Describes the struggles that pioneer settlers who established farms on the Plains faced. Without trees, they had to build homes using sod and cow dung. Temperatures were extreme and farms were isolated, making life lonely.

Read about how the homesteaders on the American frontier added a little levity to their otherwise harsh frontier life, and in particular how women, how spent much time at home, worked to add variety to their lives. From a companion essay...

An essay on how farmers and ranchers lived and created communities in Colorado in the late nineteenth century. This was the period following the initial migrations of pioneers and homesteaders into the West.

In 1800 most of the 35,000 pioneers in Upper Canada lived on farms. This map shows where the earliest pioneers settled.

Rediscover the complex life and legacy of the author, advocate and human rights pioneer. Helen Keller (1880-1968), who was deaf and blind since childhood, used her celebrity and wit to advocate for social justice, particularly for women,...

Kids learn about the daily life on the frontier of the Old West. This site explores how pioneers and settlers lived.

Strawberry Moon, a novel by Becky Citra, continues to follow the life of Ellie, a young girl living in Upper Canada in the 1830s. For this story, her strict grandmother has come to take her back to England and Ellie doesn't want to go....

A profile of Lee de Forest who lived from 1873 to 1961. He was one of the most important inventors of radio and electronic technology, whose inventions touch everyday life.

8th grade students at the Pioneer Charter School in Fort Collins, Colorado, each created a historical character file (HCF) as part of a Learning Expedition on slavery. Each HCF is a fictionalized account of a historically/geographically...

A biography of Mary Maverick, who lived along the Texas frontier after the Texas Revolution. Her diaries of her life as a frontier woman provide firsthand accounts of historic events from that time.