Prairie Courage
Prairie Courage

Author: Esther Mae Witmer

Publisher:

Published: 2010-12-09

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 9780615403205

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This is a story about nineteenth century pioneering. It includes experiencing damaging cyclones, driving cattle on foot to stockyards twelve miles distant, laying away children who perished from childhood diseases and finding answers to baffling questions in less-than ideal church life.

Gentlemen on the Prairie
Gentlemen on the Prairie

Author: Curtis Harnack

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Published: 1985

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13:

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"Focuses on a remarkable episode in the settling of the American Midwest, the formation in the 1880s of a colony of upper-class British immigrants who viewed Iowa pioneering as a way of perpetuating the Victorian gentleman's code. This social history examines the premises upon which the colony was built, follows its rise and fall, and portrays some of the lives of the resident gentlemen and ladies."--Book jacket.

Frontierswomen
Frontierswomen

Author: Glenda Riley

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13:

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Written for the general public interested in the pioneer life in Iowa history, this book traces the daily life of an average woman on the American frontier.

Iowa Past to Present
Iowa Past to Present

Author: Dorothy Schwieder

Publisher: University of Iowa Press

Published: 2003-01-01

Total Pages: 343

ISBN-13: 1609380126

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In Iowa Past to Present, originally published in 1989, Dorothy Schwieder, Thomas Morain, and Lynn Nielsen combine their extensive knowledge of Iowa’s history with years of experience addressing the educational needs of elementary and middle-school students. Their skillful and accessible narrative brings alive the people and events that populate Iowa’s rich heritage. This revised edition brings the story into the twenty-first century and makes a paperback edition available for the first time. Beginning with Iowa’s changing geological landforms, the authors progress to historical, political, and social aspects of life in Iowa through the present day. The chapters explore such topics as the native peoples of the region; pioneer settlements on the prairie; the building of the railroad; the Civil War; the influence of immigrants; the formation of the state government and development of the current politic system; education; the Great Depression; religion (including a separate chapter on Mennonites and the Old Order Amish); life on the farm; business, industry, and economics; and the turmoil caused by World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War. A new chapter written specifically for this edition explains the impact of 9/11 on Iowa, discusses the roles played by Iowa soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and updates information on the newest immigrant populations of the state. The authors have teamed with Iowa Public Television's Iowa Pathways project to create a new Iowa Past to Present teacher's guide available online at “a href="http://iptv.org/iowapathways">http://iptv.org/iowapathways/a”. This guide includes additional articles, videos, links, and curriculum resources to support the textbook. Iowa Past to Present, its inviting format enhanced by hundreds of illustrations, is informed by three of the state’s most respected historians. The latest revision continues to be an important part of the curriculum for teachers and parents wanting their children to know all about Iowa history. /div

Gentlemen on the Prairie
Gentlemen on the Prairie

Author: Curtis Harnack

Publisher: University of Iowa Press

Published: 2011-05-15

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 1587299682

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In the 1880s, the well-connected young Englishman William B. Close and his three brothers, having bought thousands of acres of northwest Iowa prairie, conceived the idea of enticing sons of Britain’s upper classes to pursue the life of the landed gentry on these fertile acres. “Yesterday a wilderness, today an empire”: their bizarre experiment, which created a colony for people “of the better class” who were not in line to inherit land but whose fathers would set them up in farming, flourished in Le Mars, Iowa (and later in Pipestone, Minnesota), with over five hundred youths having a go at farming. In Gentlemen on the Prairie, Curtis Harnack tells the remarkable story of this quite unusual chapter in the settling of the Midwest. Many of these immigrants had no interest in American citizenship but enjoyed or endured the challenging adventure of remaining part of the empire while stranded on the plains. They didn’t mix socially with other Le Mars area residents but enjoyed such sports as horse racing, fox hunts, polo, and an annual derby followed by a glittering grand ball. Their pubs were named the House of Lords, the House of Commons, and Windsor Castle; the Prairie Club was a replica of a London gentlemen’s club, an opera house attracted traveling shows, and their principal hotel was Albion House. In St. George’s Episcopal Church, prayers were offered for the well-being of Queen Victoria. Problems soon surfaced, however, even for these well-heeled aristocrats. The chief problem was farm labor; there was no native population to exploit, and immigrant workers soon bought their own land. Although sisters might visit the colonists and sometimes marry one of them, appropriate female companionship was scarce. The climate was brutal in its extremes, and many colonists soon sold their acres at a profit and moved to countries affiliated with Britain. When the financial depression in the early 1890s lowered land values and made agriculture less profitable, the colony collapsed. Harnack skillfully draws upon the founder’s “Prairie Journal,” company ledgers, and other records to create an engaging, engrossing story of this quixotic pioneering experiment. f