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President Jefferson selected Meriwether Lewis to head an expedition that would explore the newly purchased land. In turn, Lewis asked William Clark to help him lead the first military expedition in 1804. President Jefferson had ambitious plans for the expedition including scientific observations, map-making, ethnography, diplomacy and discovery of new routes for the lucrative fur trade:
"[The] aim would be to make friends and allies of the far Western Indians while at the same time diverting valuable pelts from the rugged ... Read more
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For Lewis and Clark, as well as the explorers who followed them, one of their main tasks was to map an unknown territory. Maps would allow trappers, immigrants and settlers to find their way west. To draw the maps, Lewis and Clark had to figure out the longitude and latitude at each point, and they relied on the best technology available at the time:
• a sextant, which cost $77
• an octant
• an artificial horizon
• a surveying compass
• and a scientific ...
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There were many Native American tribes living on the Great Plains, competing for scarce resources. Of course, the various tribes came into conflict with each other.
The Lakota (or Sioux) is actually a broad group of people that includes the seven bands of the Western (or Teton) Lakota, the Dakota (Yankton and Yanktoni) and the Nakota (Santee). This group of tribes lived in the Plains for only a part of their known history. The Lakotas originally lived in the northern woodlands. ... Read more
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When the 37th Congress met on July 1, 1861, members returned to an unfinished capitol building, several unfinished laws, and news of the first battles of the Civil War. But even during those awful times, three major laws were passed that affected the history of Nebraska. Why did Congress and President Abraham Lincoln turn their attention to homesteading, the creation of land grant colleges, and the transcontinental railroad in a time of war?
Before the Civil War, Northern states had wanted ...
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During World War I, about 9,000 American Indians served in the armed services. They fought and died in defense of a nation that still denied most of them the right to participate in the political process. Congress, as a result, enacted legislation on November 6, 1919, granting citizenship to Indian veterans of World War I who were not yet citizens.
"BE IT ENACTED . . . that every American Indian who served in the Military or Naval Establishments of the United ... Read more
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Even before the United States was dragged into World War II on December 7, 1941 food was always something that could be sold on a large scale, a strategic commodity. Through the Lend-Lease program established in March of 1941, the United States was already providing critical food to Allied Nations like England, France, China, and the Soviet Union. The Russians particularly enjoyed a canned beef specialty, tushonka millions of which were created at the Omaha Cudahy Plant.
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"Of course, there was the big ordnance (bombs and ammunition) plant in Grand Island and the one in Hastings . . . . I’ll never forget that because they had a lot of people working there. . . . There was something about the powder they worked in out there that turned their skin kind of yellowish-green, and their hair a kind of yellowish-green. . . . Some of the weirdest looking colored hairdos would come in there."
—Fred Merriman, Loup ... Read more
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What is it like to be born and raised an American, but to be considered an enemy because of where your parents were born? That’s what happened to many Japanese Americans in World War II.
Racism and war hysteria motivated the U.S. government to forcibly move more than 120,000 Japanese citizens and Japanese Americans from their homes on the west coast to internment camps between 1942 and 1945. Nebraska’s central location kept its Japanese American citizens comparably safe from this process, ... Read more
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During World War II, the rationing of gasoline meant that families on the home front could not travel the way they might have wanted to. After the war, the end of rationing and higher salaries put Nebraskans on the road in record numbers. America’s love affair with the automobile was renewed, as family cars and hot rods became indispensable parts of 50s life and culture. The car culture spawned businesses, like drive-in restaurants and movie theatres.
With more people on the ... Read more
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Television, more than anything else, changed the way Nebraskans viewed the world and spent their free time. As more and more television sets were purchased, the entire country could watch the same event or entertainment show. ... Read more
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The fear of communism also affected the labor union movement in Nebraska during the 1950s. In the early 1900s, some national unions, like the IWW, Industrial Workers of the World, had adopted communists ideals in struggling to get better pay and working conditions. And so, during the Red Scare of the 50s, many assumed that unions would be full of communists who would disrupt national and local economies by encouraging strikes and violence against large companies.
In fact, Nebraska unions were ... Read more
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Did farm homes in Nebraska need fallout shelters, even if they were located far away from the supposed targets of nuclear bombs?
"Shelters make good sense," declared Mrs. Lorraine Still, Custer County home agent, "even though farm families may live hundreds of miles from military targets or large population centers." In ... Read more
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After World War II, South Omaha’s stockyards and packing houses were caught up in a postwar hunger for beef. In 1949, the ... Read more
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The homesteaders came from all over the globe, from all walks of life. They were newly arrived immigrants. They were American farmers without land of their own in the east. They were families with young kids. They were single women. They were former slaves, freed during and after the Civil War.
What united this diverse group of people was the desire to own their own ... Read more
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Prohibition of alcoholic beverages, like women’s suffrage, was a very emotional issue for most Nebraskans. Some saw an evil combination of saloons and alcohol and blamed liquor for a host of society’s ills. Drunken husbands spent their money on alcohol, money that would never benefit the family or community.
On the other hand, there were a number of large brewery and liquor businesses in Nebraska. And several ethnic groups that accepted alcohol ... Read more
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On November 11, 1918, World War I ended and America emerged victorious. But as thousands of soldiers returned from Europe ready to forget the terrible carnage they had seen, they arrived in a country with serious social and political problems that the war had simply swept under the surface.
There have always been racial divides in America. People tend to identify themselves as members of one group or another. Tensions ... Read more
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Over three million prisoners of war were captured by Allied forces during World War II. Of these, 370,000 Germans and 50,000 Italians were transferred from the battlefront to the United States at the request of our European allies, who were holding all the prisoners they could. Prisoner-of-war troops were typically referred to as P.W. or POWs.
Prisoners were brought to the U.S. to be safely confined and to supplement a ... Read more
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Nebraska entered the 21st century with impressive statistics. As of 2006, Nebraska had the top three beef cattle counties in the U.S., including the nation’s No. 1 cattle county — Cherry County, with nearly 165,000 cattle. Holt County was No. 2 (101,000) and Custer County was No. 3 (93,000). Also among the top counties in the ... Read more
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In 1714, a French explorer with a long name — Étienne de Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont — reached the mouth of the Platte. He named it the "Nebraskier River," using an Oto word that means "flat water." Bourgmont had been in North America for 27 years and was a remarkable soldier, trader, and explorer. When he reached the Missouri territory he married a Missouria Indian woman and lived with the tribe. While living with them, he began to carefully explore ... Read more
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There is a remarkable record of Villasur’s defeat in 1720 still in existence. An unknown artist recorded the battle scene on three large buffalo hides based on descriptions provided by the survivors of the defeat. The artist was expertly trained in the Spanish style of painting, but we don’t know if he or she was Spanish or Indian. Scenes were first drawn in pencil, then traced in ink, and later the intense watercolors were added on a yellow ground.
The ... Read more
