World War I and Homesteading

A 1917 poster by Adolph Treidler (1886-1981)

(Courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Did you know that both the first homesteader and the last homesteader were war veterans?

From the beginning, the Homestead Act of 1862 gave special privileges to veterans—allowing soldiers to claim homesteads even if they did not meet the homesteading requirement of being 21 years of age or older. The granting of veterans’ benefits under the Homestead Act of 1862 was used to replace the older system by which veterans were granted land via documents called “military bounty land warrants.” These transferrable documents had often been sold to non-veterans for quick cash.

Veterans of the First World War were among the recipients of Homestead Act veterans benefits.

The United States became engaged in World War I, a conflict that had been going on since 1914, in April of 1917; and many of the soldiers involved in the conflict were already homesteaders or were the children of homesteaders. But did you know that many of the other soldiers coming home from the war also took homesteads?

Almost a dozen laws were passed around the conflict that gave special privileges and protections to men and women who wanted to homestead, and who had served in the war as soldiers, sailors, or nurses. And the years immediately after the end of World War I saw a spike in homesteads claimed as WWI veterans utilized these laws.

Almost a dozen laws were passed around the conflict that gave special privileges and protections to men and women who wanted to homestead, and who had served in the war as soldiers, sailors, or nurses. And the years immediately after the end of World War I saw a spike in homesteads claimed as WWI veterans utilized these laws.

Many WWI veterans took homesteads across the Nation

You can read this paper, entitled “World War I and the Homestead Act of 1862: When Farmers Fought and Soldiers Farmed for America’s Homestead States,” here:

World War I and the Homestead Act of 1862