At Home on the Range

The nine essays presented by John R. Wunder collectively expose the domestic and technological details of American pioneer life on the High Plains. The essays, each written by a leading authority in the field, examine such topics as early ranching and farming in the Rio Grande Valley and the Staked Plains; the impact on Native American and settler women of life on the agricultural frontier; the response to perceived threats by agriculturalists after the Civil War; and the agriculturalists' entry into the twentieth century via their response to cultural change. The final chapter, a speech made in 1890 by a Scottish traveller, contains a contemporary observation of the real and mythical qualities of life on the frontier.