Railroads changed agriculture. As railways linked farms to a wider commercial world, city dwellers could buy fruits and vegetables year-round. Farms became commercialized, often specializing in single crops and tied to the ups and downs...

The Wessels Living History Farm of York County, Nebraska, offers a look at what it was like to live on a Great Plains farm in the 1920s. The farm's attractive and well organized website includes interviews with people who remember life...

Student-friendly site explaining the history of farming. The section on farming today and tomorrow gives viewers the opportunity to see pigs being born. Requires QuickTime plug-in.

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.

Because of World War II, life changed for farmers in the 1940s. Many farmers left the farm for the cities or to serve in the military, new technologies were developed, and equipment improved making the work in fields easier and quicker.

During the hard economic times of the 1930s, farm families turned to low-cost entertainment such as barn dances. By listening to personal stories, discover what farm life was like during the Great Depression.

Electrifying rural America revolutionized farm life. Read about how the Rural Electrification Administration was instituted and what had to be done to encourage rural families to form electric co-ops. Included is an interview with a...

Find photographs, brief videos, and commentary about what loans from the Farm Security Administration meant to poor farmers during the Great Depression.

Find a summary of the benefits offered to veterans of World War II through the GI Bill. See how college attendance was affected by the return of veterans and their enrollment in post-secondary education.

The Mississippian and Oneota cultures were the first true farmers in the Mississippi Valley. Read about their transition from hunting and gathering, and see what differences in their life styles farming brought about. Find a chart that...

Kenyon College provides information about the Adena and Hopewell Indians and how Native Americans farmed, followed by comprehension questions.

Evening bats that roost together seem to share information about the location of rich foraging patches and alternative roosting sites. When they forage on farms, they are a boon to farmers, because the bats eat cucumber beetles (the...

One of Alberta's greater known inventors, Charles Noble, is explored through his biography and his impact on soil erosion, the invention of the "Noble Blade" and the history of Nobleford, a community in southern Alberta named for him.

This information about the Homestead Act and homesteaders has been garnered from the National Park Service. Use the links at the bottom to find out about the history of the Act, the lives of the homesteaders, and what a tall grass...