Finding Frontiers in the U.S. Great Plains from the End of the Civil War to the Eve of the Great Depression

摘要: This chapter uses a new approach to studying patterns of spatial settlement understand the forces that shaped movement European-origin population into semi-arid and arid natural region referred as Great Plains United States, between 1880 1940. Defining process by which each roughly 500 counties in reached density threshold four persons per square mile, results evaluate hypotheses suggest most important at work were combination structural attributes national (population moving from east west), climate (precipitation, temperature), other resources inside (irrigation, transportation, energy, employment industry) developments outside region, such need supply food gold silver miners working mountainous west. The taken includes strategy for with changing county boundaries statistical method employing Cox proportional hazards models repeated events. reveal diffusion demonstrate variations favoured areas well-suited cropping, mining manufacturing.