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Constituent state of the United States of America. The Missouri River forms the eastern boundary with Iowa and Missouri and about a fourth of the northern boundary with South Dakota. The southern boundary with Kansas was established when the two territories were created by the Kansas–Nebraska Act in 1854, legislation that heightened the sectional hostilities which exploded into the Civil War. A majority of Nebraskans today live close to the Missouri and Platte Rivers, leaving much of the state's 77,355 square miles (200,350 square kilometres) lightly populated. Lincoln, in the southeastern part of the state, is the capital.
One of the west central states of the United States, Nebraska during the first 60 years of the 19th century was primarily a water and land route to the rich trapping country to the north and west and the settlement and mining frontiers of the mountain and Pacific regions. With the development of railroads after the Civil War and the consequent immigrations, however, the excellent soils of Nebraska were plowed, and its grasslands gave rise to a range cattle industry. As a result, the state has been, almost since its admission to the Union on March 1, 1867, as the 37th state, a major producer of food commodities.
Rivers have been important to Nebraska's geography and settlement. The Missouri was a major highway to the trans-Mississippi West in the early 19th century. Although less well known, the Platte River has also played a significant role in Nebraska's history. In fact, the name Nebraska is derived from an Indian word meaning “flat water,” a reference to the Platte, which served as a magnet for urban clusters across the state. The river is formed by the confluence of the North and South Platte rivers, both of which rise in Colorado on the southwest, although the North Platte swings northward through Wyoming, on the west, before entering Nebraska.
Agriculture is basic to Nebraska's economy, but only one-tenth of its labour force is employed directly in farming or ranching. Economic conditions have had a direct bearing on the state's political life, including a brief period of protest through the agrarian-oriented People's (Populist) Party during the 1890s. Although Nebraska traditionally has been a Republican stronghold, the Democrats also have been an important political force.
![The Midwest. [Credit: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.]](http://images.bookrags.com/images/eb/4839.gif) The Midwest. [Credit: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.]
Nebraska comprises parts of two physiographic regions, the till plains of the Central Lowland (in the eastern third) and the Great Plains.
The elevation rises from a minimum of 840 feet (256 metres) above sea level in the southeast to a maximum of 5,426 feet (1,654 metres) near the Colorado–Wyoming boundaries. Much of the land is gently rolling prairie, although the river valleys, much of south central Nebraska, and a large portion of the panhandle district are flatlands. The Sand Hills country of north central and northwestern Nebraska is a vast, treeless, grass-covered region that comprises almost one-fourth of the area of the state.
Nebraska lies within the Missouri River drainage system; the Platte, the major Nebraska tributary, joins the Missouri south of Omaha. Although shallow and unnavigable, the Platte is vital to the state's irrigation. The Elkhorn River enters the Platte west of Omaha, and the Loup River, formed by three tributaries flowing out of the Sand Hills, also discharges into the Platte. The Republican and Big Blue rivers flow through southern Nebraska, emptying into the Missouri in Kansas via the Kansas (Kaw) River. The Niobrara, a swift-moving stream that rises in the high country just west of the Wyoming border, flows across extreme northern Nebraska. The state also has a vast supply of groundwater that has made possible the extensive development of well irrigation.
All of Nebraska's soils are excellent for agriculture. The prairie soils of the southeast and the humous soils of central and northeastern Nebraska are highly suitable for general farming. South of the Platte and west of the prairie soil area, the soil is best suited to small-grain production. Winter wheat adapts to the soil and marginal precipitation of western Nebraska. The wind-deposited soil of the Sand Hills, because of limited precipitation and the danger of erosion, is suited solely to cattle grazing. With many small lakes and luxuriant grasses, the Sand Hills area is a superb rangeland. The alluvial soils of the Missouri and Platte river valleys and the valleys of smaller streams are outstanding for raising corn (maize) and other crops.
Hot winds from the southwest often push summer temperatures in Nebraska above 90° F (32° C) and sometimes above 100° F (38° C). Average July temperatures range from 73° F (23° C) in the panhandle to 78° F (26° C) in the southeast. In the winter northwestern winds often bring in Arctic air masses from Canada, and temperatures commonly fall well below 0° F (−18° C). Low-pressure systems, moving out of the southwestern states, sometimes bring great blizzards to the state and pose a danger to travelers and stock raisers. Average January temperatures vary from 24° F (−4° C) in the panhandle to about 20° F (−7° C) in the northeast. The average growing season is 168 days in the southeast and 133 days in the panhandle. The average annual precipitation varies from 33 inches (840 millimetres) in the southeast to less than 16 inches in the extreme west. Since a minimum of 20 inches is usually considered necessary for normal crop production, approximately one-half of Nebraska may be considered semiarid. Irrigation is used extensively in eastern and central Nebraska and is essential to certain types of agriculture in the western part of the state.
A wide variety of grasses originally covered Nebraska's prairies, and the slopes of the river valleys were well covered with deciduous trees. Cottonwood, elm, and some oak and walnut are found along the bluffs of eastern Nebraska, while conifers grow in the Wild Cat and Pine Ridge highlands and the Niobrara valley. The Nebraska National Forest in west central Nebraska resulted from a human effort to bring trees to the barren plains. Until their near extermination at the hands of whites, bison roamed widely over the Nebraska plains. Some of these animals remain in their natural habitat on the Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge, near Valentine. Antelope and deer are also native to the state, as are prairie dogs, coyotes, jackrabbits, skunks, and squirrels. Migratory birds and pheasants are common.
According to federal law, the land was surveyed into townships, six miles (10 kilometres) square and containing 36 sections; the section, comprising 640 acres (259 hectares), was the basic unit of land. This gridlike survey system remains a basic feature of Nebraska's landscape. Most of the towns and villages were located close to rivers, streams, and timber. A number of them developed as railroad terminals, but changing patterns of transportation brought about growth for some communities and stagnation or oblivion for many others.
Economics, geography, and politics created certain sectional distinctions within Nebraska. The placement of the capital of Nebraska Territory at Omaha so enraged the people south of the Platte that they sought annexation to Kansas, and in 1867 the state capital was moved to Lincoln, south of the Platte. Both Lincoln and Omaha emerged as major regional hubs, but, because these cities are located at the eastern end of the state, western Nebraskans often regard Denver, Colo., as their major service centre.
In addition to the Americans who came to Nebraska, large numbers of European immigrants settled in the state during the late 19th century. From 1866 to 1877 the Nebraska State Board of Immigration employed an agent in Europe to recruit settlers. The Burlington and Union Pacific railroads made much greater efforts than did the state government in this direction. The largest immigrant group was the Germans, who in 1890 numbered 72,000; immigrants from the Scandinavian countries (particularly Sweden), Bohemia, and the British Isles also made important contributions to the settlement of Nebraska.
As a result of the European influx, Nebraska was not molded in the traditional Anglo-American form that had characterized much of the nation's earlier development. Large numbers of Roman Catholics from Bohemia, Germany, and Ireland and Lutherans from Germany and Scandinavia gave diversity to the religious and secular life of Nebraska. Although the linguistic identity of the non-English-speaking groups faded away, other aspects of their diverse cultural heritage have survived.
With the opening of the territory to settlement in 1854, the federal government created a reservation for the Omaha Indians in northeastern Nebraska, part of which subsequently was made into a reservation for the Winnebago people, recently displaced from Wisconsin. Some of Minnesota's Santee Sioux also went to a reservation in northeastern Nebraska. (The Omaha-Winnebago and the Santee Sioux reservations still exist.) In the 1870s the Oto-Missouri, Pawnee, and Ponca peoples, after living on reservations in Nebraska, were removed to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). By 1878 the Dakota (Sioux) had given up their agencies in northwestern Nebraska and were located on reservations just over the border in Dakota Territory (now South Dakota). In the early 20th century the implementation of federal legislation permitting reservation Indians to hold land titles, rather than fostering the benefits of private ownership by native peoples, often resulted in quick and unseemly transfers of real estate to land-hungry whites. About one-third of Nebraska's native people now live in Omaha and Lincoln. Other Indians are concentrated on the reservations and in areas of the Nebraska panhandle.
Blacks came to Nebraska early in the history of the state. Most settled in Omaha, which by 1900 had a black population of more than 3,400, a figure that by the late 20th century had increased more than 10-fold. Blacks were concentrated north of downtown Omaha in an area that increasingly became characterized by the social and economic problems common to the ghettos of other large cities. This core of the black community has declined markedly in population, however, as many blacks have moved to adjacent neighbourhoods. Racial disturbances in Omaha in the 1960s emphasized the need for improved economic opportunities and better police–community relations. Omaha's black community has long had representation in the legislature.
The most striking trend in Nebraska's demography has been the steady decline of the population of the rural areas and the marked growth of the cities and their suburbs. Urban growth has been stimulated by the mechanization of agriculture, which brought about the working of more land by fewer persons, decreases in the number of farms, and increases in average farm sizes. Similarly, most small towns, reliant upon the local farm trade, have continued to lose population, a condition undoubtedly hastened by a modern highway system that has enlarged the trade areas of the cities. Rural schools, hospitals, and other institutions have been forced to adjust accordingly. Although employment opportunities have been diminishing in rural Nebraska, there has been an increase in the number of work opportunities in manufacturing, notably in the Platte valley with its excellent highway transportation, as well as in the state's major cities.
Nebraska's economic development is heavily dependent upon private investment from outside its borders. The state Department of Economic Development was established in 1967 to bring new industry to Nebraska. In addition, a law passed in 1987 provides tax incentives for the development of business and industry. Wholesale and retail trade and other services, manufacturing, transportation, and agriculture are the major sources of income. The state generally has been conservative in labour matters and ranks low nationally in the percentage of unionized nonagricultural workers. Nebraska has a right-to-work law that forbids compulsory union membership.
Nebraska remains a leading agricultural producer. The principal crops are corn, sorghum, soybeans, hay, and wheat. Nebraska ranks high among the states in the production of corn for grain and in wheat, sorghum, dry edible beans, and sugar beets, as well as in the number of cattle, hogs, and pigs. Potatoes are also a significant crop.
Food processing is the most important industrial activity of the state in terms of value added by manufacture. Other leading industrial activities include the manufacture of machinery and chemicals and allied products, printing and publishing, and the production of primary and fabricated metals and electrical, electronic, and transportation equipment.
Crude petroleum accounts for more than half of the value of the state's mineral extraction. Nebraska also produces some natural gas, as well as significant amounts of cement, lime, sand, gravel, crushed stone, and clay. Additional quantities of natural gas, however, are imported to serve the commercial, industrial, and residential needs of the state. All electrical utilities are publicly owned, and consumer rates are among the lowest in the nation.
Nebraska, and Omaha in particular, is known as a major centre of the American insurance industry. Tourism is essential to the livelihood of the state and ranks third behind agriculture and manufacturing in economic significance.
Nebraska is located on some of the most important arteries linking the East and West. Within the state traffic in the east tends to flow toward Omaha, Lincoln, and Sioux City, Iowa, and toward the cities in the Platte valley. Much of western Iowa lies within the trading area of metropolitan Omaha.
Nebraska has a good network of modern highways. The most important route is Interstate Highway 80, which carries heavy traffic east–west across the state. Several railroads also operate in the state, and both Omaha and Lincoln are served by Amtrak. Omaha is an important port for commercial barge traffic on the Missouri. Air carriers serving Nebraska include both major national lines and those that provide “feeder” service to the smaller communities of the state.
Nebraska functions under a frequently amended constitution dating from 1875. Since 1937 it has had a one-house legislature whose members are elected without political-party affiliation—the only such legislative body in the nation. The 49 members of the legislature, or “Unicameral,” are popularly elected for four-year terms following primary and runoff elections in their districts, which are equally proportioned by population. The Unicameral meets for sessions of 90 legislative days in odd-numbered years and 60 days in even-numbered years.
The nonpartisan feature of the legislature has many critics, who charge that the lack of political parties in the Unicameral results in a lack of leadership in that body. Indeed, nonpartisanship may have enhanced the importance of lobbyists in the legislative process.
The governor, the chief executive officer, is elected for four years on a partisan ballot and is limited to two consecutive terms. The governor is responsible for the operation of some 20 administrative departments and is an ex officio member of various boards and commissions. The governor must present a detailed budget to the state legislature, which needs an affirmative three-fifths vote to appropriate more funds than recommended by the governor or to override a gubernatorial veto. Other elected state officers also run on partisan ballots.
Nebraska's court system, reorganized in 1972, comprises the Supreme Court, with seven justices, and 48 judges of district courts. In addition, there are conciliation courts, county courts, municipal courts in Omaha and Lincoln, and juvenile courts, as well as a Workers' Compensation Court. Nebraska has adopted the merit system for selecting judges. Judicial nominating commissions, chosen by the governor and the Nebraska State Bar Association, compose lists of nominees to fill vacancies on the bench. The governor then appoints one of the nominees to fill a particular position. After three years judges run for retention on a nonpartisan ballot in a general election and must run in similar elections every six years thereafter.
County government is vested in boards of supervisors or commissioners of from three to seven members, who like other county officials are elected on partisan ballots. The city manager and mayor–council forms of government are used in Nebraska's cities, and governmental authority in villages is vested in elective boards of trustees.
Nebraska Territory was the creation of a Democratic administration in Washington, D.C., and Democrats dominated Nebraska politics until the Civil War. The 30 years after 1860 were marked by Republican preeminence in Nebraska, but the political ferment during and after the 1890s brought an end to one-party rule. Although a slight majority of Nebraska's voters are registered Republicans, Democrats often are elected to office.
Since the 1960s, state aid for education to local governments has increased greatly, and the number of school districts has been cut drastically in order to make more efficient use of educational facilities and programs.
There are more than 30 institutions of higher education in Nebraska; about one-half are private schools, and the rest are state-operated four-year colleges and publicly supported technical community (junior) colleges. The University of Nebraska (established in 1869) is the largest educational institution in the state and is composed of three semiautonomous campuses—the original campus in Lincoln, a campus in Omaha, and the medical school, with facilities in Omaha and Lincoln. Graduate degree programs are offered at the University of Nebraska and Creighton University (Omaha), both of which offer programs in medicine, law, and dentistry, and at state colleges in Chadron, Kearney, Peru, and Wayne.
Nebraska's programs of public assistance include medical aid and financial assistance for dependent children, the aged, and the blind. Federal funding provides more than half of Nebraska's public-assistance expenditures. Although welfare funding has steadily increased, the average monthly public-assistance payments in Nebraska are below the national average.
The state maintains a system of mental hospitals and other specialized health, correctional, and care facilities. Omaha ranks as a medical centre of national significance.
In less than two generations Nebraska was converted from a wilderness inhabited by a small number of Indians to a settled commonwealth of more than 1,000,000 residents. This conquest was an important achievement of the 19th century, and it is natural that the cultural contributions of Nebraska, like those of other Western states, are centred on this frontier experience.
Such Nebraska authors as Willa Cather, Mari Sandoz, and Bess Streeter Aldrich were among those who wrote perceptively of life on the plains and won national audiences. The relationship of the pioneers to a capricious natural environment, the life-styles and interaction of settlers of diverse social and ethnic backgrounds, and the plight of the Indians were among the important themes of these writers. The poet John G. Neihardt wrote with feeling of Plains Indian life; he also re-created the adventures of the explorers of the 19th-century West. In the early 1970s his narrative Black Elk Speaks achieved national recognition some 40 years after it had originally been published.
The Nebraska State Historical Society, organized in 1878, continues to make important contributions to an understanding of life in Nebraska and the West. In 1960 the University of Nebraska Press launched the paperback Bison Series, reprints of early and modern works on the American West, including histories, collections of lore from Indian and white settlers, and other important documents, many of which had been out of print.
The Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha and the University of Nebraska's Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery in Lincoln contain the state's major collections in the visual arts. The performing arts have flourished in Nebraska, both in the development of local musical, theatre, and dance groups and through performances by touring artists of national stature.
Various folk observances, such as the Czech Festival at Wilber, are reminders of the diverse origins of the people of Nebraska. Ogallala, a roaring cow town during the 1870s and '80s, relives its colourful past with its Front Street festivities held each summer. Each October the Knights of Ak-Sar-Ben (Nebraska spelled in reverse), an Omaha civic organization founded in 1895, crown a king and a queen of Quivira. This event commemorates the search through the plains in 1541 of the Spanish explorer Francisco Vázquez de Coronado for the legendary Seven Golden Cities of Cibola and the Kingdom of Quivira. The University of Nebraska gridiron-football team has attained national prominence, and few subjects hold the attention of Nebraskans as do the fortunes of the Cornhuskers. The benefits derived from the citizens' enthusiasm for football are important in the state's economy. Recreational areas include several state parks, the Nebraska National Forest, and the Oglala National Grassland.
Various prehistoric peoples inhabited Nebraska as early as 8000 &BC;. In the 19th century semisedentary Indian tribes, most notably the Ponca, Omaha, Oto, and Pawnee, lived in eastern and central Nebraska. The west was the domain of the nomadic Brulé and Oglala Sioux, but other tribes, such as the Arapaho, Comanche, and Cheyenne, also roved the area.
Nebraska was on the periphery of the North American empires of France and Spain, but in 1763 Spain won title to the trans-Mississippi region. Spanish efforts to develop Indian trade in upper Missouri brought little success, and international politics led to the transfer of the region, including Nebraska, to France in 1800. Three years later the United States acquired this vast area as part of the Louisiana Purchase.
In 1804 the Lewis and Clark Expedition visited the Nebraska side of the Missouri River and conducted the first systematic exploration of the area. Shortly thereafter a vigorous fur trade developed along the Missouri, but Nebraska was primarily a highway to richer fur-trapping areas to the north and west. During the 1840s the Platte valley became another highway as thousands of settlers moved westward.
Much interest soon developed in Nebraska and in the Platte valley as a potential railroad route to the Pacific. Frontier land speculators in western Missouri and Iowa anticipated great financial gains if the Nebraska country, part of the large Indian domain between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains, were opened for settlement. With the adoption of the Kansas–Nebraska Act in 1854, the federal government extended political organization to the trans-Missouri region. Originally the Nebraska Territory comprised 351,558 square miles, but by 1863 the organization of the Colorado, Dakota, and Idaho (including the states of Montana and Wyoming) territories had reduced Nebraska almost to its present dimensions.
Much of the economy of the early Nebraska settlements along the Missouri River was based on land speculation. Agriculture soon began to develop, however, and some river towns became important transfer points for freight and passengers going west. The completion of the Union Pacific Railroad in 1869 and the railroad construction that followed contributed to the development of the state.
After Nebraska's admission to the Union in 1867, and despite an economic depression and a grasshopper plague, the population increased from about 120,000 to more than 1,000,000 by 1890. The Indian resistance on the frontier was broken during these years, and settlement extended westward into the panhandle of the state. During the 1880s Omaha became an important industrial and meat-packing centre, and Lincoln became prominent as the state capital and as the seat of the University of Nebraska. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries Nebraskans struggled over the issues of woman suffrage and prohibition of alcoholic beverages, revealing cultural differences between old-stock Americans and recent European immigrants.
In the 1890s Nebraska's farmers, afflicted with poor crop prices, high transportation costs, and economic depression, expressed their protest through the People's Party. Although the Populist movement was short-lived, it invigorated the political life of the state. Prosperity returned by 1900 and continued for two decades. Through the 1920s Nebraska's agriculture again was beset with mediocre marketing conditions, which were in part responsible for the failure of 40 percent of the state-chartered banks from 1921 through 1930. With the advent of the Great Depression of the 1930s the state's economy deteriorated further, necessitating massive federal assistance.
In 1933 the state legislature authorized the creation of public power and irrigation districts. Loans from the U.S. government enabled these districts to construct hydroelectric and irrigation projects in the Platte and Loup river valleys. A public agency later purchased the private electric power companies outside the Omaha area, and in 1946 the Omaha Public Power District acquired the local private power company. Nebraska thus became the first state with complete public ownership of electrical generating and distribution facilities, an ironic fact in view of its reputation for political conservatism.
World War II brought economic recovery and other changes. Fort Crook, south of Omaha, became the site of a huge aircraft plant. In 1948 this location, renamed Offutt Air Force Base, became the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command, which stimulated the growth of the greater Omaha area.
One of Nebraska's chief resources is a vast supply of groundwater. Tapping this resource for irrigation rose dramatically in the mid-1950s. The introduction of centre-pivot sprinkler devices in the 1970s constituted a fundamental change in the history of Nebraska agriculture because it made possible the cultivation of lands that previously could not be irrigated. The impact of centre-pivot irrigation is evident in the circular pattern now overlaid on much of the traditional “checkerboard” landscape.
The heavy utilization of groundwater plus the possibility that more water could be diverted from the upper reaches of the Platte system in Colorado and Wyoming have made Nebraskans more sensitive to the need to conserve their water resources. In addition, they have become more aware of the danger of groundwater contamination by chemical fertilizers and related products.
In the 1960s, changes in the meat-processing industry caused a sharp decline in Omaha's status as a meat-packing centre. However, economic diversification brought continuing prosperity to Omaha, which has remained Nebraska's principal industrial centre. Since the 1950s other Nebraska communities have risen in prominence in manufacturing activities. Lincoln, with its strong emphasis upon education and government, has also diversified economically and has become one of the most dynamic urban areas of the north central region.
Harl Adams Dalstrom
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Nebraska from Encyclopedia Brittanica. ©2009 Encyclopedia Brittanica. All rights reserved.
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