History of Iowa

Histories and Source Documents

The fertile country of Iowa, carved out of the Louisiana Purchase, and briefly part of Wisconsin before becoming its own State in 1846, was the springboard for three important westward drives in American history: the Oregon Trail, the Mormon emigration to Utah, and the Transcontinental Railroad.

If you're just looking for a relatively quick capsule history, a very good one is provided by Dorothy Schwieder, Professor of History at Iowa State University.

	[ primary source: 262 printed pages presented in 32 webpages; 8 engravings ] Iowa As It Is in 1856, by Nathan Howe Parker, is a promotional book published in that year for the thousands of immigrants descending on the State. A snapshot of Iowa caught in midstream at a specific moment in her history, the book also became a part of the history it records, being a very successful piece of propaganda touting Iowa's every virtue and encouraging her amazing growth.
	[ 454 printed pages presented in 21 webpages; 4 illustrations ] Ioway to Iowa — The Genesis of a Corn and Bible Commonwealth, by Irving Berdine Richman, tells the history of the area from the first explorers thru the late 19c. Though the author's style is (wilfully) atrocious, he quotes many source documents and does a good job of conveying the realities and the atmosphere of pioneer life.
	[ primary source: 53 pages of print presented in 6 webpages, with a map ] Albert Miller Lea's Notes on the Wisconsin Territory is immediately subtitled by him particularly with reference to the Iowa District. The result of his explorations of what is now the State of Iowa with the 1st Dragoons, U. S. Army, the little book describes the land, the rivers and the towns of the area. A classic of American pioneer literature.
	[ primary source: 23 pages of print presented in 1 webpage, with 2 engravings ] Like many of us, Rufus Rittenhouse was an ordinary man whose friends kept on telling him he should write up his life experiences in a book. Unlike most of us, he did, and had the sense to keep the book brief; it is interesting: Boyhood Life in Iowa Forty Years Ago.
	[ primary source: 20 pages of print presented in 1 webpage ] Iowa, like the entire North American continent, once belonged to its first peoples, or at least insofar as possession of land was a concept among them; the Sacs and Foxes, having owned much of Iowa, ceded the land to the United States, and an Indian agency was set up in southeastern Iowa to enforce the treaty but also to bring the native peoples into the new technological world of the 19c. John Beach was one of the U. S. government's Indian agents, and tells his experiences, in History of Wapello County, Iowa (chapter 3).
	[ 1/21/12: 300 pages of print presented in 17 webpages ] Squirreled away in the American History Notes section of the site, other Iowa material; consisting for now of: Captivity of a Party of Frenchmen among Indians in the Iowa Country, 1728‑1729 The American Occupation of Iowa, 1833 to 1860 (a good overview of how Iowa was settled) The Trial and Execution of Patrick O'Conner at the Dubuque Mines in the Summer of 1834 The Removal of the Capital from Iowa City to Des Moines The Opening of the Des Moines Valley to Settlement Florida, Iowa, and the National "Balance of Power," 1845 Diary of a Journey from The Netherlands to Pella Iowa in 1849 The Career of Samuel R. Thurston in Iowa and Oregon The Iowa-Missouri Disputed Boundary The Mormon Settlements in the Missouri Valley New Melleray (the Trappist monastery near Dubuque) The Polish Colony of Sioux City, Iowa

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