This engaging and richly annotated atlas illustrates the distribution of Kansas settlers from diverse cultural and ethnic origins in America and around the world. James R. Shortridge explores how frontier settlement patterns were influenced by railroad routes and promotion; land prices and speculation practices; homesteading laws; U.S. and international social, economic, and political conditions; terrain; weather; and pioneer perseverance. He also demonstrates that many legacies of the original settlers have endured and are apparent today in social, political, agricultural, and religious customs throughout the state. Providing new and enlightening insight into a unique cultural heritage, Peopling the Plains is an invaluable building block for anyone interested in the people and places of Kansas, past and present.

This work focuses on the Catholic Bohemian German dialect of Ellis County, Kansas, in the United States. It is a unique Bavarian dialect spoken by descendants of settlers to this area in west central Kansas from Bukovina, then an Austrian province. The Catholic Bohemian Germans were one of two distinct groups of Bukovina immigrants to the Ellis area as early as the 1880s. They found their way to the United States and Kansas via Bukovina from the Bohemian Forest, today situated in the Czech Republic. Their German dialect faces its linguistic demise. This study documents the grammar and the lexicon of the Catholic Bohemian German dialect, based on dialect interviews. In addition it sheds light on its geographical origin in the Bohemian Forest.

Contains articles on the literature, language, folklore, history, art, and music of the Great Plains.

John Dechant (1843-1928) was born in Wittman (Solothurn), Russia, son of Vinz Deschant. He married Anna Catherine Ruder and they immigrated to Ellis County, Kansas in 1876. He married second, Maria Catherine (Isadora) Bieker and they later moved to Ness County. Descendants lived in Kansas, Missouri, Colorado, Wyoming, Oregon, and elsewhere.

The first volume in the series State Bibliographies, this book provides comprehensive coverage of secondary materials on Kansas history and also includes useful references to major archival and manuscript collections. Although excellent specialized bibliographies have been published, this volume is the most complete compilation of historical and related materials for the state. Its broad and diverse scope ranges from standard political and economic studies to social and environmental histories, to local studies, and to regional studies with special significance to the state. The volume is divided into sections on prehistory; indigenous population; early exploration; territorial period; statehood; Kansas since 1898; agriculture; economic life; transportation; cultural life; education; science and medicine; social history; general histories and reference guides; local and county history; historiography materials; and historic sites. Entries include informative annotations designed to aid the novice and the scholar. The volume is thoroughly indexed by author and subject and includes the only existing index for all the major articles appearing over the past 125 years in the Kansas State Historical Society's major publications.