Alexandra Bergson, the daughter of Swedish immigrants, takes over the family farm after her father's death and falls under the spell of the rich, forbidding Nebraska prairie. Strong and resolute, she turns the wild landscape into orderly fields.

Born of Willa Cather's early ties to the prairie and the immigrants who tamed it, O Pioneers! established new territory in American literature. In her transformation of ordinary Americans into authentic literary characters, Cather discovered her own voice.