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Beef State

Introduction

Lesson Plans: 1950-1974: Beef State - Grade Level [4]

Nebraska has had only two official state names:

• The Tree Planter State, 1895 - 1945 and
• The Cornhusker State, 1945 - present. (Many outsiders may think that this last title derived from the football team, rather than the other way around.)

However, beef had become so important to Nebraska’s economy by the 1950s that from 1956 through 1965, the Nebraska license plate carried the motto,

The Beef State

That title was never an official state name ... Read more

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The End of the Cold War

Fall of Berlin Wall
After the Berlin Wall came down, there was still a lot of military hardware left on both sides.
From the 1990 NET program, Cold Warriors Never Die

In the late 1980s, the Cold War came to a dramatic end. The economies of nations behind the Iron Curtain were in trouble. People in East Germany, for instance, could see the prosperity and wealth of their West German neighbors. In Russia, there were long lines of people waiting to buy food. ... Read more

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Loved Ones Lost

"Outside of the death of one’s own child, I think sending a boy to war would be the most difficult."
—Marialyse Hager Knobel
Fairbury High School Student

What happened to Corporal William E. Green is one of the many stories of a mother experiencing both the anxiety of sending her son to war, and then, the pain of losing him there. Bill Green was in Europe only a few months before he was killed at the Siegfried Line between Luxemburg and Germany on ... Read more

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Bank Failure in Verdigre

Verdigre is a small, close-knit Nebraska community of around 600 people near to the South Dakota border. In September, 1984, the Bank of Verdigre closed and its assets and outstanding loans were seized by Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or FDIC. The FDIC, of course, was set up in the 30s to protect the depositors in a bank, and so when a bank has bad loans, the FDIC tries to recoup as much ... Read more

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A Cold War & a Hot Bomb

After World War II, the Soviet Union propped up Communist governments in eastern Europe. The Iron Curtain had descended, and the U.S. responded with a policy of deterring further expansion.
An excerpt from Cold Warriors Never Die.
Courtesy 1990 NET Foundation for Television

In 1950, the U.S. government adopted a new cornerstone of its foreign policy based on the finding that the Soviet Union was likely to launch a surprise attack on us "once it has sufficient atomic capacity." That assessment was included ... Read more

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Crisis in Agriculture

Lesson Plan & Activities: 1975-1999: Crisis In Agriculture - Grade Level [4-12]

Throughout the history of the central Great Plains region, there have been cycles and factors that affect the lives of those who live here. These factors have always produced results that we can see later.

Throughout the 1970s and 80s, agriculture was in crisis.
From the 1990 NET Television program, After the Last Harvest

Some factors are natural — like the cycle of wet years and dry years. This "drought cycle" ... Read more

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Bankers: Villains or Victims?

The resentment that many farmers felt against bankers reached the boiling point during the height of the farm crisis in the 1980s. Some bankers said they got the silent treatment on the street. A few were even assaulted by angry customers. Some farmers wore black armbands to protest foreclosures. Bankers became the target of bitter jokes making the rounds in Nebraska communities.

Question: What’s the difference between a dead skunk on the road and a dead loan officer?
Answer: There are skid ... Read more

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Arsenal for Democracy

Activities: 1925-1949: Arsenal for Democracy - Grade Level [4-12]

Even before America entered the war, production for it had begun. In Omaha, for instance, the Martin Bomber Plant was commissioned in September 1940 — well over a year before Pearl Harbor. Other plants were commissioned across the country to build bombs, tanks, rifles, and other weapons, some for sale or "loan" to other countries and some for our own stockpiles.

Although many Americans felt that we were isolated from the war, ... Read more

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Japanese Americans

What is it like to be born and raised an American, but to be considered an enemy because of where your parents were born? That’s what happened to many Japanese Americans in World War II.

Racism and war hysteria motivated the U.S. government to forcibly move more than 120,000 Japanese citizens and Japanese Americans from their homes on the west coast to internment camps between 1942 and 1945. Nebraska’s central location kept its Japanese American citizens comparably safe from this process, ... Read more