page_title: History of Kansas
section_title: Farming
hierarchical_section_title: History of Kansas / Farming
caption_attribution_description: "Kansas the Bountiful" cover of a promotional booklet published in 1907 by the Rock Island railroad. URL = http://kshs.org/publicat/history/2005autumn_shortridge.pdf p 203 PD published in US before 1923
context_page_description: The first people who lived in Kansas were Native Americans who were nomadic. They hunted American bison. In the 1500s, Spanish conquistadores came to explore the place. Later, French fur trappers came to the area. They traded with the Native Americans. The United States added most of Kansas in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act opened the place for Americans to move there. A lot of fighting happened because the new residents had to decide if they wanted slavery. The new residents decided to make slavery illegal. The fighting helped start the American Civil War.
  After the Civil War, Kansas had many frontier towns. The railroads were stops for cattle drives from Texas. Many black people moved from the south to Kansas. These people were called "exodusters". Farmers tried growing corn and raising pigs, but there was little rain, so they were not able to. They started growing wheat. They became very good at growing wheat, and they had enough to trade with Europe. Many angry farmers joined the Populist and Progressive movement in the 1890s, and they supported it until the 1940s. Since the 1940s, Kansas has been a very conservative state.
caption: Boosterism: cover of a promotional booklet published in 1907 by the Rock Island railroad
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