Howard Ruede was twenty-two years old in March of 1877 when he rode on a freight wagon into Osborne City, a community in west-central Kansas. A young man of courage, common sense, and independence, Ruede was filled with the optimism and determination typical of the men and women who took up the challenge of homesteading on the prairie. Brought together by economist John Ise and first published in 1937, Sod-House Days is a collection of the letters Ruede wrote to his family in Pennsylvania chronicling his first year in ...
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Howard Ruede was twenty-two years old in March of 1877 when he rode on a freight wagon into Osborne City, a community in west-central Kansas. A young man of courage, common sense, and independence, Ruede was filled with the optimism and determination typical of the men and women who took up the challenge of homesteading on the prairie. Brought together by economist John Ise and first published in 1937, Sod-House Days is a collection of the letters Ruede wrote to his family in Pennsylvania chronicling his first year in Kansas. In minute detail these letters show the hard, wearying work faced by homesteaders in the 1870s, their almost unbelievable poverty, the hardships of poor food, inadequate clothing, crowding, unsanitary conditions, the lack of decent drinking water, the bedbugs and fleas, flies and mosquitoes. We see Ruede struggling to stay out of debt, walking miles to pick up the mail or to visit a neighbor, working until his bare feet are rubbed raw by the wheat stubble of the fields, going without meat because he hasn't been able to kill a jackrabbit, cooking biscuits in a kettle over his sod fireplace. Taken together, his observations constitute a careful and graphic picture of the pioneer community in which he lived, one that joins recent studies such as Sandra Myres's Westering Women and the Frontier Experience in presenting an accurate, if brutal, picture of life on the western frontier. In a perceptive new foreword, sociologist Scott G. McNall considers the context within which the story of Howard Ruede unfolded. He delineates the forces and factors that contributed to the rapid settlement of the Great Plains. He reads the dominant themes that run through Ruede's letters: an almost religious faith in progress and hard work, and a tremendous concern for the idea of community. He also addresses a central question: What made these people stay? McNall writes, "The value of these materials has been not at all reduced by the passage of time. . . . [This] is the story of an ordinary person with heroic dimensions. Reading these letters, we see what values people had which allowed them to try, and then try again, after they had seen their efforts destroyed by drought, grasshoppers, prairie fires, and other disasters. . . . It is a story of struggle with the environment, of creative adaption to circumstance, of people as active participants in creating the society around them."
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Add this copy of Sod-House Days: Letters From a Kansas Homesteader, 1877 to cart. $3.74, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Emerald rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 1983 by University Press of Kansas.
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Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Add this copy of Sod-House Days: Letters From a Kansas Homesteader, 1877 to cart. $4.62, good condition, Sold by Reliant Bookstore rated 1.0 out of 5 stars, ships from El Dorado, KS, UNITED STATES, published 1983 by University Press of Kansas.
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This book is in good condition with very minimal damage. Pages may have minimal notes or highlighting. Cover image on the book may vary from photo. Ships out quickly in a secure plastic mailer.
Add this copy of Sod-House Days: Letters From a Kansas Homesteader, 1877 to cart. $4.62, fair condition, Sold by Reliant Bookstore rated 1.0 out of 5 stars, ships from El Dorado, KS, UNITED STATES, published 1983 by University Press of Kansas.
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Fair. This book is a well used but readable copy. This is an ex-library book with stickers and markings. Integrity of the book is still intact with no missing pages. May have notes or highlighting. Cover image on the book may vary from photo. Ships out quickly in a secure plastic mailer.
Add this copy of Sod-House Days: Letters From a Kansas Homesteader, 1877 to cart. $4.87, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Ruby rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 1983 by University Press of Kansas.
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Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Add this copy of Sod-House Days: Letters from a Kansas Homesteader, 1877 to cart. $5.85, good condition, Sold by Cortezhill Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from San Diego, CA, UNITED STATES, published 1983 by University Press of Kansas.
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Routon, David F. Good. cover rub marks, dents, and smudges. back cover bend marks and bent corners. edge nicks and wear. minor page corner wear. no marks on text. 238 pages, 8 1/2" x 5 1/2", The picture presented by these letters is that of a community which has passed the stage of buffalo hunting and Indian fighting and had settled down to the undramatic life of earning a living and perhaps a small fortune from the soil. It is the hope of these letters will serve as a corrective to the notion, so generally propagated by writers on pioneer life, that pioneering was great fun, an interesting and exciting adventure. The dramatic aspects of life of even the first wave of pioneers-the hunters and Indian fighters-have generally been exaggerated. The life of the settlers who followed was in most respects almost inconceivably hard, dreary, monotonous, and uninteresting. Most of the settlers had of course the hope of some day owning their own farm, and this hope buoyed them on, but the conditions under which they lived would otherwise have been almost intolerable.
Add this copy of Sod-House Days: Letters From a Kansas Homesteader, 1877 to cart. $5.99, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Diamond rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 1983 by University Press of Kansas.
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Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Add this copy of Sod-House Days: Letters From a Kansas Homesteader, 1877 to cart. $11.95, like new condition, Sold by Michael Patrick McCarty, Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from New Castle, CO, UNITED STATES, published 1983 by University Press of Kansas.
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Like New. Size: 5x0x8; Howard Ruede was twenty-two years old in March of 1877 when he rode on a freight wagon into Osborne City, a community in west-central Kansas. A young man of courage, common sense, and independence, Ruede was filled with the optimism and determination typical of the men and women who took up the challenge of homesteading on the prairie. Brought together by economist John Ise and first published in 1937, Sod-House Days is a collection of the letters Ruede wrote to his family in Pennsylvania chronicling his first year in Kansas. In minute detail these letters show the hard, wearying work faced by homesteaders in the 1870s, their almost unbelievable poverty, the hardships of poor food, inadequate clothing, crowding, unsanitary conditions, the lack of decent drinking water, the bedbugs and fleas, flies and mosquitoes. We see Ruede struggling to stay out of debt, walking miles to pick up the mail or to visit a neighbor, working until his bare feet are rubbed raw by the wheat stubble of the fields, going without meat because he hasn't been able to kill a jackrabbit, cooking biscuits in a kettle over his sod fireplace. Taken together, his observations constitute a careful and graphic picture of the pioneer community in which he lived, one that joins recent studies such as Sandra Myres's Westering Women and the Frontier Experience in presenting an accurate, if brutal, picture of life on the western frontier.
Add this copy of Sod-House Days: Letters from a Kansas Homesteader, 1877 to cart. $26.83, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 1983 by University Press of Kansas.
