The Great Plains:  Problems and Prospects (mostly Chapter 11)
See: National Geographic Magazine - May 2004

 

Region defined:
      west side - to foothills of the Rockies
       east side   (1)  walter Prescott Webb (1931) - 98th meridian, an "institutional fault"
                       (2)  FDR's Great Plains Committee (1935) - 100th meridian; also Wallace Stegner's Beyond the
                                 100th Meridian; John Wesley Powell and the Opening of the West
                       (3)  2,000 foot contour
                       (4)  20-inch rainfall isohyet - semiarid region                            

 

Intro (Chapter Postscript):  “…lack of understanding of the differences between the humid environments of the eastern United States and the sub humid lands of the Great Plains.  The problem lay not only in unadapted methods of farming but also, and more fundamentally, in attitudes of mind that had been ingrained through generations of pioneering in the country east of the Plains.” 

 

Assumptions:

  1. Nature must be conquered
  2. Resources are limitless
  3. Land ownership carries privileges but not obligations

 

These assumptions had powered frontier expansion, but on the Plains they came up against environmental limits and resulted in ecological catastrophe!

 

Two major problems that faced settlers:

          Climate Variability

          Distance

 

Physical Geography

          Climate – cycles of advance and retreat??!!
                     Precipitation (Maps)
                     Variability    (Climate History)

John Wesley Powell – Beyond the 100th Meridian
Ranching West of the 100th Meridian

Distance – overcome through time with improvements in transportation

          Railroad History and Maps – Library of Congress

          History of the U.S. Highway System

          The Named Highways

 

Major Themes:

          Indian Lands and Indian Removal

          Manifest Destiny Web Page

          Public Land Disposal – Homesteading

                   Homestead Act of 1862

                   BLM - History

                   1976 – BLM Organic Act

                   Map – BLM Lands

                   Archives of the West, 1862-1878 (PBS Documentary)

          Advance of the Frontier and the Turner Thesis
                             Turner Thesis (PBS - short version)
                       Turner Thesis (the whole enchilada)

 

            History of the Public Domain – Lecture Outline