| dc.description.abstract | This dissertation is a study of the settlement of southeast Kansas in the years immediately following the Civil War. It begins with the first settlers who arrived in 1867 and concludes with the triumph of the settlers in their struggle with the Railroads over land title in 1876. This story I have chosen to tell has not been studied by historians in detail. Although the territorial period in Kansas history has been the object of much scholarship as have the settlement patterns in northeastern, central and western Kansas, the history of the post-Civil War settlement of southeast Kansas has remained largely unstudied and thus unknown. It is my intention through this study to shake off the dust of scholarly inattention. In so doing, my dissertation contributes both to our knowledge of Kansas history and our understanding of the way in which Civil War veterans attempted to rebuild their lives and communities after the trauma of war. My goal has to been not only to recover the "what" but also to comprehend (as much as I can from the vantage point of 2008) the "why." The settlers discussed in this dissertation could have made other choices. Nearby Cherokee and Crawford counties erupted in violence as settlers took up arms to confront the railroad. The residents in these counties also fought each other, as some settlers chose to settle with the railroads and some did. The violence and civic discord which followed earned this region the epithet of "the Kansas Balkans." The citizens of Labette and Neosho counties however did not take this path. They did not quit but persevered in their struggle and managed to remain remarkably unified in their opposition to the railroad claims. To understand their choices, I have relied upon the insights of political, economic, cultural, and social historians. My intent has been to hear and understand the settlers' own words and (as much I can) thoughts. This has required me to adopt a multi-disciplinary approach and has produced a dissertation that spreads out in several directions. As I constructed the parameters for this study, I have of necessity drawn on a wide range of disciplines. My debts to scholars of Kansas history, women's history, history of the American West, political history, social history, and Civil War history are obvious in the text. I have also benefited from the work of scholars outside the history field - especially those that have worked in the fields of communication and rhetoric, cultural geography (especially of Kansas), feminist theory, and the evolution of social capital. Finally, this work is heavily indebted to works that model the exploration of identity and identity formation. There are both limitations and benefits to choosing to concentrate research on a small group of people living in a small geographic region. Undoubtedly, the challenge is to connect the local contextualized story to the larger themes of both American and Kansas history. This is the "so what?" question which confronts every historian multiplied exponentially. Why should historians be interested in what happened in southeast Kansas between the years of 1867 and 1876? My answer is as follows. First, I argue that, like politics, all history is (in its most basic form) local. The contextualized study of a small group of people over the course of 10 years in two counties of Kansas has yielded significant insights that, on their own, are valuable in and of themselves. Second, I argue that this study helps to "fill in" a gap in existing Kansas historiography. Again, this seems to me to be reason enough to justify this dissertation. But conscious of the fact that I state this as a transplant who suffers from what might be called "a convert's zeal" for Kansas history, I also note the importance of including the history of southeast Kansas in the years immediately following the Civil War in the larger narrative of Kansas history. I say this first as an educator of educators in southeast Kansas. But I also believe, with Professor Bruce Kahler, that the post-Civil War age is just as important in framing the history of the state as is that of the Territorial period. My attempt in this dissertation is to contribute to the larger historical goal of recovering the ideals and contributions of Civil War veterans to the state. This leads me to my third justification for this dissertation: the study of the effects of war is as important as the study of its causes. This is especially true of the Civil war. As one reviewer of an article submission that arose out of this dissertation commented, "the lingering effects of the Civil War still have plenty of room for additional studies." Fourth, I would suggest that the work of historians who weave larger narratives involving large numbers of people, large geographic space, and long(er) periods of time depend upon the scholarship of historians, like me, who concentrate on small(er) contextualized communities. There are many questions that my dissertation suggests but does not answer. My discovery that Union veterans in southeast Kansas fought the railroads relying upon the political perspective that engaged them as soldiers in the War against the rebellion, for example, raises important questions such as: Did these veterans frame their resistance to railroads differently than non-veterans? Did Union veterans utilize a different political rationale in their struggle against the railroads than Confederate veterans? Likewise, my emphasis on the importance of "rights" and "equality" in the writings and speeches of the settlers also leads to questions, especially because the doctrine of equal rights and of perfect equality before the law hardly found a berth of life in the Gilded Age. What was the gap between rhetoric and reality? Which set of republican values eventually came to prevail, and why? How long did veteran settlers throughout the West embrace any of their republican values? Many of these questions are beyond the scope of this dissertation and thus remain unanswered in it. The comparative analysis required to answer them will depend on other scholars completing similar research in veteran-settled communities throughout Kansas and the West. My dissertation adds a contextual historical study to our understanding of the Civil War's impact on individuals and communities in Kansas. It is my hope that this dissertation will be an important part of a larger framework of interpretive analysis that seeks to both ask and answer fundamental questions suggested by the actions and beliefs of southeast Kansans in the 1860s and 70s. | |
