[Edited to add video and update broken links 16 Oct 2015]
A few months ago, I stopped at the Mission thrift shop and picked up a stack of old medical and high school text books. My intention was to use them for art projects, either altering them or using the illustrations in collage work. Because I’m still suffering from a lack of motivation, I spent some time this morning leafing through them, and came across this photo of four sisters who made a homestead claim in Nebraska Territory. The book is old and the print quality is poor, but I thought I’d scan and share it anyway.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about contemporary popular assumptions about the roles women played in the settling of this country. I suspect that women, like these four sisters, were not the dainty flowers that we are led to believe they were. Although it wasn’t common, women were legally able to file for Homestead claims as head of household. And, they did. Homesteading was back breaking work. It involved building a home by hand, planting and harvesting crops, and improving the land, in a wild and isolated environment. The women below look like they’re made of stern stuff. I hope they succeeded, but the reality is that many homesteaders ended up failing and having to forfeit their claims.
Caption: They built “a little sod shanty on a claim.” The four sisters shown below claimed land in Custer County, Nebraska under the Homestead Act of 1862. There were few trees on the Great Plains so the pioneers had to build shelters of earth or “sod.” — Image and text from Moon, Glenn W. and John H. MacGowan, Story of Our Land and People. NP: Henry Holt and Company, 1955. (LC card catalog number: 55-5854.)
Addendum: Holy crap! Ask and ye shall receive, I guess. I did a little Googling, and came up with a link to women homesteaders in Nebraska. And, guess what? The above photo is of the Chrisman sisters. It was taken on June 14, 1886 by Solomon D. Butcher.
The Chrisman sisters lived near the Goheen settlement on Lieban Creek in Custer County. Lizzie Chrisman filed the first homestead claim in 1887. Lutie Chrisman filed her claim the following year. The sisters took turns living with each other so they could fulfill the residence requirements without living alone. The other two sisters, Hattie and Jennie Ruth, had to wait until they came of age to file. All the land was gone before the youngest sister was old enough to file, but all four were well-known members of the community.
red paper boat 