page_title: History of Omaha, Nebraska
section_title: Social and cultural developments
hierarchical_section_title: History of Omaha, Nebraska / Establishment Era: 1900 to 1941 / Social and cultural developments
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Autos parken schräg an Parkuhren in Omaha, Nebraska, 1938. English: Cars parked diagonally along parking meters, Omaha, Nebraska, 1938.
context_page_description: The history of Omaha, Nebraska began before the settlement of the city, with speculators from neighboring Council Bluffs, Iowa staking land across the Missouri River illegally as early as the 1840s. When it was legal to claim land in Indian Country, William D. Brown was operating the Lone Tree Ferry to bring settlers from Council Bluffs to Omaha. A treaty with the Omaha Tribe allowed the creation of the Nebraska Territory, and Omaha City was founded on July 4, 1854. With early settlement came claim jumpers and squatters, and the formation of a vigilante law group called the Omaha Claim Club, which was one of many claim clubs across the Midwest. During this period many of the city's founding fathers received lots in Scriptown, which was made possible by the actions of the Omaha Claim Club. The club's violent actions led to the U.S. Supreme Court trial, Baker v. Morton, which led to the end of the organization.
  Surrounded by small towns and cities that competed for business from the hinterland's farmers, the city suffered a major setback in the Panic of 1857. Despite this, Omaha quickly emerged as the largest city in Nebraska.
context_section_description: Job's Daughters International, a Masonic youth organization for girls, was founded in Omaha in 1920. Aleph Zadik Aleph, the men's Order of the B'nai B'rith Youth Organization, began in 1923 as a college fraternity.
  In 1925 Malcolm X was born (as Malcolm Little) at 3446 Pinkney Street in North Omaha.  His minister father moved the family to Milwaukee, Wisconsin when Malcolm was a year old after threats on their lives from the Ku Klux Klan because of his father's activism.
  The Nebraska chapter of the National German-American Alliance (NGAA) was founded and led by Valentin J. Peter, the publisher and editor of the German language Omaha Tribune in 1907. By the 1920s the organization was working closely with breweries throughout the city to challenge the complete political and social assimilation of German immigrants in Nebraska. During the same period Peter was buying other German-language newspapers across the U.S.  The NGAA folded in the late 1920s; Peter's business, the Interstate Publishing Company, still operates in Omaha today.
caption: The Woolworth's Store in Downtown Omaha in 1938.
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