The Day Nebraska Lost
On March 5, 1860, a majority of voters in Nebraska territory cast their ballots against statehood. Many Nebraskans felt it was time for the territory to become a state, ...
Nebraska History
What We Found
Harriet S. Brooks, Woman Suffragist
By the time Harriet S. Brooks became a senior founding member of the Nebraska Woman Suffrage Association, she had been promoting women's right to vote for decades in ...
World War II food rationing
Sugar rationing ended in the U.S. in June 1947 after nearly five years of shortages brought about by World War II. Here's a ration book from the Nebraska History ...
“Judge Lynch” in Nebraska
During the six decades from 1859 to 1919, at least 45 men and two women died at the hands of lynch mobs in Nebraska while during the same period, only 23 or 24 ...
A Census Taker’s Lament
In 1880 Omaha's notorious third ward included the heart of the city's gambling and prostitution. The character of the district created unique problems for federal census ...
Rough on Rats (and biles, and piles, and corns . . . )
Old print advertising is weird. Some may be boring, but if it’s not boring then it’s very weird. Case in point—Rough on Rats. Rough on Rats was a poison (arsenic) ...
How Do We Get There?
Today, if someone wants directions, they can just go online and find a map to practically anywhere. But this is just a recent development. Before the internet, we needed ...
Nebraska and the Civil War: Why the Story Matters
Nebraska has a rich Civil War legacy, according to James E. Potter, senior research historian at the Nebraska State Historical Society. Potter and Edith Robbins edited ...
How Shall We Make Beatrice Grow?
How does one transform a prairie town into a thriving cultural center? When a town desires to strengthen the moral fiber of its citizens, protect its young people from ...
Small Town, Big Missile
In a land of open fields and apple pie, Southeast Nebraska seemed calm and routine. But in 1958 construction began on a project that was quite the opposite–giant ...
Harrison Johnson’s History of Nebraska
“Our work is done,” wrote Harrison Johnson (1822-1885) as he concluded his History of Nebraska, published in 1880. “The volume is completed, and only awaits the ...
Nebraska History: Bringing you fascinating state stories for 95 years!
Nebraska History's original 1918 banner (above).
The first known print reference to what is now known as the Nebraska History magazine appeared in The Dakota County ...
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