“Feeding Kansas” is an analysis of how food and its availability shaped the experiences of settlers and Native Americans in the two decades following the opening of Kansas Territory in 1854. From the outset, food was central to conceptions of the plains. White settlers arrived in Kansas expecting a verdant Eden; their expectations were quickly altered by the realities of farming and living in the semi-arid region. This dissertation argues that, in the face of these realities, there emerged a Kansas aid complex, an overlapping set of institutions and practices that provided settlers with options to receive various forms of aid when they needed it. This system was put to the test in 1860, when the territory was struck by a devastating drought that, over the course of the year, became a famine. I argue that hungry settlers and Natives had expectations that the federal government would intervene on their behalf to prevent outright starvation, but only the treaty claims of the latter proved strong enough an incentive for the Buchanan administration to take any action. White Kansans were ultimately saved by a private aid network, one orchestrated and operated by abolitionists who understood that to keep Kansas fed was to keep it free as well. In 1874, Kansans again looked outward for help, as a “Grasshopper Plague” occurred that summer, bringing many of the same issues to the fore. In 1874-75, I argue, changing demographics on the plains and a significantly more powerful post-Civil War federal government led to a different outcome. Kansans were once again fed, but it was primarily because of the efforts of a group of Army officers stationed throughout the plains. Using promotional literature, travel narratives, diaries, newspapers, and government records, this dissertation reconsiders the “Bleeding Kansas” period, arguing that the divisive politics at the local and national levels concerning Kansas had a critical, heretofore under-examined environmental component. / History
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:harvard.edu/oai:dash.harvard.edu:1/26718737 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Mulcare, Jerad Ross |
| Contributors | Chaplin, Joyce |
| Publisher | Harvard University |
| Source Sets | Harvard University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | embargoed |
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