| |
Native American
inhabitation
The first
people to travel through Iowa were most likely the
Paleo-Indians. These ancient
people travelled through Iowa near the end of the
Ice Age, from 9500 BCE to 7500 BCE,
hunting animals such as the bison,
mammoth, and
mastodon. By 7500 to 5500 BCE—the Early
Archaic period—there
is evidence of a small number of people living in Iowa on a
seasonal basis. These people were the first to have a
sustained presence in Iowa and leave behind artifacts that
prove their existence. By the late Archaic period—2500 to
500 BCE—the population of people living in Iowa increased
and permanent settlements and burial sites began appearing.
The Indians
Before
1673, the region had long been home to many
Native
Americans. Approximately 17 different Indian tribes had
resided here at various times including the
Ioway, Sauk,
Meskwaki (called
Fox in many sources),
Sioux, Potawatomi,
Oto, and
Missouri. The Potawatomi, Oto, and Missouri Indians had
sold their land to the
federal
government by 1830 while the Sauk and Mesquaki remained
in the Iowa region until 1845. The Santee
Band of the Sioux was the last to negotiate a treaty with
the federal government in 1851.
The
Sauk and Mesquaki
constituted the largest and most powerful tribes in the
Upper Mississippi Valley. They had earlier moved from the
Michigan region into
Wisconsin and by the 1730s, they
had relocated in western Illinois.
There they established their villages along the Rock and
Mississippi Rivers. They lived in their main villages only
for a few months each year. At other times, they traveled
throughout western Illinois and eastern Iowa hunting,
fishing, and gathering food and materials with which to make
domestic articles. Every spring, the two tribes traveled
northward into Minnesota where they
tapped maple trees and made syrup.
In 1829,
the federal government informed the two tribes that they
must leave their villages in western Illinois and move
across the Mississippi River into the Iowa region. The
federal government claimed ownership of the Illinois land as
a result of the Treaty
of 1804. The move was made but not without violence.
Chief Black Hawk, a highly
respected Sauk leader, protested the
move and in 1832 returned to reclaim the Illinois village of
Saukenauk. For the next
three months, the Illinois militia pursued Black Hawk and
his band of approximately 400 Indians northward along the
eastern side of the Mississippi River. The Indians
surrendered at the Bad Axe River
in Wisconsin, their numbers having dwindled to about 200.
This encounter is known as the
Black Hawk War. As punishment for their resistance, the
federal government required the Sauk and
Mesquaki to relinquish
some of their land in eastern Iowa. This land, known as the
Black Hawk Purchase,
constituted a strip 50 miles wide lying along the
Mississippi River, stretching from the Missouri border to
approximately Fayette
and Clayton Counties in
Northeastern Iowa.
Today, Iowa
is still home to one Indian group, the
Mesquaki, who reside on
the Mesquaki
Settlement in Tama County.
After most Sauk and Mesquaki members had been removed from
the state, some Mesquaki tribal members, along with a few
Sauk, returned to hunt and fish in eastern Iowa. The Indians
then approached Governor James
Grimes with the request that they be allowed to purchase
back some of their original land. They collected $735 for
their first land purchase and eventually they bought back
approximately 3,200 acres (13 km²).
Iowa's first American settlers
The first
official American settlement in Iowa began in June 1833, in
the Black Hawk Purchase.
Most of Iowa's early settlers came from Ohio, Pennsylvania,
New York, Indiana, Kentucky, and Virginia. The great
majority of newcomers came in family units. Most families
had resided in at least one additional state between the
time they left their state of birth and the time they
arrived in Iowa. Sometimes families had relocated three or
four times before they reached Iowa. At the same time, not
all settlers remained here; many soon moved on to the
Dakotas or other areas in the Great
Plains.
The
settlers soon discovered an environment different from that
which they had known back East. Most northeastern and
southeastern states were heavily timbered; settlers there
had material for building homes, outbuildings, and fences.
Moreover, wood also provided ample fuel. Once past the
extreme eastern portion of Iowa, settlers quickly discovered
that the state was primarily a prairie
or tall grass region. Trees grew abundantly in the extreme
eastern and southeastern portions, and along rivers and
streams, but elsewhere timber was limited.
In most
portions of eastern and central Iowa, settlers could find
sufficient timber for construction of
log cabins, but substitute materials had to be found for
fuel and fencing. For fuel, they turned to dried prairie
hay, corn cobs, and
dried animal droppings. In southern Iowa, early settlers
found coal outcroppings along rivers and streams. People
moving into northwest Iowa, an area also devoid of trees,
constructed sod houses. Some of
the early sod house residents wrote in glowing terms about
their new quarters, insisting that "soddies" were not only
cheap to build but were warm in the winter and cool in the
summer. They did not praise the bugs, the smells, or the
ever-present dirt, dampness and darkness.
Settlers
experimented endlessly with substitute fencing materials.
Some residents built stone fences; some constructed dirt
ridges; others dug ditches. The most successful fencing
material was the osage orange
hedge until the 1870s when the invention of
barbed wire provided farmers with
satisfactory fencing material.
Transportation: railroad fever
As
thousands of settlers poured into Iowa in the mid-19th
century, all shared a common concern for the development of
adequate transportation. The
earliest settlers shipped their agricultural goods down the
Mississippi River to
New Orleans, Louisiana,
but by the 1850s, Iowans had caught the nation's
railroad fever. The nation's first
railroad had been built near Baltimore in 1831, and by 1860,
Chicago, Illinois was
served by almost a dozen lines. Iowans, like other
Midwesterners, were anxious to
start railroad building in their state.
In the
early 1850s, city officials in the river communities of
Dubuque,
Clinton,
Davenport, and
Burlington began to organize
local railroad companies. City
officials knew that railroads building west from Chicago
would soon reach the
Mississippi River opposite the four Iowa cities. With
the 1850s, railroad planning took place which eventually
resulted in the development of the
Illinois Central, the
Chicago and
North Western Railway, reaching
Council Bluffs in 1867.
Council Bluffs had been designated as the eastern terminus
for the Union Pacific, the
railroad that would eventually extend across the western
half of the nation and along with the
Central Pacific, provide the
nation's first
transcontinental railroad. A short time later a fifth
railroad, the
Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, also
completed its line across the state.
The
completion of five railroads across Iowa brought major
economic changes. Of primary importance, Iowans could travel
every month of the year. During the latter 19th and early
20th centuries, even small Iowa towns had six passenger
trains a day. Steamboats and
stagecoaches had previously
provided transportation, but both were highly dependent on
the weather, and steam boats could not travel at all once
the rivers had frozen over. Railroads
also provided year-round transportation for Iowa's farmers.
With Chicago's pre-eminence
as a railroad center, the corn,
wheat, beef, and
pork raised by Iowa's farmers could be
shipped through Chicago, across the nation to eastern
seaports, and from there, anywhere in
the world.
Railroads
also brought major changes in Iowa's industrial sector.
Before 1870, Iowa contained some manufacturing firms in the
eastern portion of the state, particularly all made possible
by year-around railroad transportation. Many of the new
industries were related to
agriculture. In Cedar
Rapids, John and Robert Stuart, along with their cousin,
George Douglas, started an
oats processing plant. In time, this firm
took the name Quaker Oats.
Meat packing plants also
appeared in the 1870s in different parts of the state:
Sinclair Meat
Packing opened in Cedar Rapids, Booge and Company
started in Sioux City, and
John Morrell
and Company set up operations in
Ottumwa.
The Civil War
Iowa became
a state on (December 28,
1846, the 29th state), and the state
continued to attract many settlers, both native and
foreign-born. Only the extreme northwestern part of the
state remained a frontier area.
Iowa
supported the Union during the American Civil War, voting
heavily for Lincoln and the Republicans, though there was a
strong antiwar "Copperhead"
movement among settlers of southern origins and among
Catholics. There were no battles in the state, but Iowa sent
large supplies of food to the armies and the eastern cities.
More than 75,000 Iowa men served, many in combat unites
attached to the western armies. 13,001 died of wounds or
(two-thirds) of disease. 8,500 Iowa men were wounded.
The political arena
The
Civil War era brought
considerable change to Iowa and perhaps one of the most
visible changes came in the political arena. During the
1840's, most Iowans voted
Democratic although the state also contained some
Whigs. During the
1850s, however, the state's Democratic Party developed
serious internal problems as well as being unsuccessful in
getting the national Democratic Party to respond to their
needs. Iowans soon turned to the newly emerging
Republican Party. The new party opposed slavery and
promoted land ownership, banking, and railroads. The
political career of James Grimes
illustrates this change. In 1854, Iowans elected Grimes
governor on the Whig ticket. Two years later, Iowans elected
Grimes governor on the Republican ticket. Grimes would later
serve as a Republican United States Senator from Iowa.
Republicans took over state politics in the 1850s and
quickly instigated several changes. They moved the state
capital from Iowa City to
Des Moines, established the
University of Iowa and
they wrote a new state constitution.
During the Civil War, many Democrats supported the anti-war
Copperhead movement.
From the
late 1850s until well into the 20th century, Iowans remained
largely Republican. Only once, in 1889, did Democrats elect
a governor, Horace Boies who was
reelected in 1891. Their secret was winning increased
support from the "wet" (anti-prohibition) Germans.
Historically, the Democrats were strongest in German areas,
especially along the Mississippi River. Thus, the German
Catholic city of Dubuque continues to be a Democratic
stronghold. Meanwhile, the Yankees and Scandinavians (and
Quakers) were overwhelmingly Republican.
Several
Republicans took leadership positions in Washington,
particularly Senators
William Boyd Allison,
Jonathan P. Dolliver, and
Albert Baird Cummins, as
well as Speaker of the House David Henderson.
Women put
women's suffrage on Iowa's
agenda, particularly the
Woman's Christian temperance Union. In keeping with the
general reform mood of the latter 1860s and 1870s, the issue
first received serious consideration when both houses of the
General Assembly passed a women's suffrage
amendment in 1870.
Two years later, however, when the legislature had to
consider the amendment again before it could be submitted to
the general electorate, interest had waned, opposition had
developed, and the amendment was defeated. Finally, in 1920,
Iowa got woman suffrage with the rest of the country.
Iowa: home for immigrants
Following
the Civil War, Iowa's population continued to grow
dramatically, from 674,913 people in 1860 to 1,194,020 in
1870. Moreover, the ethnic composition of Iowa's population
also changed substantially. Before the Civil War, Iowa had
attracted some foreign-born settlers, but the number
remained small. After the Civil War, the number of
immigrants increased. In 1869, the state encouraged
immigration by printing a 96-page booklet entitled Iowa:
The Home of Immigrants. The publication gave physical,
social, educational, and political descriptions of Iowa. The
legislature instructed that the booklet be published in
English,
German,
Dutch,
Swedish, and
Danish.
Iowa's rich
farmlands and prosperous cities succeeded in attracting more
immigrants. Germans
constituted the largest group, settling in every county, but
especially along the Mississippi River. The great majority
became farmers, but many also became craftsmen and
shopkeepers. Dubuque and Davenport were their centers.
Moreover, a few edited newspapers, taught school, or headed
banks. The largest groups were Iowa Synod Lutherans,
Missourti Synod Lutherans, and Roman Catholics, along with
some Methodists and Baptists. Germans exhibited the greatest
diversity in occupations, religion, and geographical
settlement.
Iowa also
attracted many other people from Europe, including
Swedes, Norwegians,
Danes, Dutch,
and many emigrants from the British
Isles. After 1900, people also emigrated from southern
and eastern Europe. In many instances, immigrant groups were
identified with particular locations and even occupations.
The Scandinavians, including
Norwegians, who settled in Winneshiek and Story Counties;
Swedes, who settled in Boone County; and Danes, who settled
in southwestern Iowa; were largely associated with
farming. The Dutch made two major
settlements in Iowa, the first in
Marion County, and the
second in northwest Iowa.
Many
southern and eastern immigrants, particularly
Italians and
Croats, went into coal mines scattered throughout
central and southern Iowa. Beginning around 1925, however,
the Iowa coal industry began to decline. By the mid-1950s
only a few underground mines remained in the state.
The
majority of African Americans
who migrated to Iowa during the late 19th and early 20th
centuries also worked as coal miners. Before the
Civil War, Iowa had only a
small African American population, but in the 1880s that
number increased considerably. Many of the early African
Americans were hired as
strike breakers
by Iowa coal operators. In later decades, however, coal
companies hired African Americans as regular miners.
Vast changes
In 1917,
the United States entered
World War I and farmers as well
as all Iowans experienced a wartime economy. For farmers,
the change was significant. Since the beginning of the war
in 1914, Iowa farmers had experienced economic prosperity.
Along with farmers everywhere, they were urged to be
patriotic by increasing their production. Farmers purchased
more land and raised more corn,
beef, and pork for
the war effort. It seemed that no one could lose as farmers
expanded their operations, made more money, and at the same
time, helped the Allied war effort.
After the
war, however, Iowa farmers soon saw wartime
farm subsidies eliminated.
Beginning in 1920, many farmers had difficulty making the
payment for debts they had incurred during the war. The
1920s were a time of hardship for Iowa's farm families and
for many families, these hardships carried over into the
1930s.
As economic
difficulties worsened, Iowa farmers sought to find local
solutions. Faced with extremely low farm prices, including
corn at 10 cents a bushel and pork at three cents a pound,
some Iowa farmers joined the
Farm Holiday
Association. This group, which had its greatest strength
in the area around Sioux City,
tried to withhold farm products from markets. They believed
this practice would force up farm prices. The Farm Holiday
Association had only limited success as many farmers did not
cooperate and the withholding itself did little to raise
prices. Farmers experienced little relief until 1933 when
the federal government, as part of
Franklin D. Roosevelt's
New Deal, created a federal farm aid
program.
In 1933,
native Iowan Henry A. Wallace
went to Washington as
Secretary
of Agriculture and served as principle architect for the
new farm program. Wallace, former editor of the Midwest's
leading farm journal,
Wallace's Farmer,
believed that prosperity would return to the agricultural
sector only if agricultural production was curtailed.
Further, he believed that farmers would be monetarily
compensated for withholding agricultural land from
production. These two principles were incorporated into the
Agricultural
Adjustment Act passed in 1933. Iowa farmers experienced
some recovery as a result of the legislation but like all
Iowans, they did not experience total recovery until the
1940s. It should be noted that Iowa's only Nobel Peace Prize
Winner, Norman Borlaug was
launched in his researches in plant genomics by funding and
research through Iowa State
University developing strains of rice in Mexico and
which emanated from the work of Henry Wallace. Wallace and
Borlaug's work helped create the now internationally
significant agricultural concern
Pioneer Hi-Bred a division of DuPont.
The jury is still out on all developments long term in the
manipulation of foods for higher productivity, there are
those who aggressively object to the manipulation of the
genetic codes of the agricultural substrate, but it is
certainly a very significant development in human
agricultural history.
Since World
War II, Iowans have continued to undergo considerable
economic, political, and social change. In the political
area, Iowans experienced a major change in the 1960s when
liquor by the drink came into effect.
During both the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
Iowans had strongly supported
prohibition, but, in 1933, with the repeal of national
prohibition, Iowans established a state liquor commission.
This group was charged with control and regulation of Iowa's
liquor sales. From 1933 until the early 1960s, Iowans could
purchase packaged liquor only. In the 1970s, Iowans
witnessed a reapportionment of the
General Assembly,
achieved only after a long struggle for an
equitably-apportioned state legislature. Another major
political change was in regard to voting. By the mid-1950s,
Iowa had developed a fairly competitive two-party structure,
ending almost 100 years of
Republican
domination within the state.
In the
economic sector, Iowa also has undergone considerable
change. Beginning with the first farm-related industries
developed in the 1870s, Iowa has experienced a gradual
increase in the number of business and manufacturing
operations. The period since World War II has witnessed a
particular increase in manufacturing operations. While
agriculture continues to be the state's dominant industry,
Iowans also produce a wide variety of products including
refrigerators,
washing machines,
fountain pens,
farm implements, and
food products that
are shipped around the world.
State
Index |
Information
|
Fast Facts
|
Geography
|
Government
|
Economy |
History
|
|
