A Brief History of Nebraska by Ronald Naugle

Abstract

Reviewed by: A Brief History of Nebraska by Ronald Naugle Bill Hayes A Brief History of Nebraska. By Ronald Naugle. Lincoln: History Nebraska Press, 2018. 135 pp. Figures, further reading, index. $14.95, paper. This volume is an introduction to the exciting past of the land, people, events, and institutions that make up the history of the territory and the state of Nebraska. Authored by emeritus professor of history Naugle of Nebraska Wesleyan University, this study starts with an examination of the prehistorical past, a description of the land for the last 12,000 years, the early inhabitants, the coming of European and American explorers, territorial settlement, and the conflict between natives and settlers. The wildlife of that early period was made up of now extinct animals including mammoths, mastodons, sloths, and saber-toothed cats. Spear points found in Nebraska have been dated back to 11,500 to 10,500 years ago, indicating the presence of human hunters. Little is known about these early inhabitants who lived mainly by hunting. Pottery remains have been found dating back to about 2,000 years. There appears to have been a drought that led to the lack of an archeological record from the late 1300s to 1500s. A people known as Village Farmers lived in parts of Nebraska between AD 1000 and 1500, but the relationship between them and modern native peoples is unknown. Attention is given to the native peoples, mainly Otoe and Missouria, Omaha, Ponca, Pawnee, Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Lakota that lived in the region prior to Jefferson's acquisition of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. After the description of territorial beginnings, the American Civil War, the politics surrounding the location of the state capitol, the conflict with Native Americans, and the coming of the railroad, emphasis is placed on the role of cattle drives from Texas and the spread of ranches in the Sandhills. In succession, Table Rock, Nebraska City, Plattsmouth, Schuyler, Kearney, and Ogallala became cattledrive towns where meat on the hoof was sent back East. Politically, Nebraska is still operating on the State Constitution drawn up in 1875, although it has been amended many times. The most significant changes came in 1917 when women were given the right to vote in local elections, and in 1934 when Nebraska adopted the Unicameral (or one-house) legislature. Populism had a big influence on the state of Nebraska. Its goals included a graduated income tax, old-age pensions for Union Civil War veterans, the Australian secret ballot, eight-hour workday, and the direct election of US senators (previously picked by the state legislatures). At about the same time, the state's first irrigation laws were passed. Unique in Nebraska history was the role played by William Jennings Bryan in state and national politics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although he ran for president three times and lost, he is forever remembered for his role in the Scopes Trial of [End Page 169] 1925 dealing with the teaching of evolution in the public schools. World War I brought about significant tension in Nebraska between residents of German ancestry and those of other backgrounds, over such issues as loyalty and the teaching of German in public schools. State Councils of Defense were created to make Nebraskans more patriotic. George Norris was another consequential politician in state and national politics who led Nebraska to becoming the only state with a unicameral form of government. He also played a major role in creating public power in the Tennessee Valley as well as in Nebraska (that is, in 1929 about 6 percent of Nebraska farmers had public power, but by 1951, 87 percent had it). More recent history has been affected by the location of the Strategic Air Command Base near Bellevue, the civil rights struggles of the sixties to the present in Omaha and elsewhere, and the tensions of the war in Vietnam. Conflicts continued regarding the rights of Native Americans, the Equal Rights Amendment, Mexican American employment in meatpacking plants, how to control the state's water resources, what to do with nuclear waste, how to encourage economic development in Nebraska, and whether or not to allow the TransCanada pipeline to...