Homesteading the Plains: Toward a New History

Homesteading the Plains offers a bold new look at the history of homesteading, overturning what for decades has been the orthodox scholarly view. The authors begin by noting the striking disparity between the public’s perception of homesteading as a cherished part of our national narrative and most scholars’ harshly negative and dismissive treatment.Homesteading the Plains reexamines old data and draws from newly available digitized records to reassess the current interpretation’s four prin...