About the Collection
In the midst of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln signed into law the Homestead Act of 1862. This act opened up public land in in the West for farmers wanting to build new lives on land of their own. The Homestead Act granted 160 acres of land to any United States citizen who was willing to settle and farm the land. The law required the recipient to file an application, improve the land, and then file for the deed. The recipient also had to be at least 21 years of age or the head of the household, and women were eligible to file as well. The recipient had to reside on the land for five years and show evidence of having made improvements on the land before being able to receive the deed of land. The majority of the land deeded through the Homestead Act of 1862 and its subsequent acts and amendments was west of the Mississippi River. In total, over 1.6 million homesteaders settled over 270 million acres of land through these acts between the years of 1862 and 1976.
The Homestead Act Digital Library was created for educators to use as supplemental materials for lessons covering the Homestead Act, Westward Expansion, and Settling the West. Both primary and secondary sources are available for use by teachers and their students as well as lesson plans centered around the Homestead Act and Westward Expansion.
Disclaimer: This digital library is an educational project of a student from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Library and Information Science Program class LIS 676 Creating Digital Libraries. All of the content used was purposefully aimed to be under public domain and open access license and collected from other digital libraries that have explicitly stated such terms of reuse of content. This digital library was created only to demonstrate learning objectives of the class. This digital library was under no circumstance intending to breach copyright. In case you think this library has done so, please contact us ASAP, and we will make sure to remove the questionable content in the shortest possible period.