Women Homesteaders

(Encyclopedia of the Great Plains) Thousands of women took advantage of the Homestead Act (1862) that offered free land in the American Great Plains. Women who were single, widowed, divorced, or deserted were eligible to acquire 160 acres of federal land in their own name. The law discriminated against women who were married. A married woman was not allowed to take land in her own name unless she was considered the head of the household. The majority of homesteading women were young (at least twenty-one), single, and interested in adventure and the possibility of economic gain. Continued