In The Great Plains

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 (1880–1940) as an analytical lens, this article explores whether the same environmental factors that determine settlement timing and land use—those that indicate suitability for crop-based agriculture—also 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.

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Rediscovering Rural Appalachian Communities with Historical GIS

Towers¹

2010

sgo

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Desde finales del siglo 19 hasta la Segunda Guerra Mundial, el sur agrario de los Apalaches era un mosaico de comunidades agrícolas pequeñas y muy unidas. Este patrón histórico de asentamiento rural es registrado a nivel local en estudios de etnógrafos y geógrafos históricos sobre casos comunitarios, sinembargo no ha sido cartografiada de forma sistemática. Este trabajo explora la hipótesis de que el análisis mapas topográficos históricos utilizando SIG identifica adecuadamente los límites pasados de los barrios agrícolas del sur de los Apalaches. Utilizando la función de análisis de asignación de costos de ArcGIS, regiones de menor costo son generadas alrededor de los nodos de los barrios, basadas en el costo de la energía de viajes a pie con respecto a distancia y pendiente. Estos vecindarios agrícolas prospectos se asemejan a las descripciones espaciales de los etnógrafos y los geógrafos históricos. Cartografiar barrios agrícolas históricos en los Apalaches provee una importante base para la comparación de pasados y presentes patrones de asentamiento. Este método de investigación es significativo porque es fácilmente replicable y puede ser empleado a través de los Apalaches del Sur y del siglo pasado.

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In The Great Plains

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Comparative Analysis of Surface Winds in the Mid-Continental United States During Severe Droughts in the 1950s and 2010s

Comparative Analysis of Surface Winds in the Mid-Continental United States During Severe Droughts in the 1950s and 2010s

Land Use and Family Formation in the Settlement of the US Great Plains

Rediscovering Rural Appalachian Communities with Historical GIS

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