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Palouse People | Women Homesteaders of the Palouse – with Kathy Meyer
March 21 @ 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
In celebration of Women’s History Month, Kathy Meyer will discuss some of the women who homesteaded on the Palouse on their own, whose hard work and endurance—and indeed their very names—historians have only just begun to study.
Did you know that nearly twenty percent of homesteaders in the Mid-west and West were single women, divorcees, and widows? The Homestead Act, signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1962, granted 160 acres of unappropriated public land to anyone of any race who was the head of a household—mostly men. Each prospective homesteader had to be a US citizen or intending to be one, to pay a small filing fee, to agree to farm and live on the land for five years, and “improve” the land by building a home and fenced area. Single men and women over 21 were also eligible, but married women were not.
Thursday, March 21, 7-8 p.m.
In the Freight Room (next to the Train Cars)
