Farming on the Great Plains
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor are needed to see this picture.

Due to lack of water, trees, and variable climate, not many people settled in the Great Plains.
If you were in the President’s
Cabinet, what would you advise him to do to get people to move to the plains?

Homestead Act
• Federal government gives 160 acres to citizens to farm
• Paid a small registration fee ($10) and promised to live there 5 years
• Granted land to unmarried women
• Seen as a way to escape your problems in the east, the farming on the frontier was a chance at starting over.
• Most are poor farmers

What do you notice about these
Homesteader’s homes and farms?
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor are needed to see this picture.

QuickTime™ and a
decompressor are needed to see this picture.

QuickTime™ and a
decompressor are needed to see this picture.

Soddie of Luxury - two floors and glass windows!

Homesteaders - they get 160 acres for a $10 registration fee!
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor are needed to see this picture.

Who Farmed the Plains?
• Exodusters • African-Americans who moved to plains to farm
• Many were escaping the sharecropping system
• Immigrants
• Could get land from Homestead Act if they promised to become citizens
• Wrote letters home urging friends and family to come - started pockets of one nationality (Swedes in Minnesota)

What Was Life Like on the
Plains?
• Soddies • Many homes made of mud (little wood available on plains)
• Small and uncomfortable
• Chores • Done by both sexes
• Washing clothes, farming, tending to animals, housework
• Communities
• Small and very close
• One room schools
• Churches were the social centers of most towns

How Do You Farm the Plains?
• Climate
• Extreme - Hot, dry winters and frigid, blustery winters
• Sodbusters
• Steel Plow
• Dry Farming
• Cyrus
McCormick
• Nickname for plains farmers
• Invented by John Deere to break through the hard soil
• Use of crops that need little water (red wheat)
• Inventor of farm tools like a reaper and thresher
• Allowed for larger farms and fewer workers if you could afford the machines

Entertainment in the Soddies
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor are needed to see this picture.

QuickTime™ and a
decompressor are needed to see this picture.

Oklahoma Land Rush - April 22, 1889
• U.S. government decides to give the Indian
Territory (now Oklahoma) to settlers
• Native Americans promised this land when they moved here (Trail of Tears)
• Settlers could stake out whatever land they wanted after noon on April 22, 1889
• Settlers lined up on border. Cannons fired at noon, and the race to claim land was on.
• Settlers found out best land was already taken by those who cheated and snuck in early.
• Sooners - those who went in early and grabbed the best land

When the cannons sounded at noon on April 22, 1889, the race to grab the best land was on!
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor are needed to see this picture.

Irony -
Oklahoma
University’s nickname is the
Sooners.
They named their athletes after cheaters!
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor are needed to see this picture.