Directions: Please answer all four questions. 

1. Go to http://info.neded.org/databook.php?dp=14

Under Authors, click on Willa Cather.  Read the first five paragraphs of the article and answer these questions:

Where and in what year was Cather born?

To what county and state did she move when she was nine?

What small Nebraska town did her family eventually move to?
What university did she graduate from?

2. Go to http://info.neded.org/databook.php?dp=16

Explore these links and answer these questions:

How much did the population of Webster County grow between 1870 and 1890?

What was the population of Red Cloud in 1890?

In what year did the population of Nebraska become mostly urban?

 

 

3. Do some research online or in our library and draw a multi-color, freehand outline map of Nebraska.  Include and label the following:

~What year did Congress pass the Kansas-Nebraska Act?

~List five Nebraska tribes that eventually ceded their lands to the European settlers.

~What were the five major requirements to APPLY FOR free land under the Homestead Act  of 1862?

~What was a “Proving Up” form?

What did a settler have to do with his claimed land to actually get title to it?

~Explain why the Homestead Act was a particular benefit to free blacks, single women, and immigrants.

~Why did so many Czechs leave their homes in Bohemia and Moravia and come to Nebraska?

~How did the federal government encourage railroads to build tracks into the West?

~What were the two main railroad corporations in Nebraska?

~Briefly explain why so many people bought land from the railroads rather than receiving free land from the Homestead Act.

~Why did settlers in Nebraska build sod houses?

~Briefly describe the process of building a sod house.

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Works Cited ~ http://www.gustavus.edu/oncampus/academics/english/cather/ &
http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0500/frameset.html ~ background: www.flamingtext.com
All Rights Reserved. Northside Independent School District-San Antonio, TX September 2005