Sod Busting by David B Danbom

The subtitle of this slim book is “How Families Made Farms on the Nineteenth-Century Plains”, and is part of a series of books called “How Things Worked”. The focus of this book is mainly Kansas, Nebraska, and North and South Dakota, between about 1862 and 1900. And the author does not describe just how farms Read More

The Worst Hard Time, by Timothy Egan

You might think a book about the people who lived through the 1930’s in the Dust Bowl would be rather, well, dry (sorry, couldn’t help myself), but Timothy Egan manages to bring the era to life. He tells the story not just through research at local museums and contemporary newspaper articles, but through interviewing people Read More