Summary

This chapter is titled “A Stretch of Gravel with Wheat on Either Side.” The author begins by tracing the history of land in the Great Plains being turned into a commodity. She comments on how early settlers and later the government manipulated Native American populations into giving up the land they had occupied for centuries, using the term “genocide” (87) to describe this process. She also comments on how most early settlers were poor, and how many either ended their lives out of frustration or moved on. Her family, she adds, did neither. They stayed and endured trials like the Great Depression in the 1930’s and the industrialization of the region that led so many farm families to move to the cities. Finally, she describes how the manipulations of governments and banks shaped the financial systems within which many farmers operated, and how those...