A Surprising Foot Race
Many community celebrations and smaller gatherings in early Nebraska included foot racing. The popularity of foot racing as a competitive sport is revealed by a ...
John Nelson
What We Found
A New Leaf for the New Year
A discarded stack of reporters' assignment books provided the Omaha Daily Bee with the topic for a New Year's column published on the first day of 1900. The Bee first ...
Coal Prices Rise: The Price of Heat in 1909
Rising natural gas prices during cold weather are a reminder of an earlier generation's problems with the rising cost of other fuels. The Omaha Daily News on December 1, ...
Celebrating Labor Day in 1890, The Butchers’ Picnic
Labor Day in 1890 was celebrated on Monday, September 1, although some events associated with the day were celebrated several days before. One-a butchers' picnic held at ...
Timeline Tuesday: Sleighing Fun
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John Nelson's photograph of his sister, Hannah Nelson, and his niece, Alice Nelson Dahlesten, in a horse-drawn sleigh, about 1916-18. RG3542-6
When ...
Timeline Tuesday: April Fools in Omaha in 1886
One Omaha barber was the victim of an elaborate April Fool's prank in 1886. John Nelson's photograph depicts a barber shaving a customer with a straight razor during an ...
Timeline Tuesday: Human Nature at the Marriage License Bureau
"No other department in the court house offers such an excellent field for the study of human nature as the marriage license bureau," wrote an observant Omaha Daily Bee ...
Beating the Heat in 1906
John Nelson’s photograph of two couples seated in front of their tents was taken sometime between 1907 and 1917.
NSHS RG3542-98-4
In the days before air conditioning, ...
Free Auto Camps
John Nelson’s photograph depicted a homemade auto camper (left). NSHS RG3542-124-01
Long distance travel in the early days of the automobile was difficult, and ...
A Picnic Mishap
Solomon D. Butcher depicted an 1892 picnic in the cottonwood groves at the former site of Fort Kearny in Buffalo County. NSHS RG2608-2908 (photograph at ...
Pests on the Plains: The Potato Bug
Solomon D. Butcher’s photograph from about 1905 depicted boys working in a sweet potato field at the State Industrial School in Kearney. NSHS RG2608-749 (at ...
Will Pigs Help Win the War?
After the United States entered World War I in April of 1917, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Herbert Hoover head of the U.S. Food Administration. Hoover believed ...
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