Solomon Butcher shot hundreds of photographs of homesteaders in Custer County, Nebraska, in the 1880s. Butcher’s collection provides historians with a trove of evidence of what life was like for those who settled on the Great Plains at the time. This lesson asks students to think critically about Butcher’s photographs and evaluate their usefulness as evidence of the past.
Image: Family of homesteaders in Custer County, Nebraska, in 1887. Photographed by Solomon D. Butcher. From the Library of Congress.