Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Changing Perceptions Of Homesteading As A Policy Of Public Domain Disposal, Richard Edwards

Great Plains Quarterly

The inspiring story of homesteaders claiming free land and realizing their dreams became one of the enduring narratives of American history. But scholars who have studied homesteading have often been much more ambivalent, even harshly negative, about how successful it was in practice. While the public often views our history differently from scholars, in this case the disparity appears both substantial and persistent. Perhaps it is time to revisit homesteading and reassess whether homesteading really was a good idea or not.

Certainly homesteading once powerfully fired the American imagination. The promise of free land was such a startling idea that …