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Breaking Sod On The Prairies: A Story Of Early Days In Dakota
Breaking Sod On The A Story Of Early Days In Dakota is a historical account of the early settlers who ventured out to the prairies of Dakota in the late 1800s. The book is written by Clarence W. Taber, who himself was a pioneer in the region. The book provides a vivid description of the challenges that the settlers faced in breaking the tough prairie sod to make the land suitable for farming. It also provides a glimpse into the daily life of the settlers, their struggles, and their triumphs. The book is a fascinating account of the early days of the American West and provides insight into the determination and resilience of the people who settled the region.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.
308 pages, Hardcover
First published June 28, 2008
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June 7, 2026
Today I finished Breaking Sod on the Prairies, a book by Clarence W. Taber that follows Donald Deen through many exciting and mundane adventures while growing up the Dakota Territories in the late nineteenth century. Taber says “the events related are true in all of their essential details” and that all the characters were real people, although he changed their names.
Taber is a good storyteller and captures both characters and topics that clearly were important when he wrote the story in the 1920s. Interestingly, these characters and topics also fit perfectly with our “modern” 21st-century America: domestic violence, toxic masculinity, indigenous rights, the plight of farmers, small town politics, environmental adaptations, and both the authentic and hypocritical interpretations of Christianity. It reads like a piece of historical fiction, but it’s actually a memoir about pioneer life in the upper midwest. As the series editor notes in the introduction, “The author of the book has drawn upon his own rich experiences out in the prairie country… as a boy he lived through the tent struggle that made the vast open lands habitable. He even played the part at one time of an actual sod house builder.”
Based on stamps inside the cover, my mother or grandmother seems to have liberated the book from Wheat Ridge Elementary many, many years ago. My grandmother may have used the memoir as a teaching tool. The series editor claim the story “…tells of the settler, the man no less hardy and courageous, who subdued the new lands that his forerunners had spied out,” which would have been attractive to a teacher in the 1940s and 1059s. The men and women featured in this story, however, negotiated with their new ecological context far more than they subdued it. They built sod houses, struggled to find timber and coal, battled blizzards and oppressive heat, and planted crops that had no business growing where short grass prairie once thrived. “The small part of their story told in this book will serve to remind us that the achievements of the settler, as well as the exploits of the scout and the hunter, are part of our pioneer history.”
Taber’s insights about his experiences were ahead of their time and made for an engaging read.
Taber is a good storyteller and captures both characters and topics that clearly were important when he wrote the story in the 1920s. Interestingly, these characters and topics also fit perfectly with our “modern” 21st-century America: domestic violence, toxic masculinity, indigenous rights, the plight of farmers, small town politics, environmental adaptations, and both the authentic and hypocritical interpretations of Christianity. It reads like a piece of historical fiction, but it’s actually a memoir about pioneer life in the upper midwest. As the series editor notes in the introduction, “The author of the book has drawn upon his own rich experiences out in the prairie country… as a boy he lived through the tent struggle that made the vast open lands habitable. He even played the part at one time of an actual sod house builder.”
Based on stamps inside the cover, my mother or grandmother seems to have liberated the book from Wheat Ridge Elementary many, many years ago. My grandmother may have used the memoir as a teaching tool. The series editor claim the story “…tells of the settler, the man no less hardy and courageous, who subdued the new lands that his forerunners had spied out,” which would have been attractive to a teacher in the 1940s and 1059s. The men and women featured in this story, however, negotiated with their new ecological context far more than they subdued it. They built sod houses, struggled to find timber and coal, battled blizzards and oppressive heat, and planted crops that had no business growing where short grass prairie once thrived. “The small part of their story told in this book will serve to remind us that the achievements of the settler, as well as the exploits of the scout and the hunter, are part of our pioneer history.”
Taber’s insights about his experiences were ahead of their time and made for an engaging read.
Displaying 1 of 1 review