Immigration to Great Plains 1865-1914 at March 10 Olson Seminar

The mass immigration to the Great Plains that occurred between the Civil War and World War I might be best understood in the international context that emerged in the 1860s out of four large wars.

That context will be the subject of the next Paul A. Olson Seminar in Great Plains Studies March 10 at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln when University of Nebraska at Omaha historian Bruce Garver presents "Immigration to the Great Plains, 1865-1914: War, Politics, Technology and Economic Development." Garver's talk will be at 3:30 p.m. in the Great Plains Art Museum, 1155 Q St. [map]. The lecture and a 3 p.m. reception in the museum are free and open to the public.

In addition to the Civil War, immigration was also driven by the Crimean War (1853-56), the defeat of Austria by France and Piedmont (Italy) in 1859 and the Seven Weeks War of 1866 between the Austrian Empire on one side and the Kingdom of Prussia and its Italian allies on the other. The latter, little-known conflict enlarged civil liberties, accelerated economic, technological and agricultural innovation, expanded world markets and increased immigration to the United States from east central and southern Europe.

Garver will argue that because the Great Plains area before 1866 was sparsely settled by Europeans and inhospitable to pre-industrial agriculture and transport, its emergence within one generation as a region of prosperous cities, towns and commercial agriculture linked by railways cannot be comprehended without reference to all of those developments. He will illustrate the argument by describing how this remarkably rapid economic and political transformation of the Plains states took place in conjunction with four decades of unprecedented peace and prosperity in Europe and North American after 1871. Garver will emphasize the experiences of Czech, Italian and German immigrants.

The Olson seminars are presented by the Center for Great Plains Studies at UNL.