things happened that created the American beef industry:
The Union had a huge army that needed food. To meet this demand, innovative butchers in Chicago with names like Gustavus Swift and P. D. Armour acquired large buildings, hired every butcher they could find, and bought every head of livestock ... Read more
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At the same time that homesteaders were getting free land from the government, large tracts of land were granted to railroads by both the states and the federal government. The goal was to encourage the railroads to build their tracks where few people lived, and to help settle the country. The federal government was especially interested in creating a transportation system that would link the eastern and western coasts. Not only would a transcontinental railroad help populate the Great Plains, ... Read more
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The Ponca were very unhappy with the land and living conditions on the Quapaw Reservation. Much of the land was not suitable for cultivation; sanitation conditions were deplorable. Government agents refused to provide adequate farming equipment, and many of the people died from malaria. Since leaving Nebraska, nearly one-third of the tribe had died. In January 1879, Standing Bear’s son, Bear Shield, died. The distraught chief decided to return to his tribal lands in Nebraska to bury his son. It ... Read more
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In the later years of the nineteenth century, the number of homesteaders who mostly were farmers (also called "grangers") grew. This put pressure on the ranchers who were using large areas of public lands to graze their cattle. Not only were homesteaders taking the land, but they were taking the land with access to water, which the ranchers’ cattle needed.
This conflict between homesteaders and cattlemen was rooted deeply in two very different traditions of land use. The ranchers were mostly ... Read more
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The work of the Seneca Falls Convention on women’s rights did not go unnoticed in Nebraska. From the earliest days of statehood, there was a progressive contingent that argued women should be allowed to vote since the laws representatives wrote applied to women as well as men.
So when delegates gathered in 1871 to write a new constitution for the state, votes for women was one of five proposals submitted separately to the voters. There was at least enough support to ... Read more
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When the Central District first delivered water through the Tri-County Project, most farmers had no experience with irrigation. Irrigation methods, such as simply flooding a field with water or the use of canvas dams and lath boxes in small ditches next to the fields, were crude and inefficient. But irrigation — no matter how labor intensive or imperfect — often made the difference between harvesting a good crop or a poor crop (or none at all).
Making use of a temporary ... Read more
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The Great Depression and the coincidental drought ruined farmers across America. But in Nebraska, many ranchers seemed to get along just fine. Why?
In fact, during the Depression, Christopher J. Abbot, Sr., a rancher and banker in Hyannis made so much money that he was considered by many to be the richest man in Nebraska. He owned seven ranches and was president of nine banks. In February of 1944, the Sunday Lincoln Journal and Star ran an ... Read more
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In the early days of World War II there was eagerness and dedication to the war effort. Thousands of young men answered the call to join the military. But the services found that sometimes their recruits needed a lot of training. The young recruits were needed badly so the military would not refuse to accept them. If the new recruits could not read well enough to understand training materials and instructions, other servicemen had to teach them. But if those ... Read more
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The idea of women in uniform was new during World War II. Approximately 1,800 Nebraska women joined the special military organizations created for women.
A multitude of female military units were created, each with acronyms that were remarkably similar:
The American Women’s Voluntary Services (AWVS) was also ... Read more
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The personal beliefs of some healthy men kept them from using weapons. Some men objected on religious and moral grounds to participating in violence. Some belonged to churches that have historically objected to war. In World War I, these conscientious objectors (COs) were jailed.
But as ... Read more
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During World War II, there were shortages of many items across the U.S. because certain supplies were needed for the war. Civilians (people who were not in the military) had to do without some products.
Nebraska’s greatest contribution to winning the war was in food production. Even Nebraska families who did not live in rural areas got involved with the nationwide "Victory Garden" program. Nebraskans were encouraged to plant gardens to help ease the food shortage. Almost half of all vegetables ... Read more
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Recent historical studies indicate that the scrap drives were more important as morale boosters than in providing essential products for the war effort. But, the general public did get caught up in the patriotic enthusiasm — some saved tin foil from gum wrappers, making a tin foil ball until it reached a size large enough to be accepted by the collection site. Scrap paper was more easily collected and was used to package armaments. Grease was saved and recycled to ... Read more
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By the summer of 1943, when German prisoners of war began to arrive in Nebraska, the agricultural work force in the state was severely depleted. Farmers needed workers. ... Read more
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In October, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first satellite — named Sputnik — to be hurled into orbit around the Earth. Sputnik was actually no larger than a beach ball and sent meaningless signals back to earth, but it had a profound effect on the thinking of citizens and governments around the globe. It was a shiny steel sphere about 23 inches across with four antennas trailing behind it. Russian engineers wanted to make sure that people around the ... Read more
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Producing beef takes longer than you might think. The production cycle, from the time a cattle breeder chooses his or her breeding stock to the delivery of beef to the consumer, spans nearly two years. Breeders, ranchers, feeders, processors, and distributors work within this cycle to keep grocery stores and restaurants well supplied to meet the needs of their customers.
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Scientist believe the earth was formed somewhere around 4.5 billion years ago. That’s a long time ago. Suppose you created one long piece of paper, stretched it out over 10 miles, and started recording what we now know about the earth. To begin with the easy tasks, you would record what we know from a study of recent historical records. Then, as you worked ... Read more
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"Which came first — the chicken or the egg?"
This is an age-old question that may not have a good answer. Neither may this question:
"Which came first — farming or a major increase in the Native American population during the Plains Woodland period?"
On the one hand, farming gave the native peoples a better way to feed themselves. On the other hand, more people were needed to maintain the ... Read more
