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Discrimination

Native Americans Build Plant

There was a shortage of housing in Hastings because of the number of people who were moving there for jobs. In November, 1942, the construction company brought in about 100 Chippewa and Sioux Indians to work at the construction site.

Hidden racism in Hastings caused residents to assume that different racial groups needed separate housing. Even the local newspaper printed insults about the Sioux workers. As a result, a group of Sioux lived at the plant in tents.

Reba ... Read more

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First Human Residents

Activities: Pre-1500: First Human Residents - Grade Level [8-12]

12 Thousand Years Ago

The first accepted evidence we have of human beings on the Central Plains is around 12,000 years old. Archaeologists have found spear points near Clovis, New Mexico, and elsewhere that date from that era.There is some evidence that human beings may have lived here even earlier, but that evidence is disputed. Most scientists believe the ancestors of today’s Native Americans walked across a "land bridge" from Asia to ... Read more

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Susan La Flesche Picotte

Lesson Plans: 1875-1899: Notable Nebraskan: Susan LaFlesche Picotte - Grade Level [4]

First Native American Physician 1889

Notable Nebraskan, Susan La Flesche Picotte was born on the Omaha reservation in northeastern Nebraska on June 17, 1865. She became the first Native American to earn a medical degree.

Susan’s father, Joseph La Flesche, also known as Iron Eye, was the last recognized chief of the Omaha. He had a big impact on Susan’s life. He encouraged his people, especially his children, ... Read more

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The End of the Bison

The change in the Nebraska landscape was dramatic. In just a few short years, cattle replaced the American bison as the leading, cloven-hoofed, grass-eating mammal on the Great Plains. In 1850, millions of bison ranged the grasslands and were the main natural resource for the region’s American Indians.

In 1868, the steel rails of the transcontinental railroad created a barrier that bison did not like to cross. That divided the great herd into northern and southern herds.

When the great trail drives ... Read more

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Dismal River Culture

The archaeological record in western and central Nebraska suggests that Native American people migrated to the region somewhere around 1675 CE. We think they came from further west and north. Archaeologists have found evidence of these people and named the culture after where the sites were discovered in the 1930s — along the Dismal River in the Nebraska sand hills. Dismal River Cultural sites also have been excavated in the Republican River basin. So, the Dismal River cultural complex occupied ... Read more