Beginning of The Dream - Homestead act made law

Hello I’m Park Ranger Tina Miller. Welcome to Homestead National Monument of America. The National Park Service is responsible for the care of the most beautiful places in the United States and its territories. Homestead National Monument of America is a National Park Service site dedicated to preserving the rich history of the United States associated with the passage of the Homestead Act of 1862. This Act helped a young America grow from a small agrarian nation into the largest industrial and agricultural superpower in human history. The Homestead Act of 1862 is listed in the top 100 milestone documents according to the National Archives and Records Administration. The list, compiled from the thousands of documents that shaped our nation, include such documents as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Emancipation Proclamation. Because the Homestead Act of 1862 is one of our nation's most significant pieces of legislation, it is stored in an environmentally controlled facility at the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington D.C. Come with me as we explore how this Act came to be and where this historic document, signed by President Abraham Lincoln makes its home today. The Homestead Act of 1862 changed our country forever. Understanding the history of homesteading illuminates a more complex history of the United States. By 1848 the United States had acquired all the land from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and from modern-day Canada to modern-day Mexico. The Louisiana Purchase, Mexican American War, Oregon Treaty and Spain’s withdrawal from Florida rapidly changed the United States and brought hundreds of millions of acres of public land under the control of Congress. But why did Congress get to decide what should or should not be done with these lands? To understand this, and the resulting Homestead Act, we must look back to the development of this country and the wording of the Constitution. The Property Clause and the Supremacy Clause in the Constitution gave Congress the authority to dispose of the land. Congressional leaders could not agree on how the land should be distributed. Thus, homesteading bills were debated in the halls of Congress for decades prior to the famous 1862 bill. The debate over what to do with the land was strenuous both in Congress and in the public sphere. The North wanted to settle the lands, but keep it free from slavery. The South also wanted to settle the land, but wanted slavery. After the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, the South felt their way of life was being threatened and began to secede or leave the union. They formed the Confederate States of America and were no longer part of Congress. The North took advantage of this and created laws, including the Homestead Act, that the South previously objected to. Congressman Galusha Grow from Pennsylvania authored the Homestead Act of 1862. It was signed into law on May 20,1862 by President Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had two goals when he signed this law. First he wanted to move people west. And second he wanted these new areas to be free states. Many presidents since Abraham Lincoln have had a lot to say about him and the passage of the Homestead Act. President Ronald Reagan had this to say: Thomas Jefferson dreamed of a land of small farmers, of shop owners, and merchants. Abraham Lincoln signed into law the Homestead Act that ensured that the great western prairies of America would be the realm of independent, property-owning citizens. A mightier guarantee of freedom is difficult to imagine. The history of the Homestead Act and how it became a law is interesting. But what happened to the document itself? The answers lie at the National Archives in Washington D.C. where the Homestead Act is kept when it's not on public display. We begin with Dave Rosenbaum. Dave I'd like to ask you a little bit about the history of the National Archives. Where were the records kept before the National Archives? To be honest with you all over the place. Prior to the creation of this agency in 1934 the branches of government were responsible for taking care of their own records. They were kept and managed in those facilities in those buildings. So we didn’t have a central warehouse if you will; a central agency to keep, preserve, and manage these records. So literally prior to 1934 they were all over the United States. I might also add that a fire actually took place in the Commerce building and pretty much wiped out our 1890 census documents. A tragedy if you will is a very instrumental in again the move to build a building and to have a place to have better protection for our prized documents. John Russell Pope was a famed architect in the United States and he worked with with President Hoover who actually helped to initiate the move for the building. The building construction and the cornerstone itself was actually laid in 1933 and President Hoover was there for that. Two weeks later Franklin Delano Roosevelt became our president. Roosevelt was not only a major figure in our history but truly valued and was a visionary in terms of realizing you know the importance of keeping the documents in helping to tell America’s story in the future. We keep maybe 1 to 3 % something like that of the federal records that we feel are permanently valuable that we want to keep for future generations. How are we at Homestead National Monument of America able to request the Homestead Act of 1862 to be on display? To answer this question we're going to hear from Mr. James Zeender, the registrar at the National Archives. One of my primary duties is to manage our loan program. A program that makes available original records to qualified museums for exhibit purposes. On average we make about fifteen loans each year to museums across the country. In recent years we've loaned original letters of George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, among others and even tools from the Watergate burglars. Most importantly the loan program enables individuals who do not or cannot visit Washington the opportunity to see these gems of our nation's history. What is the meaning of the word provenance? Provenance is a term used to describe the ownership history of an object from its creation to the present. The more well documented an objects provenance, the more valuable it is as an authoritative source. In the case of the Homestead Act, we know that it was prepared by a clerk at the capitol in May of 1862 then signed by the Clerk of the House and the President Protempe of the Senate, and finally President Lincoln. After signature it was stored with the other laws of the United States at the State Department. The Act and other government records were then transferred to the National Archives after the Archives opened for business in the 1930's. What do you take into consideration when a request is made for documents? Are the holdings in sound condition to withstand the strains associated with packing, transit, and exhibition? Are the holdings of high historic, monetary, or legal or intrinsic value? What is the exhibit history of the holdings requested? Light-sensitive or environmentally vulnerable items should not be exhibited for more than one year in a ten year interval. Shorter exhibit time may be specified for damaged very light-sensitive or previously exhibited material. Can the requesting institution comply with NARA security and environmental requirements? The National Archives employs thousands of people to take care of the records entrusted to them, but we wanted to know more about the document itself. Here is what we found out. Let’s see, as the exhibit liaison I work closely with the exhibits office and on their exhibit and loan program. And what's very important about our loan program is that it allows NARA records to reach a broader audience that's outside of the Washington D.C. area. In the conservation office my responsibility is to assess the records that have been selected for exhibit and loan. And I look at their physical condition if necessary coordinate treatment, review any loan requests that are forwarded by the exhibits office and in the review process we talk with the institution. They send facility reports which provide us with information about security and fire and building structures. All the issues that we’re directly concerned with where our records will be when they're on loan somewhere. Here we have the Homestead Act. This is a very popular item that has been on request. How long something can go on exhibit is really driven by characteristics of the record itself. In the case of the Homestead Act it's not on paper, it's animal skin. It's parchment and when I look at it I’m evaluating it for the condition of the ink which is different from on paper in that it's actually more friable because parchment can be very oily and paper when ink is written on it is absorbed. But on parchment it can often just sit on top so it makes it, the media is susceptible to transport and also to light damage. When you look at all four of the pages together you see that the range of color, if it was a paper document that they would all look the same and that's one of the clues that that an audience might have that its skin. You've seen that there's this an erasure. They erased it by scraping away the surface layer and the ink that they've deposited and then wrote over it. In terms of the media the the beginning of the document is printed and it's a very standard format. The printing on the first page these hand-drawn borders and then the signature page. In general I would say for the date of the document it's in relatively good shape. It's been stored under optimal conditions now for a number of years. In preparation for a loan of a document like this like the Homestead Act, this is one of the rare opportunities where you’ll actually see it out unprotected and under a fair amount of light. When it’s in the lab we generally try and keep it covered at all times. And because we're concerned about fading of the ink. And this one we've got different colors on the borders and then the iron gall ink. If it was paper there also could be a color change of the paper based on light exposure. For exhibit because it's parchment parchment is more susceptible to changes in relative humidity and temperature and so what we’ll try and do is mitigate that as much as possible by creating micro environments. Each page will be sandwiched between two sheets of polyester film and sealed and then that sealed package will go into a window mat of an archival quality material and then that package will go into an acrylic UV filtering plexiglas that then gets sealed. So we've now created two or three layers of protection. We call it an acrylic sandwich and that's the package that will go on exhibit. It will travel that way but when it travels of course it will get wrapped even more a few more layers of wrapping and our environmental control through packaging. The National Archives is the primary custodian of our country's records, but what other records are available for public display? Marvin Pinkert tells us. A visitor once asked me isn’t that a very big building for just three documents? It made me aware, after I chuckled a little bit, that a lot of people don't know that behind the wall that contains the Declaration the Constitution, and Bill of Rights are the beginning of ten billion records that relate to the lives of every American. We decided that we’d create this interactive exhibit space called the Public Vaults so that all of our visitors would have a chance to connect to their stories in the records. One of the major uses of the National Archives, because we have all these family records, is by genealogists. People come here looking to find out a little bit more about where their family came from. And this unit allows people to sort of take a course in Geneology 101. My grandfather worked for the federal government for forty years. Is he in the Archives? And as you turn the panel it tells you that it's likely that he is. And here's an example. This is the oath of office for a government official. His name was Eliot Ness. And for those who are fans of the Untouchables you have a chance to get a closeup look. We also point out that not all of our family records are in the archives. We explain that for example birth certificates are typically a matter that you'd find in a state archives. What we have on view here is a facsimile of the Emancipation Proclamation. We hold the original Emancipation Proclamation. Now President Lincoln wasn’t exactly thinking about my exhibit needs when he wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. He wrote on both sides of the page. So even when you hear that the original is on display, the truth is that only half of the original is on display at any point in time. There’s a lot of real human life that's captured in these records. And certainly that's true for the Homestead Act. We think of the Act as the important moment and in many ways it is, but the Act only becomes real by people actually applying for homesteads. We have a continuing changing exhibit here of the records of individuals who are making homestead applications. This is one of our favorites because it's the homestead application of Charles Ingalls. You may be familiar with Charles Ingall from his daughter’s writings, that would be Laura Ingalls Wilder. The National Archives houses some of the most important documents in our nation's history. As previously mentioned the Homestead Act is listed in the top 100 milestone documents. Let's discuss the impacts of this important piece of legislation signed by President Abraham Lincoln. The Homestead Act changed the United States and the world forever. The offer of free land encouraged millions from all across the globe to come to the United States. Under this law more than two hundred and seventy million acres or ten percent of the nation was given away in search of that dream. The Homestead Act was in effect for 123 years, spanning 24 presidential administrations. An estimated four million people applied for homestead's in 30 different states with 1.6 million people proving up on their land. Homesteading had a significant impact on the history of immigration, industrialization, agriculture, and transportation; as well as social, environmental, and cultural histories. Today there may be as many as 93 million people who are descendants of homesteaders. They are a testament to the impact that this legislation had on our country. However the nation's American Indian population in the west bore the cost of political undertakings such as the Homestead Act which accelerated the dispossession of American Indians and threatened the security of their lands, property, culture and core existence. Some of its many impacts are the industrial and agricultural revolutions. Because the people who moved west needed equipment to farm, the eastern factories industrialized to meet this demand. The Homestead Act allowed women, African-Americans and non-citizens 160 acres of free land if they were willing to become American citizens. The legacy of the Homestead Act of 1862 is all around us today. The great agricultural fields that grow the world's food. The industrialization that spurred countless of technological innovations and the millions of people throughout the world that were afforded the opportunity to obtain free land was made possible by the Homestead Act. It fulfill the promise of America’s forefathers offering land to anyone despite gender, race or nationality, the chance to pursue happiness and the opportunity to participate in America’s dream.