-
Preemption Act of 1841
The Preemption Act of 1841, federally approved September 4th, enabled easy selling of frontier lands and "preemption rights" for those who were living on lands before they were up for sale, enabling squatters to keep the land they had developed. The act was an example of Jeffersonian agrarian ideals coming to fruition and enabled widespread settlement of the American old west. -
Home by the Lake
In 1852, Frederic Edwin Church finished his painting "Home by the Lake," which depicts a free family in a homestead on land that is being rapidly developed. The man of the house is depicted hunting in the lake, with already hunted game in his boat. The fields behind the house are shown as being cleared for development, which engenders a northern view of settlement as that by free laborers and individual families rather than southern planter elites with large plantations. -
The Backwoods of America
Jasper Francis Cropsey finishes his painting "The Backwoods of America," depicting an idealized homestead on the frontier. Political forces such as the Free Soiler party during the 1840s and the Republican party during the 1850s sought to enable individual settlement of frontier land by families and free laborers. -
Homestead Act
The Homestead Act eased the process for acquiring lands, compared to the Preemption Act. Grants of 160 acres of federal land in the west were handed out to American citizens at little or no cost. The Homestead Act came just before the Civil War, and enabled rapid development of lands west of the Mississippi River. -
Landscape
Landscape by Robert Scott Duncanson presents an environment in which nature still grows unchecked. The only evidence of human habitation are primitive wooden paddle rafts on the river. This was an idyllic vision that did not necessarily represent reality - the Homestead Act of 1862 enabled development of the frontier faster than ever before.
