5-2Today Ashley finished her presentation. She talked about the major give away of land in Oklahoma. The state got the name the sooner stater because people claimed land sooner than they were supposed to. In 1889 Yellow Stone National Park was created. She also talked about challenges people had on the plains. There were no trees on the plains so people resorted to whatever they could use to build their homes. They made either duggouts or soddies. Duggouts were homes that were dug in the side of a hill. Soddies were make of stacked blocks of prarie turf. With soddies you had little natural light and little air. Both soddies and duggouts were warm in the winter and cool in the summer. The problems they faced with living on the plains were droughts, floods, fires, blizzards, locust plagues, and occasional raids of Indians.Women had a big part with helping the men. They helped plant, harvest crops, and they carded wool for clothing. The women were very skilled in doctoring. They also sponsored churches and schools. In 1837 the steel plow, which would cut through hard prarie soil, was invened. In 1847 the Cyrus McCormik reeping machine, which easily cut wheat, was invented. In 1874 people started using barbed wire for fencing. She also talked about the Morill Act. The Morill Act gave each state 30,000 acres of land to sell. The money the states made went to sponsoring ag colleges. They wanted students to have good education about agriculture.5-3The only thing we learned today was how farmers pushed the government to put more money into circulation. They wanted inflation so their crop and animal prices would go up. They didn't realize that prices on machinery and other things they would need would go up as well.
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