Full Citation
Title: Land Use and Family Formation in the Settlement of the US Great Plains
Citation Type: Journal Article
Publication Year: 2012
ISBN:
ISSN:
DOI:
NSFID:
PMCID:
PMID:
Abstract: In agricultural settings, environment shapes patterns of settlement and land use. Using the Great Plains of the United States during the period of its initial Euro-American settlement (18801940) as an analytic lens, this article explores whether the same environmental factors that determine settlement timing and land usethose that indicate suitability for crop-based agriculturealso shape initial family formation, resulting in fewer and smaller families in areas that are more conducive to livestock raising than to cropping. The connection between family size and agricultural land availability is now well known, but the role of the environment has not previously been explicitly tested. Descriptive analysis offers initial support for a distinctive pattern of family formation in the western Great Plains, where precipitation is too low to support intensive cropping. However, multivariate analysis using county-level data at 10-year intervals offers only partial support to the hypothesis that environmental characteristics produce these differences. Rather, this analysis has found that the region was also subject to the same long-term social and demographic changes sweeping the rest of the country during this period.
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Deane, Glenn D.; Pullum-Pin, Sara M.; Gutmann, Myron P.; Merchant, Emily; Witkowski, Kristine
Periodical (Full): Social Science History
Issue: 3
Volume: 36
Pages: 279-310
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Family and Marriage, Migration and Immigration
Countries: