Title: Reopening the frontier
First published: 2009
Description: "The offer of free farmland after World War II may not have sparked the same stampede that it did in frontier days, but, as Brian Cannon shows in this path-breaking study, postwar homesteading continued to shape the modern West in important ways. Between 1946 and 1966, the Bureau of Reclamation opened up over 3,000 farms on irrigated public lands in the West to returning servicemen. Although involving fewer people than those flocking to western cities, this mini-land rush represents an important continuity in western tradition through the cultivation of values - hard work, security, independence, family stability - long associated with frontier life. Cannon examines these new agricultural settlements and the values they reflected and reinforced, following them through the end of the twentieth century and exploring specific key homesteading and federal reclamation projects. Cannon describes how the Bureau of Reclamation used lotteries to make available free land that had previously been part of Indian reservations, used for Japanese internment, or abandoned by unsuccessful settlers. He then traces the new homesteaders' experiences in establishing a farm, "proving up," and gaining title to the land, contrasting the realities of modern homesteading with iconic views of the frontier"--Jacket.
Subjects: History, Veterans, World War, 1939-1945, Social life and customs, Frontier and pioneer life, Farmers, Community life, Reclamation of land, Environmental conditions, Environmental policy, Frontier and pioneer life, west (u.s.), World war, 1939-1945, united states, Environmental policy, united states, West (u.s.), history, West (u.s.), social life and customs
Places: West (U.S.), United States
Time periods: 20th century, 1945-
LC classification: F596 .C2395 2009