“Free Land? 1862 and the Shaping of Modern America”
Beatrice, Nebraska, May 20-25, 2012
original Chautauqua in New York.
In 1906, 7,000 attended the Chautauqua in Beatrice
due to the railroad’s special excursion rates from Missouri
and Kansas. The grounds now had electric lights and iron
gates to prevent reckless driving. By that time, 19 private
cottages had been built.
Boating and canoeing was always an important part of
the Chautauqua experience. In 1890 the Queen of the Blue
was launched. It was a 70-by-15-foot, two-deck steamboat
that could carry 150 passengers comfortably. It traveled from
the Chautauqua grounds downstream to the paper mill dam
at Glen Falls and back for $1 fare.
By 1910, automobiles and the
movies made rail travel to Chautauquas
seem old-fashioned. Attempts were
made to revive the Beatrice Chautauqua
through traveling tent shows in 1912
and 1914, but the era of the great
Chautauqua assemblies had passed.
Fortunately, the City of Beatrice was
able to acquire the Interstate Chautauqua
grounds and recreate it as a beautiful
park for the community. In 1919 Dr.
Harry Hepperlin and Don McColery
purchased the grounds west of the park
to enable its expansion to Highway 77.
The Beatrice Interstate Chautauqua lasted more than
20 years. It offered information and entertainment to people
of all ages. The most distinctive contribution of the Beatrice
Interstate Chautauqua, as well as other Chautauquas, was the
idea of using summer vacations as entertaining educational
opportunities.
By Laureen Riedesel
The first Chautauqua Assembly in Beatrice was held
for two weeks in the summer of 1889. It was the second
Chautauqua campground established in Nebraska. (The
first was at Crete.) Officially incorporated as the Beatrice
Interstate Chautauqua, it was planned to attract visitors
from Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and even Colorado! Special
railroad excursion rates encouraged out-of-state travelers
to come to Beatrice. The local streetcar line was extended
south to take passengers directly from the railroad depots to
the Chautauqua grounds.
The Beatrice Interstate Chautauqua was founded by
five investors who owned 90 acres south of the Big Blue
River: J. S. Grable, J. L. Tait, S. S. Green, W. D. Nicholls, and
A. J. Millikin. In 1888 they approached the Beatrice Board
of Trade—a forerunner of the Chamber of Commerce—
with a proposal that if they invested $1,500 to advertise the
Chautauqua as a Beatrice enterprise, they would incorporate
with capital stock of $50,000. This proposal was accepted;
the first Chautauqua in Beatrice was held a year later.
The elaborate four-gated main entrance was located
about two blocks east of Sixth Street. The Tabernacle, the
only remaining building, was one of the first to be constructed.
At 100 feet by 40 feet, it was built to seat 2,000. The first
summer 2,500 filled the Tabernacle to hear the president of
Nebraska Wesleyan University speak. The structure was open
on all sides to allow maximum ventilation, with a complex
system of support posts, beams and braces to provide virtually
unobstructed viewing for the audience. It was designed with
no permanent seating, allowing the most flexible use of the
building. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places
in 1979, the Chautauqua Tabernacle was recognized as “an
engineering and architectural achievement of merit.”
Other buildings constructed on the Chautauqua
grounds were the Gatekeeper’s Lodge, the Stewart boarding
and dining hall (which seated 300), a grocery and meat
market, refreshment pavilion, photographer’s studio, post
office, Tennyson Hall, Whittier Hall, Emma Willard Hall,
a bandstand and the Presbyterian Church’s building. In
addition, Cottage Row was constructed with several small,
privately-owned Victorian houses.
Tents were available for rent or purchase north of the
Tabernacle in the area still used as a campground today. Each
of the tents was numbered for ease of mail delivery during
the weeks of Chautauqua events. Large tree houses were
The Beatrice Interstate Chautauqua grounds are
shown above circa 1900, with the Tabernacle at upper
right. The four-gated main entrance was two blocks
east of Sixth Street. Photos courtesy of Gage County
Historical Society.
built along the creek, but were removed because they were
damaging the trees.
By 1905 the attendance at the Beatrice Interstate
Chautauqua had reached 8,000, with one session reaching
10,000. Speakers that year included former President Hayes,
William Jennings Bryan, Frances Willard, the temperance
advocate, and Bishop John Heyl Vincent, founder of the
Index
The Legacy of 1862 Legislation by Timothy Mahoney................Page 2
Mark Twain: The World’s Friend by Warren Brown.....................Page 4
Grenville Dodge: Railroad Builder by Patrick E. McGinnis.............Page 6
Willa Cather: Reluctant Nebraskan by Betty Jean Steinshouer.....Page 8
Chief Standing Bear: “I Am a Man” by Joe Starita.........................................Page 10
Nebraska Humanities Council......................................................................Page 12
Laura Ingalls Wilder: Chronicler of the Plains by Karen Vuranch.............Page 14
George Washington Carver: Innovative Educator by Paxton Williams....Page 16
Adult Workshops and Solomon D. Butcher feature................................Page 18
Youth Workshops and Activities........................................................Page 20
Poem on the 150th Anniversary of the Homestead Act...............Page 21
Schedule of events........................................................................Page 22
History of Chautauqua in Nebraska.................................................Page 23
Letter from the mayor and sponsor recognition.............................Page 24
Legacy of 1862 Legislation Continues
By Timothy Mahoney
When Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party
came to power on the eve of a war over the institution of
slavery and the fate of the republic, they envisioned the Great
Plains, once called the “Great American Desert,” as the next
farming and settlement frontier and a bulwark against slavery
that would assure the country would remain a republic of free
men, free labor, and open markets. The transformation in
Republican ideas in the early 1860s and its impact on federal
legislation continue to shape the region 150 years later.
U.S. Sen. Stephen Douglas of Illinois was one of
several Western political figures in the 1850s who developed
a new vision of the vast lands that lay between settled areas
and California. Douglas imagined the organization of a great
territory of Kansas and Nebraska that would be opened to
settlement and turn the dream of a transcontinental railroad
into reality. Amid the firestorm of violence surrounding
popular sovereignty in “Bleeding Kansas” and the new
Republican Party’s anger over the Kansas-Nebraska Act of
1854, Douglas’ full vision for the region was derailed.
As the slavery debate deepened, Republicans began
to formulate a new vision for the Great Plains. As historian
Eric Foner notes, the Dred Scott decision essentially endorsed
the extension of slavery into the territories, compelling
Republicans to reposition the issue of slavery in their ideology
of America. Lincoln and others, drawing on their prior Whig
beliefs, argued for the limitation of slavery not only on moral
grounds but because it threatened their free-labor, free-soil
ideal by lowering the cost of labor and decreasing chances
for the common man to buy land and achieve social mobility.
The Great Plains emerged as the region to demonstrate the
power, vision and consequences of the Republican agenda:
government being central to economic development and free
men on free soil being vital to the vision of the West.
The Sylvester Rawling sod house, north of Sargent in
Custer County, 1886. Photo by Solomon D. Butcher
An early engraving depicts the Union Pacific Railroad and connections along the Great Platte Valley. It refers to
the route from San Francisco to New York as “The Highway of Nations” and includes a claim by Omaha land
agent O.F. Davis that “1,000,000 acres of choice farming land are now offered for sale between Omaha and Fort
Kearney.” Courtesy of Union Pacific Railroad Museum Collection.
As the Civil War progressed, Lincoln and the
Republicans realized that the war was about more than a
fundamental constitutional disagreement; they were at war
with a way of life and needed to broaden the meaning of
the war by turning their sights on slavery. In early 1862,
concern over the loyalty of the border states led Lincoln to
resist confronting the issue of slavery directly. However, the
Republican-controlled Congress acted to prohibit slavery
in the areas the Dred Scott decision outlined, Washington,
D.C., and the territories, ensuring that they would become
places for free labor and free soil. They then secured the new
Republican vision for the West and America by passing the
Homestead Act, the Morrill Act, and the Pacific Railway Act.
With the passage of the Homestead Act, a cry of “Free
Land!” was issued and any head of household or person
at least 21 years old (a U.S. citizen or willing and able to
become one) could claim and own 160 acres if they “proved
up” within five years. Republicans felt confident that making
public lands available for small farmers would increase
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Illustration of University Hall from stereoscopic card.
Courtesy of Buildings and Grounds Photograph
Series, Archives and Special Collections, University of
Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries.
Pawnee at Loup Forks Village, circa 1870. Courtesy of
Nebraska State Historical Society.
agricultural output and national wealth, generate funds for a
government at war, and assure the legacy of free labor and
social mobility as a cornerstone of American society.
Soon after the passage of the Homestead Act, U.S.
Rep. Justin Morrill of Vermont pushed for an act granting to
the states large tracts of land in the West that could be sold to
establish state universities dedicated to agricultural training
and the mechanical arts. The Morrill Act was founded on the
idea that educated farmers would use the new land effectively,
increasing individual and national wealth while reducing
migration into the cities.
Supporting construction of railroads in war time sent
a message that the Union would prevail and that developing
the nation was a priority. Previous attempts had failed, but
the outbreak of war and lack of Democratic opposition
revived the transcontinental railroad. The Pacific Railway Act
allowed the federal government to charter a public company,
authorize its activities, and require the company to perform
effectively or lose its operating rights and grants of public
land promised upon each section’s completion. After the Civil
War, the Union Pacific built west from Omaha through the
Platte River Valley and Rocky Mountains, and the Central
Pacific began near Sacramento and built east through the
Sierra Nevada. They met at Promontory, Utah in May 1869.
Westward expansion of settlement and economic
development was an unmitigated disaster for Native
Americans in the region. Instead of facing trappers or traders
ahead of the line of settlement, they now confronted both
settlers and corporations backed by the federal government
and a more aggressive U.S. military, who engaged in frequent
and brutal Indian wars in the 1860s and 1870s; together
they cleared the land by pushing Native Americans onto
reservations, often taking land and violating treaties.
As historian Heather Cox-Richardson notes,
Republicans underestimated the cost and effort required
to carry out their vision, yet the promise of the three acts
enhanced opportunities for social and economic progress
for millions of Americans. Those who gambled on the
Homestead Act, purchased inexpensive land offered for sale
by the railroad or secured economic opportunities supporting
this migration to the Great Plains came from all sectors
of the population—Easterners looking for opportunities,
immigrants, Civil War veterans, women, and former slaves.
Each was governed by his own work ethic and the conditions
and situations that developed in a new land.
These three pieces of domestic legislation passed by
the wartime Congress sketched the blueprint for the future
of both the Great Plains and the United States. Republicans
imagined the Great Plains would be turned into a prosperous
region through the efforts of the common man. Educated at
state institutions with access to markets through railroads,
farmers would create a bounty that would increase their
wealth, provide for social mobility, and contribute to
prosperity for all. While not all of the elements of their
vision developed as planned, it is undeniable that through the
legislation of 1862, the Great Plains was irrevocably changed
by the generations of people who have called it home.
Timothy R. Mahoney, professor of history at the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln and former director and project
coordinator for the Plains Humanities Alliance, consulted
with the Nebraska Humanities Council in developing the
“Free Land” Chautauqua. His expertise is in the field of
American history, especially 19th century social and urban
history, and he is a regional historian of the Midwest.
Works cited:
1. Cox-Richardson, Heather. “The Greatest Nation of the
Earth: Republican Economic Policies During the Civil War.”
2. Foner, Eric. “The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and
American Slavery.”
3. Foner, Eric. “Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The
Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War.”

Audiences will gather under the big tent for “Free Land? 1862 and the Shaping of Modern America.”
What to expect under the tent
Chautauqua audiences will gather under the big
tent to enjoy entertainment and first-person interpretations of important characters of the late 1800s and early
1900s. There are four parts to a Chautauqua evening:
1. Entertainment by a musical or theatrical
performer.
2. Presentations from historical figures (the
moderator and the evening’s special guest).
3. Questions from the audience directed at the
historical figures, who will answer in character as the
figures would have responded.
4. Questions from the audience directed at the
scholars, who will answer as their research suggests
and correct self-serving answers by historical figures
or shed light on a subject the historical figure would
not have known.
Chautauqua begins Sunday night with scholars
taking part in Homestead National Monument’s 150th
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anniversary national signature event.
Humorist Mark Twain (Warren Brown) opens
the Monday evening presentation and acts as moderator for each evening’s performance. Monday’s main
presentation is by Gen. Grenville Dodge (Patrick
McGinnis). Tuesday features George Washington
Carver (Paxton Williams), Wednesday features Chief
Standing Bear (Taylor Keen), and Thursday features
Laura Ingalls Wilder (Karen Vuranch).
Closing the “Free Land? 1862 and the Shaping
of Modern America” Chautauqua week on Friday
evening, Youth Chautauqua participants will perform,
followed by Mark Twain and Willa Cather (Betty Jean
Steinshouer).
For further details about Chautauqua and a reading list focused on the historical figures and topics, visit
www.nebraskachautauqua.org.
Mark Twain: The World’s Friend
By Warren Brown
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who later became
known as Mark Twain, was born in 1835 in Florida,
Mo. Clemens’ parents were early settlers of Missouri.
From the Lewis and Clark exploration of 1804 until
the completion of the transcontinental railroad in the
1860s, Missouri was the gateway to America’s westward
expansion. Much of who Mark Twain became can be
attributed to the history and development of Missouri
as part of the country’s western frontier.
When Clemens was age 4, his parents left his
birthplace and moved to the Mississippi River town of
Hannibal. This move became the catalyst of Clemens’
exposure to civilization, commerce, American expansion,
riverboats, exploration, and the place where he would
learn about human character. After his father’s death,
Clemens quit school to work at a local newspaper and
printing shop. He characterized this event as the moment
his real education began because printers owned books
and he was able to expand his knowledge while gathering
news, setting type, composing and editing news, and
learning a trade that would finance his travels.
As a young man, Clemens began a steamboat
piloting apprenticeship program and became a steamboat
pilot shortly before the Civil War started and river
commerce ended. Clemens’ brother Orion was appointed
by President Abraham Lincoln to be secretary of the
Nevada Territory. Sam and Orion left Hannibal in July
1861, and Clemens later said that Lincoln had affected
his life more than any other man, despite having never
met him. He later wrote about his travels across the Great
Plains to the Nevada Territory in his book, “Roughing
It,” published in 1872.
Mark Twain relaxes with his pipe.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens spent lavishly on his house at 351 Farmington Ave. in Hartford, Conn. Construction
began in August 1873‚ and the family moved in on Sept. 19‚ 1874. Of the finished product‚ Clemens said: “It is a
home— and the word never had so much meaning before.” Historical photos courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Much of his writing stemmed from his travel
experiences. After his time in the Nevada Territory, he
served as a correspondent from the Sandwich Islands
and his travelogues began to be printed in papers across
America, giving Clemens the reputation needed to launch
his lecture and literary career. From June to October
1867, he covered the Quaker City celebrity cruise to
the Mediterranean Sea. This trip led to writing his
most popular travel book, “Innocents Abroad,” and the
meeting of his future brother-in-law, Charles Langdon.
On Feb. 2, 1870, Clemens married Olivia Langdon,
known as Livy. She was well educated, his closest
companion and best editor, and she gave Sam purpose.
Revenues Clemens received from book sales were
spent on an expensive home in Connecticut, servants,
travel, and some bad investments. Clemens’ publishing
company was a primary source of funds for the invention
of the Paige compositor, a type-setting machine, but due
to complexity and cost, the compositor failed. On April
18, 1894, a bank called in its loans and the publishing
Page 4
firm was forced to file for bankruptcy. This immediately
led Clemens to conduct a worldwide lecture tour to allow
for full repayment to his creditors and investors.
Perhaps Mark Twain’s most important legacy
is “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” The book
is world renowned as one of the finest examples of
American literature. Originally banned because of the
use of the vernacular, the book includes themes against
slavery, questions social mores, demonstrates social
injustices, questions conscience versus conformity, and
flows with romance and the beauty of friendship, loyalty,
mentoring, and the majesty of the Mississippi River.
One of the first Republicans in America, Clemens
embraced the ideal of “Free Soil, Free Labor” that is
at the heart of the 1862 homestead legislation. To him
“free” was synonymous with hard work, sweat equity,
and overcoming obstacles, including keeping our
freedom. He was dazzled by the rapid transformation
and birth and death of towns due to the progress of
transportation, especially with the building of railroads
of “The Gilded Age,” the novel he wrote with Charles
Dudley Warner that satirized the greed and corruption
that defined the post-Civil War era and gave the era its
name. Like others in his time, Clemens was caught in
a paradox when it came to his views on railroads. He
consistently held a critical attitude toward the growing
railroads and how they undermined the ideal of free
labor and free land, but he still saw railroads as having
great potential for the development of the United States
and thus invested in them. For example, he wrote to
expose the Credit Mobilier scandal, and yet had $81,000
of Union Pacific stock at the time of his death in 1910.
Mark Twain was a national voice of the time, and
audiences around the world knew “The World’s Oldest
Friend” would always engage their minds, sharing wit
and wisdom in a friendly way. Audiences also were
confident that he would follow his own directive to
“always tell the truth to people who deserve it.” Since
his death, Twain has remained a fixture of American life
through his noted works, and interest in him was peaked
again in 2010 with the publication of the first volume
of his official autobiography. Its release, according to
Twain’s request, came 100 years after his death.
World-renowned, “The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn” is Mark Twain’s most important legacy.
and the rapid changing of America. He had particular
interest in the railroad since it was the transportation
improvement following the steamboat, where he got his
start. Clemens covered railroad news in the West and
wove many clever railroad stories into short sketches.
He incorporated railroad development into the theme
Warren Brown portrays Mark Twain.

Twain looks out a window of his home, circa 1903.
Warren Brown
Drawing on more than 14 years of experience
portraying Mark Twain, Warren Brown brings this
great American hero to life. Twain’s down-to-earth
wit and wisdom are the perfect antidotes to our
fast-paced world.
Brown has performed his award-winning
Chautauqua-style program, “Catch the Twain,”
worldwide since 1996. The program promotes an
appreciation for humanity in a way that is amusing,
inspirational, and historically accurate. It’s an
uproariously authentic characterization of Mark
Twain’s stories and lecture series.
Brown says he struggled through school. “The
hardest eight years of my life… was first grade.”
Nevertheless, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree
in finance from the University of Illinois and has
more than 35 years of work experience, including
lemonade sales, caddying, laborer, clerk, corporate
manager, and author. He has 10 years experience as
a small business owner, 40 years in life education,
and 30 glorious years of family management.
He is a member of Advocates United with
20 years service as a literacy tutor and volunteer
for various disability groups. Brown has created
comedy show fundraisers and creative writing
Page 5
seminars for students.
His personal interests
include genealogy,
comedy, art, science,
photography, words,
maps, and space. He
was awarded the Studs
Terkel Humanities
Service Award in 2000.
“Catch the Twain”
is endorsed by the
National Endowment
Warren Brown
for the Humanities,
the Illinois Humanities
Council, and the Illinois Arts Council. Brown
has performed many shows for The Big Read, an
initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts
designed to revitalize the role of literary reading in
American culture, bringing communities together
to read, discuss, and celebrate books and writers
from American and world literature.
In his portrayal of Twain, Brown authentically
replicates the courageous spirit of America’s
greatest humorist. As Twain said, “Against the
assault of laughter, nothing can stand.”
Grenville Dodge: Railroad Builder
By Patrick E. McGinnis
Born in Massachusetts in 1831, Grenville Dodge
became a civil engineer, and in 1854 he moved to Council
Bluffs, Iowa, where he entered the overland freighting
business and began to promote the construction of a
transcontinental railroad with its eastern terminus in his
adopted town. In 1859 he met Republican presidential
aspirant Abraham Lincoln there and advised him that the
railroad to California should begin in Council Bluffs. In
1864, as president, Lincoln made the selection official.
During the Civil War, Dodge became a reliable ally
of Ulysses S. Grant, who depended heavily on Dodge’s
engineering skills in building, repairing and protecting
Union railroad supply lines. Dodge also joined William
Tecumseh Sherman’s Army of the Tennessee, earning
him Sherman’s lifelong admiration. In early 1865 Dodge
was commissioned a major-general, appointed by Grant
to command the department of Missouri in addition to the
department of Kansas,
Nebraska and Utah. This
placed Dodge in a strong
position to advance
the construction of the
railroad to California,
authorized by the Pacific
Railway Act of 1862.
In time, it would also
greatly enhance Dodge’s
personal finances.
In 1865 Dodge
commanded the U.S.
A r m y ’s c a m p a i g n
against the plains Indians
who threatened the railroad. The campaign was not
initially successful, largely because Dodge’s subordinate
commanders committed numerous atrocities that only
served to provoke devastating acts of revenge from
the Indians. It was during this campaign that Dodge
discovered what he believed to be the best railroad route
through the Black Hills of southeastern Wyoming. Dodge
would rename the area for his much-admired former
commander, and it became known as Sherman Hill.
The route would prove far superior to the established
Oregon Trail through the more northerly South Pass,
saving nearly 200 miles of construction and avoiding
heavier snows and greater exposure to Indian attacks.
During the war Dodge had also established a
relationship with Thomas C. Durant, a railroad promoter
to whom Dodge gave classified information that allowed
The lithograph above depicts a Union Pacific train
departing Omaha for North Platte. Gen. Grenville
Dodge is pictured right and left. Lithograph courtesy of
the Union Pacific Collection, Nebraska State Historical
Society. Photos of Grenville Dodge courtesy of the
Library of Congress.
Durant to speculate heavily in contraband cotton. Durant
repeatedly urged Dodge to resign his army commission
and become chief engineer for the Union Pacific,
promising Dodge complete control of the massive
undertaking. Not until 1866 did Dodge accept Durant’s
offer, although he remained wary of “Doctor” Durant,
whose unsavory reputation Dodge knew well.
Dodge went immediately to work, examining
terrain and planning the Union Pacific route to the west,
where, according to the Pacific Railway Act, it would
meet the Central Pacific line then building eastward over
the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. As his survey
parties pushed westward, Dodge planted division points
and divided the land into lots. When the graders—and
later the work crews—followed, many of these locations
quickly became towns. Some faded quickly, but others,
such as the beginning of the Union Pacific route in
Omaha and other Nebraska cities of Fremont, Columbus,
Grand Island, Lexington, and North Platte, along with
Cheyenne, Wyoming, became permanent.
Page 6
the trip to California from Omaha would be
While Dodge devoted himself to the work at
accomplished in as little as four days. As intended
hand, Durant pursued schemes and manipulations
by Lincoln and other leaders of the Republican
designed to enrich himself rather than to speed the
Party, it greatly accelerated the settlement of
construction of the Union Pacific. Earlier, Durant
the area, particularly those parts of Nebraska,
and several associates had formed the Credit
Wyoming and Utah through which it passed. A
Mobilier, a company chartered in Pennsylvania
branch line to Denver, Colorado, also contributed
and modeled on one of the same name in France.
importantly to the growth of Eastern and Central
Its purpose was to build the Union Pacific, and it
Colorado.
had an extremely valuable provision in its charter
Certainly Dodge’s accomplishments helped
specifying that the liability of the managers would
to speed the destruction of traditional Native
extend only to their security holdings in the firm,
American cultures. Despite the Indians’ persistent
and not to the extent of their personal estates.
attacks on the railroad workers and the settlers
For the most part, the directors of the Credit
who both preceded and followed the railroad,
Mobilier were also directors of the Union Pacific, The directors of the Union Pacific Railroad at the 100th Meridian,
their traditional nomadic life collapsed, and the
who, in effect, hired themselves to build the line near present-day Cozad. Photo by John Carbutt. Courtesy of the
Library
of
Congress.
decimation of the buffalo herds, an occurrence
and determined the disposition of the railroad’s
directly related to the coming of the railroad,
income, most importantly, the government bonds
Bluffs, Dodge worked in the planning and construction
destroyed the basis of existence for the Sioux,
which subsidized the line’s construction. Not
surprisingly, Durant and his cronies raked in handsome of numerous other Americans railroads and served as the Cheyenne and other tribes. Dodge recognized these
retainer fees and dividends, leaving the Union Pacific a consultant for the Trans-Siberian railway. A wealthy facts, but made no apologies for them. He shared the
so decrepit that it would have to be rebuilt, beginning man, he continued to live in Council Bluffs until his death view of the vast majority of whites who came to settle
practically from the moment of its completion. The in 1916 at the age of 84. He left behind the Dodge Trust, the Great Plains that the defeat of the plains tribes was
Credit Mobilier ranks as one of the most notorious which continues today to provide valuable services to both inevitable and a positive advance for civilization.
the city of Council Bluffs.
Dodge was recognized during his own lifetime as a major
financial scandals of the 19th century.
Dodge was a central figure in the development influence in the development of the Great Plains region.
Dodge came to loath Durant, and shortly after the
famous meeting of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific of the Great Plains following the Civil War. Before Since the 1860s, numerous municipalities, counties, or
at Promontory, Utah, in May of 1869, Dodge resigned the completion of the transcontinental railroad, travel structures came to be named for him.
as chief engineer. After a short retirement in Council across the Great Plains was slow, dangerous, and very
expensive. With the coming of the railroad, however,

Patrick E. McGinnis
A native of Arkansas, Patrick McGinnis
teaches at the University of Central Oklahoma in
Edmond, where he is emeritus professor of history.
He has a bachelor of arts degree in history
from the University of Arkansas at Monticello
and holds master of arts and doctor of philosophy
degrees from Tulane University in Louisiana. His
special areas of interest include U.S. political history, the history of the American West, and the
history of technology.
He has acted in several community theater
presentations in the Oklahoma City area, including
roles in “The Fantastiks,” “Annie Get Your Gun,”
“Barefoot in the Park,” and “Harvey.” He has also
appeared as Ebenezer Scrooge in Leslie Bricusse’s
“Scrooge the Musical” and as President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt in a recent production of “Annie.” He has worked in commercial radio as an
Patrick E. McGinnis portrays Grenville Dodge.
Page 7
announcer.
In 2005 and
2006, he toured
with the Great
Plains Chautauqua
as the explorer William Clark. He portrayed FDR from
2008-2010 in the
Patrick E. McGinnis
Kansas-Nebraska
Chautauqua, as
well as in the 2011’s Nebraska Chautauqua. He
also has been a lecturer for the Oklahoma Humanities Council.
McGinnis lives with his wife, Rita, in Edmond. They have two daughters and three granddaughters.
Willa Cather: Reluctant Nebraskan
By Betty Jean Steinshouer
Willa Cather’s life, along with the lives of millions
of Americans, was transformed by three pieces of
legislation passed in 1862, more than a decade before she
was born. The Homestead Act was the impetus for her
Uncle George and Aunt Franc’s move to Webster County,
Neb., in 1873, the year of Cather’s birth in Back Creek
Valley, Va. Her paternal grandparents settled in Nebraska
in 1876, and Cather’s father eventually was convinced to
move his family in 1883. By then he and his wife, Virginia,
had four children.
Thanks to the Pacific Railway Act of 1862 and 20
years of railroad building, it was possible for the family
to go 11 miles by wagon, board a train in Winchester,
Va., and ride 1,250 miles to the depot in Red Cloud, Neb.
A Studebaker horse-drawn wagon took them the final
12 to 15 miles to the Catherton settlement. The original
boundaries of the homestead can be traced from the New
Virginia cemetery and New Virginia Methodist Church
(separate locations) to the Catherton cemetery and the
tall house with the lighted windows that “clutched at the
heart,” which Cather wrote about in “One of Ours.”
According to Cather biographer James Woodress,
Cather’s aunt and uncle had originally hoped to homestead
in Iowa, but the free land was gone when they got there in
September 1873. Following the line of the railroad west,
they disembarked at Red Cloud, where the Burlington and
Missouri Pacific railroads met. George Cather bought 360
acres from the Burlington and staked a claim on another
section, where his family began living in 1874. He had
proved his original homestead claim so successfully that
Catherton had its own post office.
Willa Cather’s childhood home in Red Cloud. Courtesy
of Bernice Slote Papers Collection, Archives and
Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Libraries.
later served as vistas in her books.
Willa Cather was proud of the fact that she never
drove a car or flew in an airplane. All of her visits home,
after she moved east to Pittsburgh and then to New York
City, as well as her travels on the East Coast where she
boarded ocean liners and ferries en route to Europe and
her beloved island of Grand Manan in the Bay of Fundy,
were made by rail.
Although Cather’s family had not been suited to the
rugged life of homesteading, they spent enough time in
the Catherton settlement for young Willa to become a selfappointed rider, delivering mail to their Bohemian, Czech,
and Danish neighbors. In this line of work, she was unlike
many of the daughters of her neighbors who often worked
in town as domestic laborers to help their families. From
those early visits she learned of a German settler named
Hilda Kron, the prototype for the successful homesteader
Alexandra Bergson in “O Pioneers!” Not all immigrant
homesteaders—like those from other backgrounds—were
Willa Cather works in the George Siebel home library
on the south side of Pittsburgh circa 1900. Photo
courtesy of the Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial
Collection, Nebraska State Historical Society.
The oldest of Charles and Virginia Cather’s four
children was not pleased with her family’s westward
migration. She would later write in “My Ántonia” that
Nebraska in those days was “nothing but land; not a
country at all, but the material out of which countries
are made.” She refused to eat until she could return to
Virginia and get fresh mutton (later extolling the beauty of
collecting recipes from the Indians, instead of conquering
their villages) and called her adopted state “bare as the
back of your hand” and “flat as a piece of sheet iron.”
She said that the only thing noticeable about the
state was that it was “all day long, Nebraska.” But she
had promised her father that she would “show grit” in
the new country. Her younger brothers and sister looked
to her to be brave. The four Cather children native to
Virginia were eventually joined by three more siblings
in their new homeland.
Her love and knowledge of the West was deepened
by trips she made to visit her brothers Roscoe and
Douglass, who worked for the railroad at far-flung stops
from Trinidad, Colo., to Laramie, Casper and Cheyenne
in Wyoming to Lamy and Gallup, N.M., and Winslow,
Ariz. Pueblos and canyons she visited on those journeys
Page 8
Portrait of Willa Cather. Courtesy of Willa Cather
Pioneer Memorial Collection, Nebraska State
Historical Society.
Willa Cather with her twin nieces Margaret and
Elizabeth Cather, Roscoe Cather’s daughters, 1916.
Courtesy of Philip L. and Helen Cather Southwick
Collection, Archives and Special Collections, University
of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries.
successful at proving their claims. Some gave in to the
depression of isolation and crop-destroying drought, hail,
prairie fire, wind, and insects.
After her family moved into town, Cather frequently
heard her childhood friends, the Miners, speak of the
suicide of Mr. Sadilek, whose daughter Anna worked for
their family and who is now known to readers all over the
world as Antonia. As Cather said, “The history of every
country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.”
Cather’s history lessons began on the Divide, the
land between the Little Blue and Republican rivers, but
continued to swirl about the pioneering railroad town
of her childhood. Six of her 12 novels and several short
stories were set in Nebraska, although she sometimes
tried to disguise Red Cloud. In “The Song of the Lark,”
the town is called Moonstone, Colo. Another of her lesserknown Nebraska novels, “A Lost Lady,” is based on the
wife of Silas Garber. Garber was among the first to file
a homestead claim in Webster County and served two
terms as governor of Nebraska before moving back to Red
Cloud and building the house and grounds depicted in the
book. According to Woodress, Garber went “from a sod
dugout to the governor’s mansion in four years,” providing
excellent fodder for Cather, including perspectives on land
barons who were cheating Indians out of their birthright.
One of the colleges established by the land grants
of the Morrill Act of 1862 would become Cather’s alma
mater, the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Her teachers
and professors there recognized her innate ability as a
writer, although she had written little more than an essay
on “Dogs vs. Cats” when she was 12 and an equally
confrontational commencement speech, “Investigation
vs. Superstition,” when she graduated from Red Cloud
High School in 1890.
Although she had intended to study medicine, the
“girl critic with a meat ax,” as she was called by the
theatrical and musical troupes she reviewed as they passed
through Lincoln and Omaha, forgot all about becoming
a surgeon when she saw her name in print in the Lincoln
Star Journal and the Evening News, for which she did
nine stories on the Big Tent Chautauqua Assembly that
attracted thousands to camp along the Big Blue River near
Crete for 10 days in the summer of 1894.
Because of Nebraska, “the happiness and the curse”
of her life, Willa Cather is world famous, as is the place
she called “the hateful little town of Red Cloud.”

Betty Jean Steinshouer
Betty Jean Steinshouer did her undergraduate
work in speech and English at Southwest Baptist
University and her graduate work in English literature at James Madison University. She worked
in Washington, D.C., as a speech and advertising
writer and office manager until beginning research
on Willa Cather, ostensibly toward a doctoral
dissertation, with her first trip to Red Cloud and
Lincoln in the summer of 1979.
She interviewed many Cather friends and
relatives and, after years of research, made her first
Chautauqua appearances in Virginia, West Virginia,
Missouri and Nebraska in 1988. Since then, she
has presented “Willa Cather Speaks” more than
4,500 times in 43 states and Canada and added a
number of other authors to her repertoire, including Cather’s mentor, Sarah Orne Jewett. In 2000,
Steinshouer was named a fellow in Florida studies
at the University of South Florida-St. Petersburg for
her Chautauqua work on Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and other authors. The Florida Center for the
Book has asked her to do combined Chautauqua
programs, such as “On Hemingway” and “America
at War” with Cather, Rawlings and Gertrude Stein,
“Speaking of Twain and the Gilded Age” with
Stowe, Jewett and Cather, and “Yankee Ladies in
Florida” featuring Harriet Beecher Stowe, Laura
Betty Jean Steinshouer portrays Willa Cather.
Page 9
Ingalls Wilder and
Marjory Stoneman Douglas.
Steinshouer
writes poetry and
fiction as well as
literary history,
and once wrote
a weekly column
for her hometown
n e w s p a p e r, a s
Cather did. Her
poetry and colBetty Jean Steinshouer
umns have been
collected in “Travels with Willa Cather: Poems
from the Road,” “Red Cloud to Cross Creek: More
Poems from the Road,” and “Letters to Bolivar:
Herald-Free Press Columns 1980-84.” Her literary
research and writing on homelessness in literature,
undertaken on behalf of the Colorado Endowment
for the Humanities in 1993-1995, will be available
in a special Chautauqua edition, “Comfort Me with
Apples,” from amazon.com in 2012.
Her work-in-progress is a history of women
authors in Florida, requested by the editors of
the History & Culture series at the University of
Florida Press.
Standing Bear: “I Am a Man”
By Joe Starita
The following is an excerpt from Joe Starita’s book “I Am
a Man: Chief Standing Bear’s Journey for Justice,” the
2012 selection for One Book One Nebraska. It is reprinted
by permission.
protect him from the wiles of agents; that there would be
one person on the wide earth, the issue of his own loins,
who would stand between him and the whites, whom he
knew from experience were trying to overreach him—he
said to that boy as his eyes were closing in death in a foreign
country that he would take his bones to his old home on the
Running Water, and bury him there, where he was born.”
The lawyer paused and turned, glancing at Standing
[Standing Bear’s attorney Andrew Jackson] Poppleton
had spoken for close to three hours, and as he began to wind
down, after he had confronted each of the government’s
arguments, he slowly began to drive
a legal wedge between the slave of
yesterday and the Indian who sat
before them. The only question the
case resolved was that since Scott
was not a citizen of Missouri, he
could not sue in federal court. It has
also confirmed, the lawyer noted,
that a slave at that time in American
history had no civil rights. But in his
haste to justify slavery, Chief Justice
Taney had strayed far from the legal
question at hand and now—22 years
later—his ruling was out of date. In
the spring of 1879, there were no
slaves. The Fourteenth Amendment
had seen to that. Hence this case now
before the court was not specifically
about citizenship at all. It was simply
about who had a legal right to a writ
of habeas corpus—a straightforward Ponca chiefs were photographed in November 1877 during a visit to
request compelling the government to Washington, D.C. Standing Bear is seated third from left. All historical
justify why it had arrested and detained photos courtesy of Nebraska State Historical Society.
the prisoners. And the law on this
particular point, he told the judge, was quite clear. It said Bear.
“That man not a human being? Who of us all would
nothing about being a citizen. It said only that “any person
have done it? Look around this city and state and find, if
or party” had the legal right to apply for a writ.
So there was really but one question, and one question you can, the man who has gathered up the ashes of his dead,
only, before the court: Was Standing Bear a person? To deny wandered for 60 days through a strange country without
his legal rights to the writ, he said, the court would have guide or compass, aided by the sun and stars only, that the
to conclude that he and the other Ponca prisoners were not bones of that kindred may be buried in the land of their birth.
No! It is a libel upon religion; it is a libel upon missionaries
people. They were not human beings.
“And who will undertake that?” Poppleton asked. who sacrifice so much and risk their lives in order to take
“Why, I think the most touching thing I have heard in courts to these Indians that gospel which Christ proclaimed to all
of justice or elsewhere for years was the story this old man the wide earth, to say that these are not human beings.”
It was well after 9 o’clock, almost 12 hours since
told on the stand yesterday of the son who had gone with
him to the Indian Territory, whose education he had care for; the day’s session began. The three lawyers had spoken for
who he had nurtured through the years of boyhood and sent more than nine hours and the large crowd of prominent
to school in the belief that that boy would be a link between citizens, of clergy and church faithful, judges and lawyers
him and that civilization to which he aspired; that he would and newsman, the general’s large staff decked in military
Page 10
uniforms and their wives, milled about after Poppleton
finished his closing argument, heading for the door.
Before the crowd began to file out, the judge made an
announcement. Although the trial now had officially ended
and the legal proceedings were finished, one last speaker,
he said, had asked permission to address the court. He
supposed it was the first time in the nation’s history such a
request had been made, but he had decided to grant it and
he had earlier informed all the lawyers of his intention to
do so. The crowd settled back down and turned its attention
to the front of the courtroom.
They saw him rising slowly from his seat, and they
could see the eagle feather in the braided hair wrapped in
otter fur, the bold blue shirt trimmed in red cloth, the blue
flannel leggings and deerskin moccasins, the red and blue
blanket, the Thomas Jefferson medallion, the necklace of
bear claws. When he got to the front, he stopped and faced
Chief Standing Bear in a formal portrait taken in 1877
in Washington, D.C.
the audience, and extended his right hand, holding it still for
a long time. After a while, it is said, he turned to the bench
and began to speak in a low voice, his words conveyed to
the judge and the large crowd by Bright Eyes.
“That hand is not the color of yours, but if I pierce
it, I shall feel pain. If you pierce your hand, you also feel
pain. The blood that will flow from mine will be of the same
color as yours. I am a man. The same God made us both.”
Then he turned and faced the audience, pausing for
a moment, staring in silence out a courtroom window,
describing after a time what he saw when he looked outside.
“I seem to stand on the bank of a river. My wife
and little girl are beside me. In front the river is wide and
impassable.” He sees there are steep cliffs all around, the
waters rapidly rising. In desperation, he scans the cliffs and
finally spots a steep, rocky path to safety. “I turn to my wife
and child with a shout that we are saved. We will return to
the Swift Running Water that pours down between the green
islands. There are the graves of my fathers.”
So they hurriedly climb the path, getting closer and
closer to safety, the waters rushing in behind them. “But
a man bars the passage… If he says that I cannot pass, I
cannot. The long struggle will have been in vain. My wife
and child and I must return and sink beneath the flood. We
are weak and faint and sick. I cannot fight.” He stopped and
turned, facing the judge, speaking softly.
“You are that man.”
In the crowded courtroom, no one spoke or moved
for several moments. After a while, a few women could be
heard crying in the back and some of the people up closer
could see that the frontier judge had temporarily lost his
composure, and that the general, too, was leaning forward
on the table, his hands covering his face. Soon, some people
began to clap and a number of others started cheering, and
then the general got up from his chair and went over and
shook Standing Bear’s hand, and before long, a number of
others did the same.
The bailiffs asked for order and when it finally grew
quiet again, the judge said he would take the case under
advisement and issue his decision in a few days. Then he
adjourned the court shortly after 10 o’clock on a warm
spring evening on the second of May 1879.
Joe Starita joined the journalism faculty at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln in 2000. He spent 13 years at the Miami
Herald, where he was the paper’s New York bureau chief
from 1983-1987. He is also the author of “The Dull Knifes
of Pine Ridge—A Lakota Odyssey.” Published in 1995, it
has been translated into six languages and was nominated
for a Pulitzer Prize.

Standing Bear and his wife, Susette, are shown with
their orphaned grandson, Walk in the Wind, in 1877.
Taylor Keen
Taylor Keen is a full-time lecturer and the
director of the Native American Center at Creighton
University in Omaha.
A member of the Tribal Council of the Cherokee Nation in 2006-2007, Keen was vice president
of Cherokee Nation Enterprises Inc., now Cherokee
Nation Businesses.
Keen holds a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College, as well as a master’s in business
administration and a master’s of public administration from Harvard University, where he served as
a Christian Johnson Fellow.
He is co-author of the article “Tribal Sovereignty and Economic Development,” published
for the Smithsonian Institution’s Handbook of the
American Indian.
Keen is trustee of the Nebraska State HistoriTaylor Keen portrays Chief Standing Bear.
Page 11
cal Society, a board
member of the Nebraska Humanities
Council, chairman of
the Blackbird Bend
Corporation, and a
volunteer instructor
for the Cherokee History Course Project.
He is a member
of the Omaha Hethuska Society and an
inductee of the Kiowa
Taipiah Gourd Dance
Clan.
Taylor Keen
Cultivating an understanding of our history and culture...for 39 years!
NEBRASKA
HUMANITIES
COUNCIL
Offering
Nebraskans
quality public
humanities
programs for
all ages
A family outing from “Journey Stories”
Museum on Main Street
“Journey Stories” comes to Kearney June
1-July 15, North Platte July 23-Aug. 25, Cozad
Sept. 1-Oct. 6, Fort Calhoun Oct. 15-Nov. 17,
Madison Nov. 25-Dec. 31, Lincoln Jan. 7-18,
and Alliance Jan. 28-March 8.
Nebraska Book Festival
Celebrates Nebraska’s
literary heritage, our
talented writers, and
books of all kinds. The
2012 festival featured
Joe Starita, author of the
year’s One Book One
Nebraska selection. Visit
bookfestival.nebraska.gov
for details and schedules.
Prime Time
Family Reading Time
Joe Starita
Six-week reading and
discussion program serving
families with children ages
six to 10 who struggle with
reading. Encourages active
public library use.
Nebraska Chautauqua
“Free Land? 1862 and the Shaping
of Modern America,” May 20-25 at
Homestead National Monument in
Beatrice, brings historical figures to life
with scholars portraying Willa Cather,
Grenville Dodge, George Washington
Carver, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Standing
Bear, and Mark Twain as moderator.
The Nebraska Chautauqua is funded in
part by the National Endowment for the
Humanities.
Page 12
17th Annual
Join our family of donors
Governor’s Lecture in the Humanities
The Nebraska Humanities Council funded
programs in 166 Nebraska communities
last year thanks to generous contributions
from citizens like you across the state. If
you are interested in making a gift to the
council, mail it to the address below, visit
the “Ways to Give” page of our website, or
stop by our information table at Chautauqua
to pick up an envelope.
Robert Putnam
“American Grace: How Religion
Divides and Unites Us”
October 2, 2012, Lied Center for
Performing Arts in Lincoln
Malkin professor of public policy at Harvard University
and author of “Bowling Alone” and “American Grace.”
Robert Putnam
Capitol Forum
on America’s Future
High school students
study and discuss U.S.
foreign policy.
Humanities Resource Center
Speakers Bureau
Joyzelle
Gingway Godfrey
215 Centennial Mall South
Suite #330
Lincoln, NE 68508
Phone: 402-474-2131
FAX: 402-474-4852
Email: [email protected]
Visit the NHC on the web!
www.nebraskahumanities.org
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
Nebraska Conversations
A program designed to provide a safe,
comfortable and reflective environment for
community discussion of important issues.
Nebraska Humanities Council
Culminates in a forum at
the State Capitol, where
students have
the opportunity
to question state and
national elected officials
about a range
of issues.
159 speakers and 290 programs
from which to choose, including
“Notable Nebraskans,” plus:
• Cultural encounter trunks
• Videos and exhibits
• Books for discussion
Grants Program
Available to non-profit organizations
for public humanities programs
and projects.
Humanities Desk on Public Radio
Listeners statewide can enjoy humanities features on
NET Radio, continuing a collaboration that began in 1991,
during “Weekend Edition,” 8:30 a.m. Saturdays and
9:30 a.m. Sundays, and on KVNO at noon Mondays.
The Nebraska Cultural Endowment is pleased to be a partner with the Nebraska Humanities Council and Nebraska Arts
Council in ensuring a lasting legacy of arts and humanities programs for all Nebraskans. Congratulations to the NHC for
its 2012 Chautauqua season and best wishes to volunteers in Beatrice for making it possible. For details on how you can
become a partner in Nebraska’s cultural future, contact us at 402-595-2722 or [email protected].
Page 13
Laura Ingalls Wilder: Chronicler of the Plains
By Karen Vuranch
When Laura Ingalls Wilder began writing the
series of books chronicling her life, she had no way
of knowing the tremendous popularity these books
would enjoy. Fondly referred to as “The Little House”
books, the stories of Laura’s experience homesteading in the American West have endured through the
decades and continue to hold a place dear in the hearts
of American readers. The books have been immortalized in film, television and musical theatre. But, a
further study of the life of Wilder indicates that her
significance surpasses these much beloved novels. In
addition to recording her experiences homesteading
in America, Wilder became an advocate for farmers
as both columnist and editor of the Missouri Ruralist
and had a paid position with the Farm Loan Association, giving loans to local farmers. She also developed
an interest in advocating for the opportunities for
women that were beginning to be available at the
time. In fact, Wilder personifies the very heart of the
American experience in the early 20th century. From
covered wagons as a child to modern airplanes as an
older woman, Wilder’s life journeys truly reflect the
journey of the American consciousness.
Many historians have said that the
westward expansion
is what has defi ned
America, its unique
experience creating
our perception. It
was Frederick Jackson Turner who said
that the frontier, not
Europe, defi ned the
American experience. According to
Turner, the inherent freedom of the
frontier created an
A young Laura Ingalls Wilder.
individual uniquely
Courtesy of Laura Ingalls
American. And 19th Wilder Memorial Society,
century idealism fur- DeSmet, S.D.
ther developed the
American spirit. The Republican Party of Abraham
Lincoln valued the ideal of “free soil, free labor.”
According to Eric Foner in his book “Free Soil, Free
Labor, Free Men,” the Republicans held specific views
of human rights—in particular a man’s right to work
Laura Ingalls Wilder at a book signing in 1952. Courtesy of Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society, DeSmet, S.D.
where and how he wanted and to accumulate property
in his own name, a value that starkly contrasted with
slavery. The Homestead Act of 1862 exemplified the
“free soil, free labor” concept by offering opportunity to anyone willing to work the land. This was the
era in which Wilder was born and which profoundly
influenced her father to begin the family journey of
homesteading in the West.
In the first of what would be many moves,
the Ingalls family traveled by covered wagon to a
homestead in Indian Territory. A restless spirit and
other circumstances continued to pull Laura’s father
onward, and the family continued their journey. In her
childhood and young adult years, Laura experienced
first-hand frontier towns, the coming of the railroad,
and homesteading on the prairie. As a young wife and
mother with a family of her own, she continued to
be a part of the homestead movement as she and her
husband, Almanzo, established a homestead claim of
their own. A series of personal tragedies forced them to
Page 14
continue their journeys,
eventually settling on a
farm in Missouri. There
she not only worked with
her husband on the farm,
but also began writing
her newspaper columns
and her work with the
Farm Loan Association.
At age 60, Laura reflected on her life and wanted
to record her memories.
What resulted was a series of books that covered each aspect of the
American frontier, from
the woods to the prairies
to the farms.
However, there is
some controversy sur-
Laura Ingalls Wilder
at 50. Courtesy of Rose
Wilder Lane Collection,
Herbert Hoover
Presidential Library, West
Branch, Iowa.
rounding the beloved books. Wilder’s daughter, Rose
Wilder Lane, was a prominent writer and there is some
question of Lane’s role in her mother’s work. Lane’s
writings appeared in publications such as Harper’s,
Saturday Evening Post, Sunset, Good Housekeeping,
and Ladies’ Home Journal. In addition, she was an
award-winning author of several short stories, a topselling novelist, and a biographer of President Herbert
Hoover. Lane was also active in politics of the day as a
libertarian, as well as a noted feminist, and her career
extended to that of war correspondent, serving in both
World War II and Vietnam. In the 1930s, when the
Depression had wiped out the savings of both mother
and daughter, Lane returned to the Wilder home in
Missouri. The first of the “Little House” books was
published shortly thereafter.
For years, historians and critics have theorized
about just how involved Lane was in the writing of
her mother’s books. Lane always insisted that she
was merely an advisor and gave her mother full credit
for the work; scholars have examined the work and
believe that Lane had a more prominent role. While
the full extent of Lane’s involvement can never be
known, all agree that the books chronicle the life of
a woman whose stories describe the development of
the American frontier. These stories are from Laura’s
life—if she had not lived them, they would not exist.
Conversely, if her daughter had not edited them, they
may never have been accepted for publication.
Dan White, who edited several volumes of Laura
Ingalls Wilder’s newspaper columns, has a different
point of view. He said, “There has been much talk
about Rose helping Laura write the ‘Little House’
books; the reverse also happened. Rose wrote ‘Let the
Hurricane Roar’ and ‘Free Land,’ which were taken
from the same life stories that are in Laura’s books
and were even published about the same time.” What
becomes apparent is that the stories of Laura Ingalls
Wilder’s life give us a glimpse into an important era
in American history, and these stories have been preserved through both her writings and her daughter’s.
Laura Ingalls Wilder has left an important legacy
to America. Not only did she create a beloved series of
books that has encouraged young people to appreciate
literature, but she has chronicled the American West
and the experience of the frontier. Her stories capture
the heart of what it was like to actually live in a time
and a place that is long past. The West has become only
a nostalgic memory in the American consciousness.
And the myths of the West are more prominent than
the actuality. It is crucial that the first-hand experiences of those who settled the West are captured in
novels and stories such as “The Little House” books.

Laura and Almanzo Wilder in a photo taken shortly
after they were married in 1885. Courtesy of Laura
Ingalls Wilder Home Association, Mansfield, Mo.
Karen Vuranch
Karen Vuranch of West Virginia is a traditional storyteller, as well as a Chautauqua scholar.
She has toured nationally and internationally with
her play “Coal Camp Memories,” based on oral
history and chronicling a woman’s experience in
the Appalachian coal fields. “Homefront” is a play
based on oral history she collected about women
in World War II.
Vuranch also recreates author Pearl Buck,
labor organizer Mother Jones, humanitarian Clara
Barton, Indian captive Mary Draper Ingles, Grace
O’Malley, a 16th century Irish pirate, Wild West
outlaw Belle Starr, television cook Julia Child,
and Hollywood gossip columnist Louella Parsons.
She has performed in a number of Chautauquas in
West Virginia, Ohio, Oklahoma and Nevada, and
in 2002 she participated in the Nu Wa Storytelling
Exchange to China.
Vuranch has been an adjunct faculty member
Karen Vuranch portrays Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Page 15
at Concord University
for 18 years, teaching
theater, speech and
Appalachian studies.
She is a freelance consultant for the Coal
Heritage Highway
Authority and is currently directing an oral
history project.
She has an unKaren Vuranch
dergraduate degree
from Ashland University in theater and sociology and a master’s
degree in humanities from Marshall University,
with a major in American studies and a minor in
Celtic studies. She has eight publications and has
released two CDs of stories and a DVD of “Coal
Camp Memories.”
George Washington Carver: Innovative Educator
By Paxton Williams
George Washington Carver lived in an era of great
change, from slavery through the first half of the 20th
century. In a research and teaching career that spanned
nearly 50 years, Carver created countless products that
improved the quality of life for many in America and
abroad. His work with sweet potatoes (sweet potato
bread, in particular) in a wheat shortage during World
War I and his efforts to promote peanut milk in the
Belgian Congo are just two examples of the breadth
of his work. He instituted the first extension program
in the South and developed industrial uses for farm
wastes and byproducts.
The fact that U.S. presidents, senators,
congressmen, cabinet members and foreign leaders
lauded his work is remarkable, considering his
inauspicious beginnings.
George Washington Carver was born in slavery
circa 1864 on the Diamond Grove, Mo., homestead of
Moses and Susan Carver. While still an infant, George
and his mother were abducted by outlaws in order
to be re-sold, potentially in Kentucky. Although his
mother was never found, young George was returned
to the Carvers for a reward of $300 and/or a racehorse.
Slavery was abolished in 1865 with the passage of the
13th Amendment, freeing George and the thousands of
other slaves who still remained in the border states in
the months following the conclusion of the Civil War.
George and his older brother James remained with
the Carvers and were raised as members of the family.
George grew up helping out around the house, learning
to cook, sew, and tend the garden. Before long, he began
growing his own garden, but planted it away from the
homestead. His skill with plants was soon recognized
and he was asked by many in the community to assist
them in bringing their gardens back to health, earning
him near the age of 10 the nickname “the plant doctor.”
His curiosity about plants and nature spurred
George’s quest for knowledge. When he was not
allowed to attend the local school because of his race,
Susan Carver taught him how to read and write. Near
the age of 12, he walked eight miles to Neosho, Mo., to
attend a school for “colored” children. He was taken in
by Mariah and Andrew Watkins, who taught him how to
use plants and berries as medicines and introduced him
to the African Methodist Episcopal Church. His time
with the Watkins’ inspired in him a deep zeal for faith
and a feeling of responsibility for helping his fellow
man, especially those recently freed from slavery. The
George Washington Carver (above, front and center)
poses for a photos with his staff. To the right, Carver in
a formal portrait. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Watkins’ challenged him to not only learn all that he
could, but to share his education with others.
Carver traveled to Kansas to further his education
and, after completing high school, was accepted to
Highland College but was denied admittance because of
his race. As a result, Carver decided to take advantage
of the opportunity to travel with a friend who was
staking a homestead in Western Kansas. Carver traveled
to Eden Township, Lane County, Kan., in 1886, and
after working for another homesteader for several
months, he made his own claim for a quarter section
in Ness County. He stayed with the homestead until
1889 before deciding to give it up without proving up,
a common outcome for many Americans who tried their
hand at homesteading. While the Homestead Act gave
many Americans a chance that they might not otherwise
have had and encouraged people to believe in their own
Page 16
“helping the poor man fill his empty dinner pail.” He
refused to patent any of his discoveries for personal
gain, convinced that they should be available to all
free of charge.
Because of his innovations, research, advocacy
before Congress, and work with the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, among other things, Carver became a very
famous man and would meet, befriend, or correspond
with such notable contemporaries as Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, Henry Ford, Mary McLeod Bethune,
Will Rogers, Joe Louis, Josef Stalin, and Mahatma
Gandhi. He also received countless honors—honorary
doctorates, numerous awards, memberships in exclusive
organizations and halls of fame—in recognition of his
work as a scientist, educator, and humanitarian.
Carver died Jan. 5, 1943. His grave is near
to that of Booker T. Washington. Carver’s epitaph
perhaps sums up his life best: “A life that stood out as
a testament of self-forgetting service. He could have
added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found
honor and happiness in being helpful to the world.”

Paxton Williams portrays George Washington Carver.
self-sufficiency, it also provided another opportunity for
Americans to see failure up close and personal.
George Washington Carver’s homestead story is
similar to that of countless Americans who tried, failed,
and kept on going until they met success in other areas.
After giving up his homestead, Carver began
years of wandering, stopping in Kansas City and
other communities before ending up in Iowa. He was
encouraged to apply to Simpson College in Indianola,
Iowa, which had an open-door policy with regard to
race. He spent a year studying music, art, and theater
before being encouraged to follow his “way with
plants.” He transferred to the first land-grant college
under the Morrill Act, Iowa State Agricultural College in
Ames, later to become known as Iowa State University.
Carver was the first African-American student in Ames
and was initially greeted with trepidation, but over
time he became accepted and involved in a variety of
school activities.
Carver joined the faculty at Iowa State after
receiving his bachelor’s degree and was put in
charge of the greenhouse. In 1896, following receipt
of his master’s degree, Carver answered Booker T.
Washington’s call to join him at Tuskegee Institute
as director of the institution’s new Agricultural
Experiment Station. Taking scientific agriculture to
the South, encouraging crop rotation and personal
gardens, and creating new products for farming and
household use helped move Carver toward his goal of
George Washington Carver works in his laboratory.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Paxton Williams
Paxton J. Williams is a graduate of George
Washington Carver’s alma mater, Iowa State University. It was in an undergraduate honors seminar
that he was inspired to research and then portray
Carver. Following extensive research, he first performed “Listening to the Still Small Voice: The
Story of Dr. George Washington Carver” in the
spring of 2000, under the direction of Prof. Jane
Cox. Williams has since portrayed Carver more
than 300 times in 24 states and England, before
audiences that included elementary school children,
at-risk youth, the incarcerated, governors, university presidents, and knights and dames.
From 2005-2009, Williams was executive
director of the George Washington Carver Birthplace Association, a 501 c-3 non-profit organization
working to advance Carver’s historical, scientific
and educational legacy through its support of the
National Park Service at Carver National Monument and other programming. He spent several
summers appearing on the nationwide Chautauqua circuit. Williams has also performed the roles
of Tom Robinson in “To Kill a Mockingbird”
Page 17
and Hoke Colburn in
“Driving Miss Daisy” on stage. His adaptation of “Othello”
premiered in spring
2010.
Williams holds
degrees in political
science, communication studies, and
public policy from
Iowa State, the UniPaxton Williams
versity of Michigan,
and the University of
Birmingham in England, where he studied under
the auspices of a Rotary Ambassadorial Fellowship. While in England, he was on staff at The
Drum, the UK’s largest arts centre devoted to the
promotion of African, Afro-Caribbean, and Asian
arts and culture.
Williams lives in Hyde Park, Chicago, Ill.,
where he is a second-year student at the University
of Chicago Law School.
Scholar workshops
Scholar workshops
“America in the Gilded Age”
Presented by Warren Brown
Mark Twain was credited with coining the name the
Gilded Age for the era following the Civil War. His novel
“The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today,” co-authored by Charles
Dudley Warner, is a satirical look at the greed and corruption
that prevailed after the war. What was the Gilded Age and
what impact did it have on the Great Plains? What made
Mark Twain and others critical of this time and who were
the major figures that contributed to it? How did the Gilded
Age affect America’s entry into the 20th century and what
can we learn from this era?
“Mark Twain’s The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg”
Presented by Warren Brown
“The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg” is a splendid
example of Mark Twain’s keen insight into human nature,
humorously told in a short story. The 1898 events in this
story could be happening today. The feelings of the citizens
of Hadleyburg speak to the nature of humans. The 1980 film
will be used to encourage lively discussion. Everyone will delight in the town’s revised motto, “Lead Us Into Temptation.”
“The Railroad: How Did They Build It and How Did It
Almost Fall Apart?”
Presented by Patrick McGinnis
The building of the transcontinental railroad is still
considered a marvel of engineering and scope. Its completion
connected the United States from coast to coast and made
possible the accelerated settlement and development of the
Great Plains and the American West. It was a “melting pot”
of race, nationality and background because of the massive
workforce needed for the Union Pacific and Central Pacific
railroads to accomplish such a feat. As the Union Pacific
was celebrating its first triumph, the stage was being set for
its potential downfall. The way in which the Union Pacific
was looted of its financial resources by the Credit Mobilier
left the road complete but in poor condition, necessitating its
reconstruction. The company was rescued by merging with
the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, which allowed the
Union Pacific to develop into the 20th century’s strongest
railway, financially and operationally.
“The Civil War and Its Impact on the Great Plains”
Presented by Patrick McGinnis
Few Civil War battles were fought on the Great Plains,
but the combat in the East had lasting impact on the plains.
Many men of military age in the Great Plains served in either
the Union or Confederate armies, and the opportunities for
settlement and work there after the war drew many veterans
to the region. How does the future of the Great Plains figure
in the causes of war and why does a wartime Congress find
it important to pass three sweeping pieces of legislation in the
Homestead Act, the Pacific Railway Act, and the Morrill Act?
ing in the American West. These books achieved worldwide
fame and are beloved by many. The books emphasize the
importance of recording an individual’s experience. This
workshop will focus on how one tells one’s own story and
how to collect oral history. Participants will discuss how to
gather stories, cull together stories from different sources,
crafting the story and different ways to present the material
that is collected.
“The People of My Ántonia, O Pioneers!, and The Song
of the Lark”
Presented by Betty Jean Steinshouer
Although Willa Cather said that she didn’t use “the
arms and legs and faces of friends and acquaintances” in
her novels, she did have real-life prototypes for Alexandra
Bergson, for Thea Kronborg, and for Ántonia Shimerda
Cusak and the Harling family. The real stories behind the
story will be the focus of this workshop. While it may mean
most to participants who have read the books, learning the
stories behind the Cather novels can give everyone a better
understanding of the lives of people in towns like Red Cloud,
Nebraska during the early years of settlement. A discussion of
the people behind the characters may encourage those who
have read the novels to re-read them and encourage those
who have not read them to do so.
“Exodusters”
Presented by Paxton Williams
The 1862 legislation and the Civil War amendments
(13th, 14th and 15th) of the Constitution provided new
opportunities for African-Americans after the war. Former
slaves tried their hand at homesteading in the Great Plains,
especially Kansas. These Exodusters, so called because of
their “Exodus-like” migration from Southern states to Kansas
in 1879 and 1880, built settlements and developed communities on the frontier. While African-Americans continued
to migrate through the late 19th century, including George
Washington Carver to Ness County in West Central Kansas,
most of these settlements did not last. What challenges did
African-Americans migrating to the West face? Why did
settlements pop up and disappear in a relatively short time,
and how was this phenomenon different from the fate of
white settlements on the Plains? Where did these people go
when they left the Plains and what were their success stories?
“The Rise and Fall of the Wild West”
Presented by Karen Vuranch
The Wild West captures our imagination. It actually
existed for a brief time, about 1860 to 1890. By the early
1900s, historians, writers, artists, and the public were already
looking back at the West with nostalgia. Writings of Teddy
Roosevelt, novels of Owen Wister and artworks of Frederic
Remington tried to capture a bygone era. The Wild West
is still depicted in movies and television. What created the
perceived recklessness of the West? This presentation will
explore issues facing America after the Civil War and how
the West came to be defined as wild. Disgruntled Southerners
opposed to government authority, Civil War veterans looking
for a new life, rapid settlement and development, and the
last opportunity of a frontier contributed to this period. The
workshop will address events that brought this era to an end,
including the homestead movement, the new technology
of barbed wire fence, and the development of the railroad.
“Telling Your Own Story”
Presented by Karen Vuranch
In her 60s, Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote a series of books
that told the stories of her experiences as a child homestead-
Page 18
“Dispossession of the Plains Indians”
Presented by David Wishart
One sector of the population that did not benefit from
the passage of the 1862 legislation was the Plains Indians.
While others were experiencing new opportunities, Plains
Indian tribes were forced to relocate or found themselves in
a fight for their lands. A litany of treaties between the tribes
and the federal government were not honored, and eventually
with increasing settlement in the Plains and the outbreak of
the Indian Wars, government policy toward the Plains Indians changed, exhibited perhaps most by the Dawes Act and
the establishment of reservations. For many of these tribes,
shrinking Indian lands led to new challenges: the loss of their
primary food sources (namely buffalo), increased competition between tribes for limited resources, a resurfacing of
tribal rivalries and violence between the tribes, and increasing
encounters with settlers and the U.S. Army. One interaction
of interest to this Chautauqua is the relationship between the
Sioux and the Ponca, and how it contributed to the relocation
of Standing Bear and the Ponca.
Photographer Solomon D. Butcher created lasting icons
By John Carter, Nebraska State Historical Society
It was in 1886 that a 30-year-old expatriate Virginian
by the name of Solomon D. Butcher found himself in Custer
County, Neb. Several attempts at working for a living had
not met with his liking, and in his daydreaming he came
up with an idea. He had a passion for photography, then a
fledgling technology barely older than he was. And he was
keenly aware that big things were going on around him.
His fantasy grew around marrying the two.
Look at where Butcher fit in his world. He was born
in 1856, a scant two years after the Nebraska Territory
opened. He was a kid when the Homestead Act was passed
in 1862. His formative years were those of the Civil War.
He was 11 when Nebraska became a state. He was only
24 when he followed his family west to Nebraska in 1880.
Butcher and his family were part of a massive
migration drawn west by the siren call of free land. This
migration came from the imagination of another Virginian,
Thomas Jefferson, who himself dreamed of a great social
experiment centered on a nation of yeomen: Free people
living in harmony with the cycles of nature, the cycles
of birth, death, and rebirth that are agriculture. Jefferson
acquired the Louisiana Territory for the infant United States
of America in part as the laboratory for this experiment.
This is the world in which Solomon Butcher found
himself in 1886. Smack dab in the middle of Jefferson’s
great experiment. Right in the middle of history as it
was being born. And he wanted to record that history in
photograph and in narrative. By the way, it is no stretch
to assume the influence of Jeffersonian thinking on a man
whose father was Thomas Jefferson Butcher.
Butcher was not worth a darn at homesteading, as it
required no small amount of physical labor. He recounted
that he did not fear hard work at all, as he found he could lie
down and go to sleep beside it anytime. But he did admire
those folks who managed to make it work.
Between 1886 and 1911 Butcher traveled the
length and breadth of Custer County making nearly 1,500
photographs. That comes to between a third and a half of
all the souls living there at that time. He also wrote down
their stories, but sadly all of these pages were lost in a fire.
In 1912 Butcher sold his very large collection of
glass plate negatives to the Nebraska State Historical
Society, where they have been ever since. There is no other
collection like it in the nation. We do not have another
tenacious dreamer who saw history forming around her or
him anywhere else during the great epoch of Euroamerican
settlement. For that reason these photographs are American
icons and belong to the ages.
A family gathers for a portrait in front of their sod house in Custer County, circa 1889.
The Shores family near Westerville in Custer County,
circa 1887.
The Peter Barnes sod house near Clear Creek in Custer
County, 1887.
The George Deerdorff family near Berwyn in Custer
County, circa 1889.
The first blacksmith shop in West Union, near Merna in
Custer County, circa 1886.
All Solomon D. Butcher
photos courtesy of the
Nebraska State Historical Society
Page 19
The sod house of Cora Housle, southeast of Merna
near Table, 1886.
Youth Workshops and Activities
Word Search Game
Youth Workshops and Youth Chautauqua Camp
Instructions
“The Plant Doctor”
Presented by Paxton Williams
In this interactive presentation, young audiences will
learn about George Washington Carver’s childhood on the
Carver homestead. They will also explore challenges the
young Carver faced, including not being able to attend the
local school. His hobbies as a child, his love of nature, his
creativity, and his goals for the future will also be addressed.
Participants are encouraged to talk about their own hobbies
and goals, and together they will create a group poem or
painting. The workshop also contains a message on the
importance of acceptance and education.
Word Search Game: Find the 20 words listed
below in the puzzle box at the far bottom.
BEATRICE
CARVER
CATHER
CHAUTAUQUA
COLLEGE
DODGE
FREE
GREAT PLAINS
HOMESTEAD
HUMANITIES
LAND
MORRILL
NEBRASKA
PACIFIC
PONCA
RAILROAD
STANDING BEAR
TRANSCONTINENTAL
TWAIN
WILDER
Will Rogers, portrayed by Doug Watson, works with
Youth Chautauqua participants at 2008 Chautauqua.
“Dogs vs. Cats”
Presented by Betty Jean Steinshouer
Willa Cather’s start as a writer can be traced to an
essay she wrote at age 12 entitled “Dogs vs. Cats.” What
does it mean to develop a “voice” as a writer? Can one
develop his or her voice as a writer at an early age? How
do you know if you are a real writer? This workshop will
lead children in exercises to learn about developing a writing
voice by writing essays and sketches, Cather-style.
“Storytelling in the Native American Tradition”
Presented by Matthew “Sitting Bear” Jones & Taylor Keen
Storytelling was a very important aspect of Native
American culture. The oral tradition allowed the people to
pass along their history and culture over generations. This
workshop will focus on the telling of children’s stories and
animal stories that have been passed down in the Native
American tradition. The workshop also will offer an analysis
of the Native American storytelling tradition.
Page 20
Ann Birney of Ride Into History (holding globe) will
present Youth Chautauqua Camp with Joyce Thierer.
Youth Chautauqua Camp
(For children grades 4 through 8)
Registration required
Presented by Ann Birney & Joyce Thierer of Ride Into
History
Youth Chautauqua Camp provides students 4th-8th
grades the opportunity to become historians, researchers,
scriptwriters and actors. The five-day camp allows
participants to identify and research a local historical
figure of the late 1800s and early 1900s and portray that
person under the tent on the final evening of Chautauqua.
The camp allows participants to uncover fascinating local
stories and learn valuable research and performance skills
in the process.
Check the schedule on page 22 for details on additional
youth programs presented by Homestead National
Monument.
Young Chautauquans answer questions during 2010
Chautauqua in Columbus.
On the 150th Anniversary of the Homestead Act
By Carol V. Davis
Go west was the cry and west they came,
beckoned by advertisements plastered on walls
and on two-page newspaper spreads.
Pretty girls with baskets brimming with oranges.
Land so rich, you could reach your hand in
and pull out vegetables full grown.
The railroad posters practically guaranteed it!
President Lincoln signed the Homestead Act
in 1862. Within reach: 160 acres for each person
willing to build a house, plant and live there five years.
Man. Woman. Married. Single. White. Black.
Just after midnight, Daniel Freeman,
Union scout in the Nebraska Territory, persuaded
a clerk at a New Year’s Eve party to unlock
the land office so he could file the first claim.
Soon waves of newcomers flooded the Great Plains,
the lure of land impossible to ignore.
Farmers sought fertile ground; others fled
slavery and ten-hour shifts in textile mills.
Families bumped along in wagons, men on horseback.
From Europe, too, they flocked: Swedes and Germans,
Czechs and Russians, until almost half of Nebraska
was claimed.
Corn displaced tallgrass; wheat thrust aside
shortgrass. On land with few trees, sod houses called
soddies were erected. Solid structures, though
in rainstorms the roofs of pots had to protect the soup.
Nature is never to be trusted.
Drought. Blizzards. Tornadoes. Fire. Locusts.
Some people abandoned the punishing conditions,
moved on, fanning out to Colorado,
Idaho, New Mexico, California.
All told 30 states: 10% of America settled.
Born in a homestead state on this western shore,
I am a grandchild of immigrants. Like generations
before, my parents succumbed to the siren call
of the unknown, packing their small car in New York,
driving seven days west. They traded the Atlantic
for the Pacific where my own children were born.
I drive into Nebraska for the first time,
an August thick with moisture. The sun searching
for its seat in a cloudless sky; below, the bluestem
leans into a faint breeze. At dusk, wild turkeys
chastise their young beside the creek. Cicadas
crank up their choirs as the light dims.
Midsummer, the prairie awash with the yellow
of coneflower, pink of foxglove, purple of thistle.
The switchgrass thick as veins, tough as settlers.
A common grackle alights onto the top of an oak
and begins to trill.
Carol V. Davis is a poet from Los Angeles. She was an artist-inresidence at Homestead National Monument of America in August
2011. A professor at Santa Monica College, she is author of the
book “Into the Arms of Pushkin: Poems of St. Petersburg.”
National Park Service photo of homesteaders. Courtesy of Homestead National Monument of America.
Homestead Act had immediate and enduring effect
can be observed throughout America today. Historians and
scholars continue to examine the impact that the legislation had
The Homestead Act of 1862 had an immediate and on our country and the world. The nature of the Homestead
enduring effect upon the United States. Under the law, more Act’s legacy is hotly debated and central to the debate is the
than 270 million acres, about 10 percent of the land in the effectiveness of the Homestead Act in providing land in the
United States, was transferred from the public domain to manner that it was intended.
What is known is that the agricultural and industrial
private individuals. This great transformation led to profound
revolutions that shaped our nation’s
and lasting changes to the land,
identity were the result of millions
American Indians, immigration,
of acres of land coming under
industry, and agriculture.
cultivation. The Homestead Act
A homesteader had only
contributed to the expansion
to be the head of a household or
of the economy of the United
at least 21 years of age to claim a
States, spurred immigration,
160-acre parcel of land. Settlers
advanced transportation and
from all walks of life, including new
communication networks, and
immigrants, farmers from the East
facilitated unprecedented social
without land of their own, women
opportunity and mobility. In 1962,
and African Americans, came to
President John F. Kennedy called
meet the challenge of “proving The last homesteader to receive a land
the Homestead Act the “single
up” and owning their own land. A patent, Kenneth Deardorff sits outside his
greatest stimulus to the American
homesteader had to live on the land, cabin in Stony River, Alaska.
economy ever enacted.”
build a home, and make agriculture
At the start of the homesteading era, the United States
improvements for five years—in some cases three—to be
eligible. The only cost was for filing the paperwork, but was a small agrarian nation. By the end of the era the United
sacrifice and hard work exacted a different price from the States had emerged as the largest super power in the history
of the world. However, the estimated 93 million people that
hopeful settlers.
The Homestead Act of 1862 was one of the most are descendents of homesteaders are the real testament to the
revolutionary concepts for distributing public land in American legacy of this legislation.
history. The effects of this monumental piece of legislation
By Blake Bell, historian, Homestead National Monument
Page 21
Schedule of Events
“Free Land? 1862 and the Shaping of Modern America,” May 20-25, 2012
Homestead National Monument of America, Beatrice, Nebraska
April 25
Tuesday, May 22
10 a.m. Homestead Act opening ceremony, Heritage Center.
10 a.m. “The Plant Doctor,” Paxton Williams (Youth Workshop)
April 25-May 28
11 a.m. “Civil War Music,” Dan Holtz (Youth Program)
8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Homestead Act of 1862 exhibition, courtesy of National
Archives, Heritage Center.
12 p.m. “America in the Gilded Age,” Warren Brown (Adult Workshop)
10 a.m.-6 p.m. Display of historical Solomon D. Butcher photos, Lang
Building, Sixth and Ella streets.
“Piecing Together History” puzzle. Participants pick up game board at
downtown stores. Puzzle pieces are collected at Homestead National
Monument and downtown businesses. Completed puzzle good for
150th Homestead Act anniversary puzzle.
April 27-April 29
10 a.m.-6 p.m. Creative Arts Gallery open house, featuring works by
regional artists and special exhibition on quilting.
1-5 p.m. Youth Chautauqua Camp, Ride Into History, Beatrice Public
Library
1 p.m. “Pioneer and Homesteading Songs,” Dan Holtz (Youth Program)
2 p.m. “The Civil War and Its Impact on the Great Plains,” Patrick McGinnis
(Adult Workshop)
Evening Chautauqua tent shows are moderated by
Mark Twain, portrayed by Warren Brown. The tent is
outside the Heritage Center at Homestead National
Monument, 8523 W. State Highway 4.
Adult workshops, Beatrice Public Library, 100 N.
16th St., unless otherwise noted
Youth workshops and other programs, Education
Center, Homestead National Monument, unless
otherwise noted
6:30 p.m. Local entertainment, Chautauqua tent
All events are free and open to the public. Visit www.
nebraskachautauqua.org for more information.
7:15 p.m. An evening with George Washington Carver (Paxton Williams),
introduced by Mark Twain (Warren Brown), Chautauqua tent
Share your thoughts by taking our online event
survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/nhcevent.
Wednesday, May 23
May 19-20
10 a.m. Film making, Megan O’Conner (Youth Program)
10 a.m.-5 p.m. Homestead Express event in Lincoln. Collect stamps
at various sites and turn in game board at Homestead National
Monument for a prize. Sites include Lincoln Children’s Museum,
Lincoln Children’s Zoo, Bennett Martin and Walt libraries, Nebraska
History Museum, Pioneer Park Nature Center, and Sheldon Museum
of Art.
11 a.m. and 1 p.m. “The Common Soldier in the Civil War,” Ron
Rockenbach (Youth Program)
7:15 p.m. An evening with Laura Ingalls Wilder (Karen Vuranch),
introduced by Mark Twain (Warren Brown), Chautauqua tent
Friday, May 25
Noon “The People of My Ántonia, O Pioneers! and The Song of the Lark,”
Betty Jean Steinshouer (Adult Workshop)
10 a.m. Film making, Megan O’Conner (Youth Program)
Sunday, May 20
1-5 p.m. Youth Chautauqua Camp, Ride Into History, Beatrice Public
Library
Noon “The Rise and Fall of the Wild West,” Karen Vuranch (Adult
Workshop)
11 a.m.-1 p.m. Meet the Chautauquans lunch, Chautauqua Tabernacle,
Chautauqua Park
2 p.m. “Telling Your Own Story,” Karen Vuranch (Adult Workshop)
1-7 p.m. Youth Chautauqua Camp, Ride Into History, Chautauqua tent
6:30 p.m. Local entertainment, Chautauqua tent
2 p.m. “Mark Twain’s The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg,” Warren
Brown (Adult Workshop)
6 p.m. 150th Anniversary National Signature Event, Heritage Center,
Homestead National Monument
Monday, May 21
10 a.m. “Storytelling in the Native American Traditon,” Matthew “Sitting
Bear” Jones and Taylor Keen (Youth Workshop)
7:15 p.m. An evening with Chief Standing Bear (Taylor Keen), introduced
by Mark Twain (Warren Brown), Chautauqua tent
11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Photography workshop, Jason Jilg (Youth Program)
6 p.m. Youth Chautauqua presentations, Chautauqua tent,
Thursday, May 24
7 p.m. Warren Brown as Mark Twain, Chautauqua tent
10 a.m. “Dogs vs. Cats,” Betty Jean Steinshouer (Youth Workshop)
7:30 p.m. An evening with Willa Cather (Betty Jean Steinshouer),
Chautauqua tent
11 a.m. and 1 p.m. “Ulysses S. Grant,” Tom King (Youth Program)
11 a.m. and 1 p.m. “Celtic Traditions,” Lori McAlister (Youth Program)
1-5 p.m. Youth Chautauqua Camp, Ride Into History, Beatrice Public
Library
Noon “The Railroad: How Did They Build It and How Did It Almost Fall
Apart?” Patrick McGinnis (Adult Workshop)
2 p.m. “Exodusters,” Paxton Williams (Adult Workshop)
1-5 p.m. Youth Chautauqua Camp, Ride Into History, Beatrice Public
Library
Noon Harmonica workshop, Homestead National Monument
7 p.m. Warren Brown as Mark Twain, Chautauqua tent
2 p.m. “Dispossession of the Plains Indians,” David Wishart (Adult
Workshop)
1 p.m. Monumental Fiddling Championships, Homestead National
Monument
7:30 p.m. An evening with Grenville Dodge (Patrick McGinnis),
Chautauqua tent
6:30 p.m. Local entertainment, Chautauqua tent
7 p.m. John McCutcheon concert, Homestead National Monument
6:30 p.m. Local entertainment, Chautauqua tent
Page 22
Saturday, May 26
10 a.m. Song writing and fiddling workshops, Homestead National
Monument
The History of Chautauqua in Nebraska
Traveling Chautauquas in the late 19th and early
20th centuries brought the world to rural communities
in Nebraska.
Chautauqua combined programs of political oratory
and lectures about health, science, and the humanities
with entertainment, such as opera singers and stage
performances of Shakespeare. Audiences heard about
national issues and discussed their views with their
neighbors. For many rural Nebraskans, Chautauqua week
was the most important week of the year.
Chautauquas started as a result of the national
Lyceum Bureau that served the Plains before 1900. On
June 26, 1883, the first Chautauqua program in Nebraska
opened in Crete. In 1884 the Crete Chautauqua Association
acquired 109 acres along the Blue River and by the summer
of 1885 had two lecture halls and a dining hall built, 700
trees set out, and a bridge installed. Trains brought culturehungry participants from Wymore, Lincoln, and Hastings,
and one delegation came all the way from Chadron to live
in the tent city to hear the 10-day series of inspirational
lectures, lantern-slide illustrated travelogues, and musical
concerts. One day in 1888, 16,000 people streamed into
the campgrounds. The Crete Chautauqua was considered
the greatest conference in the Missouri Valley.
The success of the Crete Chautauquas encouraged
businessmen in Beatrice to start a similar enterprise, and
on June 28, 1889, the first Beatrice Chautauqua opened
at its new Chautauqua Park that had been equipped
with an amphitheatre, band stand, and boat houses.
Other Chautauqua programs sprang up across the state.
Chautauqua’s tent cities blossomed for weeklong periods
in the summer. Not only campers, but also hundreds of
families drove in by day, returning home to farm chores
by night.
Then at the turn of the 20th century, Chautauqua
circuits were created. National Chautauqua promoters
would roll into town, put up a big, canvas tent, and
overnight towns would be transformed into bustling
cultural centers. Tent cities still appeared, but the
Chautauqua circuits emphasized entertainment more
than serious lectures or debates on politics and sociology.
Standard Chautauqua and Lyceum System and Redpath
Chautauqua were two of the largest circuits. Circuits
would often utilize faculty members and students from
the University of Nebraska for many of the lectures and
musical performances.
In 1907, Kearney participated in its first Chautauqua
circuit. According to Edna Luce’s “Chautauqua,” the 1907
circuit that began in Blair and ended in McCook brought
campers to Kearney who
would “enjoy the week living
the simple life mid the cool
breezes and delightful shade
of the park.” Kearney and
surrounding communities
came together at Third Ward
City Park to hear orators and
such musical performances
as the Williams’ Original
Dixie Jubilee Singers.
Kearney caught the
Chautauqua fever and for
several years offered Chautauqua venues. Speakers such as
U.S. Rep. Champ Clark of Missouri addressed audiences at
a July 4 Chautauqua, and Judge Frank Sadler from Chicago
addressed Kearney audiences at the 1914 J. D. Reedpromoted Chautauqua. According to the 1914 souvenir
program, Reed, who hailed from Hastings, had “the vision
and ideals that make for permanent Chautauquas.” At that
point, the idea of Chautauqua appeared to be a permanent
one and, for many years, Nebraskans statewide would pack
wooden benches to participate in what Theodore Roosevelt
called “the most American thing in America.”
At its peak, President Woodrow Wilson called
the Chautauqua movement a major contributor to the
war effort. Chautauquas presented military bands and
introduced wounded soldiers on the platform who told
their stories to audiences whose news sources were limited
to local papers and letters.
Chautauquas were so popular that it was not
uncommon for Lexington, Nebraska’s Charles F. Horner,
co-founder of the Redpath-Horner Chautauqua Circuit,
to book more than 60 shows in one season. Chautauqua
speakers included Teddy Roosevelt, Helen Keller, Mark
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Historical images of Chautauqua include (clockwise,
from bottom left) a program for the Dixie Jubilee
Singers, who appeared at the 1907 Kearney
Chautauqua; a crowd under the tent in the early days
of the circuit; a souvenir program of the 1914 Kearney
Chautauqua and a ticket from the 1908 event.
Twain, Clarence Darrow, Carrie Nation, George Norris,
and perhaps the most famous Chautauquan, William
Jennings Bryan, who presented his speech “Prince of
Peace” more than 3,000 times. Chautauqua was a tradition
for Nebraskans and Plains citizens.
Several factors led to the decline of traveling
Chautauquas—greater mobility, radio and film
entertainment, economic decline, and a change in national
attitude. Perhaps most significant was the radio, where
news was quickly and directly broadcasted to the general
public, making it possible to hear FDR’s “fireside chats,”
the Metropolitan Opera, and radio shows like “Amos and
Andy” from the comfort of living rooms.
The Nebraska Humanities Council (NHC) rekindled
its state’s Chautauqua tradition in 1984 with modern
Chautauquas that use public forum and discussion to focus
on a particular historical era or theme. For more than 25
years, the NHC has brought humanities-based, modern
Chautauqua programs to communities across Nebraska.
The NHC is honored to continue its Chautauqua
tradition by partnering with Homestead National
Monument and the community of Beatrice to present
“Free Land? 1862 and the Shaping of Modern America,”
in conjunction with the 150th anniversary of the signing
of the Homestead Act.
City of Beatrice
400 Ella Street
Beatrice, NE 68310
402/228-5200
www.beatrice.ne.gov
March 1, 2012
Welcome to Beatrice!
As Mayor of the City of Beatrice, I am honored and privileged to officially welcome you to our
fair City of Beatrice. We are honored to serve as the 2012 Chautauqua Host for this signature
event of the Nebraska Humanities Council.
Beatrice is pleased to combine this year’s Chautauqua with the celebration of the 150th
Anniversary of the signing of the Homestead Act. Homestead National Monument of America,
located west of Beatrice, is the first recorded homestead established under the Act. The
Chautauqua is the kickoff event for a year of events commemorating the 150th anniversary of the
Homestead Act.
Beatrice High School. Photos courtesy of Beatrice Daily Sun.
I invite all of you to take the time to review and absorb once again the enormous impact that the
Homestead Act, the Morrill Act, and the Pacific Railway Act had on the settlement and
development of Nebraska and the Great Plains. My sincere hope is that this years Chautauqua
will provide all who attend with a greater appreciation of our heritage and greater gratitude for
the contributions and sacrifices made by the men and women portrayed in this years event.
Please enjoy your time in our City and as always come back to visit us often.
Sincerely,
Dennis Schuster
Dennis Schuster
Mayor of Beatrice Nebraska
Beatrice Community Hospital.
The 2012 “Free Land” Chautauqua has been made possible through the Nebraska Humanities Council
and the generous support of our sponsors and many dedicated volunteers. A special thank-you to:
Chautauqua Steering Committee:
Co-chairs Susan Cook and Janet
Byars
Tammy Weers
Alexis Winder
Laureen Riedesel
Bette Anne Thaut
Denise Elmer
Rhonda Eddy
Barb Reiken
Carla Loemker
Colleen Cutchin
Additional thanks to:
City of Beatrice
Board of Public Works
Gage County
KWBE/KUTT
Beatrice Daily Sun
Lincoln Children's Museum
Gage County Historical Society and
Museum
Community Players
Yesterday's Lady
Beatrice Public Library
Lincoln Libraries
Lincoln Children's Zoo
The Nebraska History Museum
The Nebraska State Historical
Society
Pioneer Park Nature Center
Sheldon Museum of Art
Pinewood Bowl
Homestead Harmonizers
Homestead National Monument
Southeast Community College
Friends of Homestead
ExMark/The Toro Giving Program
Members Own Credit Union
Gettysburg Foundation
BNSF Foundation
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
State of Nebraska
AAA Foundation
Lasersmith Light Shows Systems
Thanks also go to the many generous donors and volunteers whose names were not available at press time; without your help, this wonderful event could never have happened!
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