The Legacy of Homesteading

Guest: Rick Edwards, PhD, Director, Center for Great Plains Studies, Emeritus Senior Vice Chancellor, Professor of Economics, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Abraham Lincoln, who of course issued the Emancipation Proclamation, also signed into law The Homestead Act of 1820, which reshaped the American West and was – according to the National Park Service, one of the “most visionary . . . pieces of legislation in American history.” Today, 20 percent of us in America have an ancestor who was a homesteader. They story of hardscrabble life on the frontier is deeply ingrained in our national identity, with special thanks to Laura Ingalls Wilder and Willa Cather.  But did you know that historians typically see the Homestead Act in less flattering light? They say it was ineffective, filled with fraud and central to the displacement of American Indians. Which vision is more accurate?