From the Ground Up

In order to explore the epic collision between European immigration and Native American land dispossession, Hansen seeks to unearth new source materials. By centering her inquiry on the Northern Plains between 1890 and 1930, she investigates what can be learned from oral histories, family stories, land records, newspapers, photographs, and government documents. These local, particular sources illuminate worldviews, struggles, and triumphs, informing and sometimes contradicting commonly held assumptions about the contest over land in the American west and the people who lived it.